Moe Lane's Blog, page 10

The GOOD BOY trailer.

I wonder if GOOD BOY might be too intense. Our culture gets a little funny in the head when you mess with our pets. I mean, things can get seriously out of hand.

Critical Drinker reviews War of the Worlds.

He almost lost it, halfway through. Or possibly it was deliberate? I mean, other than that the stonefacing was impressive.

The new The Bold Marauder is up!

Better late than never, hey? The con did some serious monkeywrenching to my schedule, sorry. Worth it, but I need to plan ahead better next time.

Patreon!

The MORGAN BAROD OUaC Kindle sale is over!

So I guess you’ll just have to buy MORGAN BAROD at full price now. A total of six more copies sold would be awesome, actually. It’s arguably on the threshold of above-average sales for independently published novels.

#commissionearned

Megacorporations in the Tomb Worlds (Unfiltered)

I gotta get back into the swing of the thing.

…

Megacorporations in the Tomb Worlds

The Amalgamation had a sophisticated view of commerce and trade, which was broadly congruent with human speculation of what a post-scarcity economy would look like. Earth is still at least two conceptual leaps away from true understanding of how their economic system operated, but it is definitely clear that its citizenry still bought and sold things, and that they had organizations that aided in that. In other words, the Amalgamation had something like corporations, and their societal infrastructure took that into account.

This has allowed human megacorps to find ways to integrate (or insinuate) themselves in what fragments of the Amalgamation’s infrastructure network remain. It’s never perfect, but as long as corporate outposts stay within whatever rules are still being enforced, they can operate freely. This can be helpful on the more developed worlds. It can also be dangerous, since some rules are only discovered after they’ve been broken. The Amalgamation itself was a highly enlightened system, but whatever ravaged it very much did so with malice aforethought.

Corporate enclaves on the Tomb Worlds are well-designed and properly staffed for brutally pragmatic reasons. Using shoddy materials guarantees that the facility will fail. Allocating inadequate resources guarantees that the facility will fail. Providing insufficient physical, mental, and social support to staffers guarantees that the facility will fail. Failed facilities are useless, and must invariably be fully replaced. Human resources in particular are difficult and time-consuming to replenish, as it takes at least a quarter-century of development for people to come to their full earning potential. Providing staff with adequate motivation, equipment, and defenses is thus far cheaper in the long term.

A corporate facility on the Tomb Worlds is thus either one of two things. The vast majority are filled with motivated employees with genuine loyalty to their employers, not least because their employers show loyalty right back. They will be armed appropriately for the environment, particularly on Tomb Worlds with aggressive biospheres. They will also be extremely vigilant of their own mental and physical health, proactively dealing with small dangers before they become big ones. Finally, they will be welcoming to friendly strangers.

Facilities lacking in one of these categories are suspicious. Facilities lacking in two are actively dangerous. Any facility with three or more is probably a trap.

Patreon!

‘Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now).’

Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), C+C Music Factory

#commissionearned

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is… finally coming out?

They’re claiming October 21st. I am skeptical, since I pre-ordered Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 pre-Covid. I also can see the subtle signs of Development Hell in the trailer, too.

I’m still gonna play it. I mean, again, I preordered the dang thing.

Announcing the upcoming TINSEL RAIN audiobook! …In a while. (Buy the book!)

My voice actor for that really wants to narrate the book, so I’m trying to negotiate her price upward. If I succeed, I’ll likely do a crowdfunding to cover the extra. At any rate, I spent the day going through the text file for TINSEL RAIN.

…Turns out the book’s pretty damned good, if I do say so myself. Buy it!

The WAR OF THE WORLDS Honest Trailer.

I’m getting big ‘if we had to suffer, you will have to suffer, too’ vibes from Honest Trailers here. Or maybe not: I no longer have any urge to watch WAR OF THE WORLDS. Not that I actually had the urge, but you know what I mean.

A discussion is going on regarding TINSEL RAIN.

I don’t want to talk about it until the final details are locked in, but I will say that it’s something that is overdue. Keep watching the skies! …And buy a copy of TINSEL RAIN, if you haven’t yet.

#commissionearned