Moe Lane's Blog, page 4

09/02/2025 Snippet, IRONGHOSTS, Part 2

Pits!

…

The hole that they found was more a crevasse, set against the rubble of what used to be an intersection. It was a leap of faith for the two men to use it, or at least a slide of faith. But it was deep enough to be dark and smelled of stagnant water, and that was enough for Oxman to take the chance. The rumbling behind him argued that at least one of the golems had not given up its quest of murder.

The crevasse did lead to at least a stream below, from the sound of the water moving beneath him; it also did so abruptly, leaving him scrabbling in the air for a moment until one striving hand found and grabbed old rebar. “Nat!’ he hissed, ignoring the sudden bite in his hand. “Watch for the edge!”

He could barely see Nat slide in, checking his momentum over the lip of the pit at the last moment. He hung down for a moment, then deliberately let go. The splash that followed was welcome in its quickness. “Five feet at most,” Nat called up, softly. Then he stepped back, because Oxman had already swung forward, and let go.

Patreon!

The SUPERMAN Honest Trailer.

Honest Trailers went a little easy on SUPERMAN, I think. I suspect that means that they liked it a lot, but they didn’t want to just come out and say it so baldy. It is kind of a corny movie, and it’s difficult for some people to admit that some concepts are best when they are corny.

The MARVEL ZOMBIES TV-MA trailer.

I’m putting this one behind the fold (gore, gore, dismemberment, gore). As for the trailer itself: if MARVEL ZOMBIES was coming out in, say, 2018 I’d be incredibly pumped for it. As it is… guess we’ll see, huh? The animation sides for the comic book studios has a better track record than the live-action sides, so it’s not hopeless. Just not a sure thing.

…Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Tweet of the Day, …’Unexpected’ edition.

Yeaaaaaah. About that.

An 18th-century portrait stolen by the Nazis during WWII is believed to have resurfaced in the most unexpected place: hanging above a sofa in an Argentinian home and discovered not by law enforcement or a museum, but in a photo on a real estate website. https://t.co/Fa489D954v

— ABC News (@ABC) September 1, 2025

‘Dust in the Wind.’

Dust in the Wind, Kansas

#commissionearned

I need to find some 4Q venues.

The problem is that Christmas and other holiday fairs are excellent places to vend, and the people who run them know that. With fees to match. Still, hopefully I can find something in December.

My current schedule:

September 13-14: FrightReads (Howard County Fairgrounds, MD)October 4: RisuCon (Montgomery County Fairgrounds, MD)October 31-November 1: Doxacon

Also: check out my Substack for monthly updates about my stuff. Although one of the things I need to do for 2026 is start up a mailing list again. Or figure out how to pay for a marketer. Or both.

09/01/2025 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH.

I didn’t do much, but I think I figured out how to bridge to the next chapter. Not perfectly, but we can work on that later.

…

Speaking of problems? Turns out we had one doing that little job for Henry right away. Well, Lucas’s little job, since I wasn’t actually getting paid for it. That doesn’t usually stop any self-respecting Shamus. Shoot, half the time it wouldn’t stop any self-respecting Adventurer. But this time it mattered.

“You can’t skulk, Tom. I’m sorry.” He said this like he was telling me that the doc did what he could, but I’d never be playing the piano again.

“Hey! I can skulk just fine,” I told him. “I do it all the time, back home.”

“Sure. In alleyways. This is a beach. You’d stick out like a loose nail There’s not even a trash can for you to hide behind.”

I wanted to ask Lucas if he could do any better, but I already knew the answer was ‘yes.’

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09/01/2025 Snippet, IRONGHOSTS Part 2.

Back to this nonsense. First part here.

…

Nat should have died in the first five seconds, with Oxman joining him at best a minute later. The golem that instantly turned on them instantly turned on them, spinning with a speed that two humans still staggering from their jump couldn’t hope to match. The sword that served it as a hand might have been dull, but it flickered through the air with a speed that made sharpness pointless. A man dies as surely from a ruptured gut as a sliced one, and good deal more slowly.

They lived at first because the second golem moved just as swiftly, its own sword blurring in a vicious arc that smashed against its foe’s suddenly-vulnerable leg. The first golem staggered and crashed in a cloud of dirt and concrete dust, the tip of its blade missing Nat by a good six inches. He would later tell himself that there had been plenty of space between his gut and his death. Absolutely. No need to dwell on the topic at all.

That was later. Right now he was suddenly being grabbed and pulled along by Oxman, an utterly superfluous “MOVE!” ringing in one ear. Nat needed no persuasion. Moving was the right answer. Where to move to could wait a minute; ‘away’ would do in a pinch.

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Tweet of the Day, He Shall Know Your Ways As If Born To Them edition.

Title cheerfully stolen from the comments section. I saw that Chalamet did 5-1 on his picks, including an underdog call. I don’t know if that’s actually correct. I do know that the body language of everybody else on the dais there was radiating ‘delighted surprise’ by the end.

That time when Timothee Chalamet out-analyzed every ESPN college football talking head https://t.co/pM2XY5Jtxy

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) September 1, 2025

‘Should I Stay Or Should I Go.’

Should I Stay Or Should I Go, The Clash

#commissionearned