Moe Lane's Blog, page 617

A: Because Cyberpunk 2077 was a very fun game that worked fine on PCs.

The question was, How did the Cyberpunk 2077 dumpster fire become one of 2021’s most played games? I think I summed it up fine in my title, but to expand a little: if you bought the game for consoles, then yes, Cyberpunk 2077 was a dumpster fire. If this happened to you and you’re a regular or even casual reader here, then my sympathy comes without reservation: if you are not, well… I still have sympathy. I also want to have some DLC come out for the PC version of the game, and it’s been delayed at least in part because they’ve been trying to make it work all right on a next-gen platform that very few people can goram buy.

So, yeah, it’s hardly surprising that sales rebounded when they finally got it working all right on XBox/PS4, and fine-tuned it on Steam. Cyberpunk 2077 is hella fun. I figure I’ll check out what mods are good after the DLC comes out…

#commissionearned

Book of the Week: Temporary Duty.

I was thinking about Ric Locke and Temporary Duty a little while back. He was a good dude (and a commenter here). He wrote a good book. I wish he was still here to finish the sequel, and maybe a few more… actually, I just wish he was still here.

Snippet the Last, THE STARS ARE WRONG.

This was supposed to be a fairly short story, too. Thirteen thousand freaking words. I’m gonna see if this one I can sell to a magazine.

Patreon!

Why did I still follow? Was it from some compulsion, put on me? Or the pitiless stars above? Or was it simply because I still hoped to find my partner, and the other Guardians? I do not wish to say. Suffice it that I followed the Vicar, until we came to a door. A most ancient door, made of strange metals, and from methods now lost to time. It was priceless.  It was also obscene in its pitiless, rigid angularity. It imposed itself on my senses, as if to say: I exist, whether you like it, or not. And you cannot remove the idea of me from your world, for I am more real than you.

The Vicar casually pushed open the obscenity as if it was a commonplace item in the everyday world. He also snickered as I gingerly followed him through the doorway. “If a door alarms you so, Guardian, what will you think of what follows?” I did not answer him, for beyond the door was a room full of icons and images which threatened to send me shrieking into the boon of madness-fueled unconsciousness. Would that I had!

Described baldly, the icons were perhaps not so horrible. They were images or statues of people, both men and women, with a few beasts and some designs of no-doubt occult significance. But they were wrong. A woman, hand held high, cruelly intent in smashing her burning scepter upon the unworthy; a misshapen bird of prey, clutching foul weeds and weapons in its claws. Statues of leering fat men, brazen candelabra with unlucky numbers of unwinking candles, tiles inscribed with six-pointed shapes and sinuous scripts unknown to me; and above all, two horrid banners. One reminded me of a bleeding field, with what I realized were the horrible stars burning above it. The other was a simple emerald triangle on a silver field. I did not need to be told that this must be a sanctuary for the Emerald Pyramid; the horror that permeated the room was horror enough.

Announcement: the TINSEL RAIN Kickstarter will take place on March 1st.

Happy New Year!

I am pleased to announce that with the new year will come TINSEL RAIN, the sequel to my first novel FROZEN DREAMS. Set in the magical Kingdom of New California, Tom Vargas is back, and trying to Clear a Case full of dead mages, exploding artifacts, murky motivations, and rampaging constructs. Oh, and the Universal Dominion’s sent a new ambassador. That’s always fun.

The Kickstarter starts March first: further details will be given, closer to the date. I can say that the cover’s done and the first draft has been sent to the alpha reader. This book is coming out this year, knock on wood and the creek don’t rise. The Kickstarter is just going to help determine when TINSEL RAIN comes out this year.

Hope to see you on March 1st! …And before then, too. Obviously.

#commissionearned

‘Auld Lang Syne.’

Ladies and gentlemen, a toast: To the truly deserving! …There’s so damn few of us left.

Happy New Year.

Auld Lang Syne, The Pyrates Royale

#commissionearned

DON’T LET 2021 END WITHOUT BUYING MY BOOKS!

Every time I feel bad about promoting my stuff, I remind myself that there’s an entire business model wrapped around the practice of telling people that the world has ended because they didn’t send you five dollars. This? This is tame.

So. Buy my books, review my books, and check out my Patreon. Or else nothing will happen. You don’t want nothing to happen, right?

#commissionearned

The December Patreon stuff!

Done, done, done. Short story AND getting TINSEL RAIN to a first draft: I must have been tripping. But it’s over, and for the rest of the night I have no deadlines! Huzzah for me.

THE DOOM THAT CAME TO LUNA CITY. More Tobias and Asenath, looting a dead lunar city. What could go wrong?Ashes of Empire: A Dieselpunk Fantasy Campaign. Just what it says on the tin. Writing up the goblins should be fun. They like zeppelins!

Sign up today!

Patreon!

‘Pretty Good Year.’

I mean, it was. I think it’s kind of important to give people permission to have good years. Lots of people out there who kind of have trouble accepting that they don’t have to be miserable.

Or something.

Pretty Good Year, Tori Amos

#commissionearned

12/30/21 Snippet, THE DOOM THAT CAME TO LUNA CITY.

There’s gonna be maximum effort tomorrow. I can feel it.

Patreon!

They didn’t check any other doors until they reached another airlock, three rooms in and one flight of stairs down. This one showed signs of recent use, starting with the portable battery plugged into its emergency power system. Tobias frowned: it was standard practice to maintain secure and efficient connections for everything, but the battery had been almost slapped into place, and left to hang off the cord. Under Earth gravity it would have popped off by now.

That is not standard procedure, Commander.

Yup, thought Tobias. Now tell me something I don’t know, Asenath.

There is an excellent chance that both of the sergeants are dead?

Tobias winced. No, I worked that one out already. Anything else?

The airlock console here looked to be plugged into this subsection’s computer systems. I should be able to link into it, if you have a suitable relay.

12/30/21 Snippet the Last TINSEL RAIN HEE HEE HO HO

It’s a first draft! HaHAHAHAAHO! IT’S a first DrAFT and it’s dONe! I can igve it to the ALphA REaDeR noW…

Patreon!

As I whirled to meet Broken Foot his throat blossomed a throwing knife. “Oops,” came a voice behind me. “My eye is off today.”

I turned around: it was Nora, carefully walking up. As she passed Knife Guy, still retching and clutching himself, she raised her Cin City Special, and put a careful crossbow bolt in the back of his head. “Tsk, tsk. Damned hair trigger. Hi, Shamus. Guess I’m getting the Castle bounty on you after all.” She dimpled. “Don’t worry, it’s alive-only.”

That would have been fine, you know? If Rowan did have a dead-only bounty on me, a merciless killer would have made for a fine bodyguard right now. Except that I didn’t get the chance, because at that moment some kind of percussive air ball burst in the street we were on.

Everything went flying. Even the wagon rattled. As I got up, I was almost bowled over by another ball of exploding air. And another, and another, and another…

“On second thought, Shamus: why don’t you just escape?” Nora shouted over the sudden series of booms. “I’ll stay here and rescue the cops!”