Moe Lane's Blog, page 116

12/10/2024 Snippet, CALL OF THE MOON-BEASTS.

Accomodations!

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“Only none of them have seen hide or hair of the man.” Tobias scowled at the tablet. “He’s not drawing rations anywhere, either. That concerns me more.”

“Because it means he has a food source we don’t know about?”

“Exactly. I don’t care if he’s living on thrown-out shipping nuggets; we need to know where every calorie is.” He scowled. “Hell, we need more shipping nuggets. They’d be perfect for the Lifeboat.”

“Hmm. What does Asenath think?” Lillian smiled at Tobias’s startled look. “She may just be a manifestation of your current mental state, but you do have the advantage of being a very smart man. I assume that would extend to your hallucinations. We have to use everything we can.”

Tobias decided — not for the first time — that Lillian was very smart herself. Well, Asenath, what do you think? Oh, and sorry about Lillian…

There is nothing to forgive, Commander. She does not dislike or even disapprove of either me, or our working together. She simply believes that I do not exist. This hardly makes her unique. Dr. Peters is also better at making you practice self-care than I am, sometimes. It is in my best interest to maintain a good working relationship with her, even by proxy.

The “…Huh.” 28 YEARS LATER trailer.

28 DAYS LATER was excellent. 28 WEEKS LATER was… an ambitious failure. I am very much a minority opinion in that assessment, I know, but I felt the movie did not sufficiently sell to me the contrived set of screw-ups that allowed the virus to propagate again. So I wasn’t enthralled at the thought of 28 YEARS LATER.

And yet: this doesn’t look half bad.

I also give a movie points for having the guts to use Rudyard Kipling in a trailer. And not in an obnoxiously snarky fashion, either. Nice.

Moe Lane

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Tweet of the Day, Greta NO edition.

Greta Gerwig: Greta YES

Greta Gerwig’s ‘NARNIA’ film begins filming in July 2025.

“It's a very new take… It's all about Rock 'N' Roll,” says Amy Pascal.

(Source: Deadline) pic.twitter.com/FIEFYP8S3K

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) December 10, 2024

My only hope here is that Gerwig loved the Narnia books as much as she did LITTLE WOMEN, growing up. If she did, the movies might actually be… :gingerly, one eye screwed shut, shoulders in an involuntary half-cringe: …maybe okay? Not that I would blame people for betting the other way.

In the meantime, check out some of the comments to that post. There is hootage going on there.

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Via @baseballcrank.

I am sorry to break it to you…

…but this short movie is as cute as heck.

‘Feliz Navidad.’

Feliz Navidad, Jose Feliciano

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Video of the Day, Full Contact Inner-Demon Confrontation Edition!

Sorry, but STAR TREK: LOWER DECKS is some of my favorite Star Trek. It just is.

Heh. Also, this reminds me of a scene from FROZEN DREAMS. I had one character’s whose method of fighting demonic possession was to yank a hunk of the demon out of the possessed person and start beating it senseless, until the demon decided of its own free will that it had somewhere else to be right now…

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12/09/2024 Snippet, PICKMAN’S MODELS.

The Bad Week!

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He didn’t need to ask her what she meant by the term. “As well as we could. We managed to get all but one of the surviving domes under lockdown, but the mutineers in Bloch Dome had somehow managed to disable the HVAC control, so we had to go in and stun them by hand. That was Hell.”

By now the memory didn’t suddenly flash into his brain. It ambled in, almost comfortably: They were still in the life-support tubes when the mutineers stumbled upon them. Tobias’s team had been offered no quarter by their foes, and it was all that Tobias could do to keep his troops from responding in kind. He’d had to stun one of his own team to keep her from strangling a stringy-haired maniac after they’d finally dragged him off the soldier he’d been disemboweling with a rusty saw.

“Stunners? You were lucky, Commander. We had no stunners, no pacification gas after the first week — the fool that Bruno replaced saw to that! — and not enough hibernation drugs. But when our rebels had been taken? Oh, we had knives. Such a helpful crowd control measure, knives. Cheap, simple, no power, no moving parts. Just an edge and a throat.”

Reithner’s eyes may have been open, but they were looking at nothing in the room. “They cycled us all through crowd control at first, you know. And we all did it. Even Bruno took a turn, slicing the throats of those too violent and insane to trust. But you could tell right away who among us hated it, and who did not. The ones who did not somehow found themselves on the rotation more often. They even volunteered! And we did not forbid them.”

It’s Christmas! Give the gift of me!

You can:

Buy my books! You can even give them to others as Christmas gifts. Spread the word of my words! Buy my RPG material ! Okay, that’s more a ‘you’ gift than a ‘you give to others’ gift. That should change after the Backerkit next year.Buy my audiobook! Also giftable to others. And yes, I want to make more audiobooks. Subscribe to my Patreon ! Only a dollar. Review my books ! Not just on Amazon. Goodreads would be nice, too. Particularly if you liked GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND. Also: actual text reviews help a whole bunch. Buy stuff using my Amazon links ! Every little bit helps.

…I really do hate marketing, but this is how the sausage is made.

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12/09/2024 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH.

Time-delay joke!

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“Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “We don’t always do that, either. You can’t go around thinking…” I abruptly shut up.

“That the big, bad Dominion ambassador of the North can’t be looking everywhere, surely?” I would have said her smile was melancholy, except Dominion Archmages are supposedly allergic to the stuff. “You’d be right, too. Except sometimes she can.” She took a drag. “I’m sure she enjoys those little moments when it’s unnecessary. A meal and a walk along the boardwalk is probably as much time as she can hope for. Ah, this is my hotel.”

I gave it a peer. The Cochimi Ritz wasn’t as flashy as the Xanadu, but it looked… cozier. Probably quieter. Absolutely I wouldn’t be able to get past the front door if I had a signed note from the King. Or if they had a sudden bout of ‘dead body in the library.’ That skeleton key lets me in everywhere.

“It suits you, ‘Betty.’” I gave her a nice little bow, because Lucas can kiss a hand, and not look ridiculous. “Enjoy the rest of your evening. Will you be here long?”

“For a while, Mr. Vargas, for a while. Thank you for dessert and the walk, by the way. I found it restful. I’m sure I’ll see you around.”

I waited until she was half up the stairs. “You, too! Oh, and there was just one other thing…”

She turned to me, quizzical. “Yes, Mr. Vargas?”

I gave her my best smirk. “Don’t call me Shirley.”

That might have been the first time I’ve ever heard the Banshee laugh.

My ego-Google Alert today took an alarming turn.

Welp.

…turns out that ‘Moe Lane’ is a geographical location, as well as my nom de plume. Still, it’s a helluva thing to spring on a man. Also:

It Wasn’t Me, Shaggy

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