Moe Lane's Blog, page 35

Tweet of the Day, Chess In Russia Is Not For The Timid edition.

Don’t drink anything you didn’t open yourself at one of their tournaments, apparently. Also… ‘suspended.’

Is this a pissy move? Need a ruling pic.twitter.com/a24iA9mlyY

— KScores (@KScores) May 29, 2025

The possible THE BUNKER trailer.

THE BUNKER might appeal to Eldest Son. Am checking now. I dunno if I want to go see it, but he doesn’t actually need me to go to R-rated movies now.

10/28/2025 Snippet, TOM VARGAS AND THE MEDDLING PRIEST.

No, I don’t think I like this title.

Mike needed to go look at the crime scene, so I went with him. It was just as bad as you’d think it was, and you don’t need more of a description in your head than that. I don’t want it in my head. My line of work doesn’t deal with the sick stuff often.

Unfortunately for Mike, his line of work does. “Yes, this was a ritual murder,” he told Lacy as soon as the door was opened. “Done by demonologists. It needs to be purified immediately, before it attracts more spiritual corruption. The other residents have to be checked, too. I can do both, if you don’t have anyone to do that.”

“We might have somebody on staff who could handle it.” Lacy looked at him. “She’s not a specialist, though.”

The priest shook his head. “It’s not that bad,” he told us, to my relief. “I’m going to bless this room before I leave it, but anybody who knows what to look for should be able to make sure that any bystanders are clean. —Although you should all go to Church next Sunday, just to be on the safe side.”

I repressed a snort at that. I didn’t know how much of the Lore Mike knew, but he had definitely heard of Always Be Closing.

“I’ll remind our Christians to keep up with their stuff,” Lacy said while scribbling notes. “Now, you said, demonologists, right? Did the murder have any oomph behind it?”

“No,” Mike said after another look at the scene. “They wanted it to, but the rituals were poorly executed. I’m sorry to tell you this, but these people aren’t competent demonologists.” Lacy gulped, and I was only a half-step behind him. Demonologists are bad. Demonologists who don’t know what they’re doing are worse.

Patreon!

Negative is always nice.

Well, that’s a relief.

In a weird sort of way. I had about thirty seconds of intense worry for as long as it took me to set up an account to see the results, but nothing before or after. I was reasonably sure nothing was wrong, but when you’re waiting for the screen to change…

Long afternoon, long night.

Things ended up all right, but I’m worn out. More than I expected. See you tomorrow…

Eldest graduates high school today!

Gonna be kind of busy around here today. Cleaning, prepping, coordinating, that sort of thing. Not absolutely absent, but this takes priority.

‘Taps.’

Thank you.

Wheel of Time series canceled at Amazon. …Is that bad, or good?

I’ve never seen the series, and haven’t read the books. So I don’t know whether fans of the latter are screaming to the heavens, or breathing sighs of relief. The way the studios do things around here, it could be either, really.

…I wonder when Amazon is gonna give up on Rings of Power? I mean, I have. And that honestly should be a sign.

Reminder: Review the books you read!

I’m not gonna do the polite thing that I normally do and not make it about me, either. Absolutely, rank and review my books. Do it for other people, sure, but I hunger for help from the algorithm just like any other author would. Especially on months where my online sales are drastically lagging my offline ones, and I don’t even understand why that happens. But it does! It’s like there’s this Law of Conservation of Sales, and it is bemusing to no end.

#commissionearned

05/26/2025 Snippet, CALL OF THE MOON-BEASTS.

Hey! We’re getting close!

…

The room on the other side was strange. It was just a room, to start with. Easily big enough to fit everybody, but there were no other doors. There was a recessed alcove on the far side, but it was blank, without even a carving or picture to relieve the blankness of the lunar stone walls. The lighting was odd, too: there were four braziers set against each wall, each pulsing with a flickering light. The light looked like fire — deep down, a long-dormant part of Tobias’s soul was screaming at the threat of open flame on the Moon — but it couldn’t be, obviously. There was no heat, and no actual flames. It was just a clearly-artificial radiance that pulsed in a way that looked like firelight.

Tobias kept telling himself that until he believed it.

There were six tables in the room, made of more of that impossible wood, and each one was heaped with things. Three of the tables held metal bars and disks, with heaps of crystals of every possible hue. Two of the tables were loaded down with scrolls and intricate collections of brass and glass, contorted in shapes that seemed to contort and writhe in the flickering light of the braziers. And the sixth… Tobias deliberately focused on the other five.

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