Moe Lane's Blog, page 449
December 20, 2022
The final GlitterBomb video.
The guy’s apparently racked up some wins, over the years – including three Indian scam call centers, which really should be worth some kind of civic award. This is engineering at its coolest. Also: don’t steal things.
Via Ed Driscoll.
My mini-review of VIOLENT NIGHT.
Short version: it’s either the bloodiest wholesome Christmas movie you’ll ever see, or the most wholesomely Christmas splattercore movie you’ll ever see. Either way, worth watching. (Note: there’s lots of blood in this movie.)
Slightly longer version: the key element of VIOLENT NIGHT is that it is played absolutely straight in its core elements. There is Santa, who is absolutely a magical creature with particular powers; there is a crisis over the loss of Christmas spirit; and there is a precocious moppet who has only one wish for Christmas that Santa can’t grant, but ends up granting anyway. There is also a ruthless band of ultra-violent criminals, a copious use of the director’s favorite fake blood recipes*, and so much bad language that Santa himself brings it up — but that’s almost incidental. The important thing here is family.
Oh, and not menacing children. Santa Claus gets rather intense over that.
Moe Lane
*Favorite blood recipes are totally a thing.
December 19, 2022
12/192/2022 Snippet, THE THING IN THE AIRLOCK.
Making myself finish this up!
Patreon!Back in the dim days of a year ago, hand-to-hand combat on the moon was something you did for fun. Everybody in the military learned the principles, but nobody actually used them. Well, nobody used them in order to injure people. Sometimes security personnel might have to use an arm lock or quick grapple on a sloppy drunk, but real combat? What was there to fight about?
I thought we were done with this! Tobias snarled to himself — or maybe complained to Asenath — as he kneed a cultist in the crotch. Everybody who was going to go kill-crazy already had!
It started out at sixteen to ten, and his side were the ones who had started behind. It was now ten to seven, because while what had turned out to be a nest of Silver Dawn cultists had plenty of knives, his security squad had helmets, and armor that wasn’t completely useless. They also knew something about how to fight as a group.
Tobias was still getting angrier and angrier at every successful slash and strike. We need to shut this down now, Asenath! he snarled again, as he flung a cultist into the wall. Any luck getting control of the HVAC system?
Tom Cruise is a madman.
He is a madman and he is gonna die some day doing a stunt and, well, it’s a free country. I’m more impressed than anything else. But I got a little of the old flight reflex just watching this. (Via @bendreyfuss.)
So excited to share what we’ve been working on. #MissionImpossible pic.twitter.com/rIyiLzQdMG
— Tom Cruise (@TomCruise) December 19, 2022
I’m putting TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION on Christmas Kindle super-sale on Wednesday.
Tell your friends! Especially the ones with disposable income! Sale goes from December 21st to 28th.
Tales From the Fermi Resolution: Vol. 1: Shadow of the Tower
Set in the same world as FROZEN DREAMS, this sprawling anthology stretches over 900 years of future post-apocalyptic fantasy history! There are ten stories, including several never before published; and, for fans of FROZEN DREAMS, there’s a new novelette starring Tom Vargas.
#commissionearned
Old and busted: DIE HARD is a Christmas movie.
New hotness: DIE HARD is a Hannukah movie. Links here, but I’ll sum up: that movie features a man fighting a numerically superior invasion force, using nothing but what he can gather and use. Well, that and his own grim determination, his abundant (and highly sarcastic) mother-wit, and the nigh-tangible favor of the LORD. It also ends with a remarkable lack of forgiveness and charity, which really doesn’t fit a Christmas movie. You’re supposed in those to have the bad guys figure out they’re being bad on their own, and not figure it out halfway down the building you’ve just dropped him out of.
…Okay, I’m convinced. I wonder how you say THE LINE in Hebrew?
#commissionearned
12/19/2022 Snippet, ANALOG.
Campus!
Patreon!“Classy place,” Bernice murmured as they parked their car. “How did Oswald afford this on a government salary?”
“Fair question.” Inquisitors didn’t starve, to put it mildly, but something like Mantuxet College was a bit beyond a government employee’s wallet. The campus had an antique, but well-scrubbed look: weathered stone buildings and plenty of greenery everywhere. Most of all, it felt pristine. The FI’s records hadn’t shown an outbreak at Mantuxet in over sixty years; it had even managed to get through the bad old days without being burned down once.
“This looks like just the sort of place you’d want to stash your kid, isn’t it?” Greg went on, as the two walked down a sidewalk that had never even seen concrete. “Supposedly our Charlie is a scholarship boy, though. Got a full ride, and all the trimmings.”
“Nice for him.”
“Yes and no,” Greg said, knocking on the door of the dormitory. “That kind of ride comes with some obligations.
“Hi, ma’am!” he said to the old woman opening the door. “I’m Inquisitor Gimbal with the FI, and this is my partner, Inquisitor Jones. We need to speak to Charles Feeney. It’s rather urgent, I’m afraid.” That got him — a generic scowl, he decided. FI men (and women) were rarely warmly welcomed on college campuses. It wasn’t a ‘I’m going to enjoy ritually backstabbing you’ scowl, though, and that was the important thing.
December 18, 2022
The “I guess this is my non-genre movie for 2023” OPPENHEIMER trailer.
Jesus, how much weight did Cillian Murphy lose for OPPENHEIMER, anyway?
