Moe Lane's Blog, page 32
June 4, 2025
06/04/2025 Snippet, IN THE HALLS OF THE LILY KING.
I am starting to like Waylon. It’s a real shame.
…
Savoy’s town house actually was on fire, which made Waylon a little nervous. What if he had the Second Sight, and didn’t even know it? He was a little old to be suddenly going eldritch. Luckily, the fire was new enough that there was still a reasonably full crowd of gawkers, not to mention a whole slew of firemen. There weren’t any dead bodies being laid out, either, which irrationally made him feel better. After all, he hadn’t burned the damned place down.
Serenity had a little more information about that, to go with two paper mugs of the ridiculously cheap coffee that Holy Quebec apparently ran on. “The fire started at dawn,” she told him. “One of the servants smelled smoke from the study, they summoned the fire brigade, but it arrived too late to save the structure.”
Waylon looked around. This was the kind of neighborhood that rated their own firehouse. “What, they get lost?”
“Broken harness.” She sipped her coffee. “I doubt it would have made a difference, anyway. That fire smells of paraffin.”
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06/04/2025 Snippet, THE CALL OF THE MOON-BEASTS.
We are almost done with this!
…
The effect of that got the immediate attention of Wilcox and Emi, both of whom were staring at the table full of equipment and scrolls. Tobias could feel the sudden focus from Abbie and Lillian, too. As for Asenath? She was definitely there, but curiously attenuated, like she wasn’t trying to draw attention to herself.
“I do,” Tobias replied. “And I’ve had this conversation before. Usually with somebody I didn’t trust in the slightest.”
“Trust is the lie to obligation’s truth,” Grabinski intoned, in the manner of someone quoting something. “No doubt those fools thought you were too weak to truly bargain for anything past mere survival. But you were not. You were strong. Strong enough to be worth a proper bargain, one that gives you more than you had before.”
Tobias flicked looks at Abbie and Lillian both, shaking his head minutely before nodding gently in the other two humans’ direction. “We’re not weak,” he told Grabinski. “We just want one thing. We want to get off this hell-rock, and back to Earth.”
“Understandable. Then what?”
“We probably die.” Tobias’s tone would have chilled him, back before all of this started. Now it merely felt bracing. “Either on the trip, or back home because of… everything going on up there. It doesn’t matter. Better to be dead on the ‘cool, green hills of Earth’ — or at least trying to reach it. If we can’t land the Lifeboat, we’ll do a reentry anyway. At least our atoms will make it back home that way.”
“Your piety speaks well of you,” Grabinski told him after a slightly longer silence than usual. “But what if you do not have to die? What if you could return to your homes, safe, strong, and powerful? Would that not be preferable for all of you? It could happen. It should happen.”
“Here we go. Tell me the catch,” Tobias snapped, hard enough for the other humans to start.
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The THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS teaser trailer.
I do like The Thing’s look, here. It gets very close to the comics, without looking abjectly stupid. Dunno about the rest of THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS, though. I mean, I know I’m seeing it in theaters anyway. Some things are simply Fate.
June 3, 2025
On Order: the @HPLHS’s Liber Oblitus (and buy my books!)
I can barely afford the hardcover version of the Liber Oblitus out of my own petty cash. What’s a lunch out or two, for the next couple of weeks?
Miskatonic University Monograph: Liber Oblitus https://t.co/pCuVlgv42N
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) June 4, 2025
Unrelatedly: buy my books!
06/03/2025 Snippet, IN THE HALLS OF THE LILY KING.
Needed to workshop this a little today.
…
He read while he ate, because this was going to be a working breakfast. Serenity had handed him a few newsheets from her own stack, with the slight smile of somebody who was dividing up a boring job. “The journalists here are remarkably prone to gossip,” she had told him. “Please look for anything topical.”
“Topical?” snorted Waylon. “Compared to what? This place calls anything that happened less than a decade ago ‘current events.’” He started going through the papers anyway. You never knew.
Five minutes later, Waylon snorted. “The Gazette claims it’s over a thousand years old, right?”
“It is,” Serenity replied.
“It reads like it.”
“I disagree.” A beat. “Its editors no longer spit and hiss at the sight of an Old American loan-word.”
Waylon smirked. He’d wondered if the woman had any humor in her. “Where we can see. Anyway, there’s nothing here that’s, ah, of interest to us. Not domestically, at least. Not even a report of the murder.”
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Coming soon: the CBR+PNK: OVERLOAD Kickstarter.
CBR+PNK: OVERLOAD is a “three-pack of thrilling scenarios and supplements for CBR+PNK, the award-winning portable cyberpunk TTRPG, Forged in the Dark.” A buddy of mine was in on the project, and the game itself looks interesting (here for digital+print, here for digital only). Seems well-suited for convention games.
June 2, 2025
‘Love Shack.’
Love Shack, The B-52’s
#commissionearned
Video of the Day, It Just Keeps Getting Better edition.
I don’t know if this is real or not, but it’s still hysterical, in an I’m-going-to-Hell-for-laughing way.
Movie of the Week: SINNERS.
Not coming out for another month, alas. But if you can still catch SINNERS in theaters and you don’t, seriously go see it. I don’t think I’m going to enjoy another movie this year as much as I enjoyed this one.
Moe Lane
PS: They’re apparently talking sequel. Unfortunately, they may not be talking ‘Ryan Coogler,’ which would be… stupid.
#commissionearned
