Moe Lane's Blog, page 635
December 26, 2021
12/26/21 Snippet, THE DOOM THAT CAME TO LUNA CITY.
Progress!
Patreon!The message was brief — Objective reached; first crew beginning retrieval process; commander following Carpenter repair protocols after suit breach — and hopefully would only be ominous to Major Kazimi. It certainly confused Asenath. What are the ‘Carpenter protocols,’ Commander? I see no records of them in the regulations involving suit repair.
“You won’t.” He had the suit mike off, so Tobias felt fine talking aloud. “It’s a joke that the major made once about the regs involving unknown biological or pseudo-biological contaminants. Specifically, the ones with aggressive growth cycles. She said that what we’d really need were flamethrowers. Then she made the senior staff watch the antique movie she stole the idea from.”
Ah. A manufactured pause. John Carpenter, The Thing, 1982 AD. Kurt Russell, A. Wilford Brimley. Another pause. I believe Childs really was infected, after all.
Patreon Microfiction: ‘Rust.’
‘Rust’ is kind of philosophical, and it originally had a story of some moral urgency attached to it. I think. I don’t actually remember, at this point.
Patreon!12/26/21 Snippet, TINSEL RAIN.
We’re more or less done with Chapter 18 smoothing: there’s, like, five chapters left. But they have to be broken up and reformatted, so that will take a little time. Still, on track.
Patreon!Inside was an uncluttered shop, with a counter along one wall, stairs in the back leading up to what I assumed was an apartment, and a couple of rows of free-standing counters. I flicked a look over the floor to make sure there wasn’t a corpse, then made a beeline to the counter.
Graciella was a couple of steps behind me. “Wait, what’s going on?” she asked as I peered over the counter… to see not the dead body I was expecting, but instead a magic sigil that was distinctly not protective-looking. The way it was burning the paper and hissing was, as they say, diagnostic.
“TAKE COVER!” I yelled as I dived on the sigil.
I should stress that this was not entirely suicidal on my part. I mean, sure, I’m writing this, right? The blast must have left me something to write with. But I had two good reasons to jump.
The first was that when I jumped on the sigil, I made damned sure my hat was covering it. A Shamus doesn’t just wear any hat; ours are pretty special, in every way we can manage it. Including the magical ones: lots of people like to take shots at our heads, so every little bit helps. My hat is the most armored part of my wardrobe, is what I’m saying.
But the other good reason was — and I didn’t know it at the time — it wasn’t the sigil under my hat that exploded. It was the sigil on the door. When it blew up, everything in the store that wasn’t hiding behind the counter got a full blast of wooden and glass splinters. They don’t mention that bit about explosions in the Lore, for some reason. At least, not in the sanitized parts of it.
December 25, 2021
Book (Website) of the Week: A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry.
Specifically, A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry’s collection of the Siege of Gondor and the Battle of Helm’s Deep. The author (Bret Devereaux) analyzed both the written and film versions of both battles in terms of strategy, tactics, logistics and communications, and they’ve easily been the most fascinating things I’ve read all week. So, I dunno: go reread the Lord of the Rings again to refresh your memory and follow along*.
*Assuming that you have to. I’ve read the books often enough that I didn’t have any trouble keeping up.
Moe Lane
#commissionearned.
Strip roast!
It came out rather nicely. Tasted good, too. The asparagus was… well, it tried its best.
Strip roast loin. pic.twitter.com/HMMaJkC6ob
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) December 25, 2021
Got an Amazon.com gift card? Use this link! https://amzn.to/3prPJzv
Or here. I will only make the mild suggestion that you use that card to buy my books. If you have a favorite author who isn’t me, buy their books instead. Then review those books. We love that. Seriously, reviews help authors. Particularly self-published ones.
#Commissionearned, obviously.
12/25/21 Snippet, TINSEL RAIN.
I keep doing chapters, and then I keep finding reasons to break up the new chapters into smaller chapters. But I’m still 70% done, and I expect it’ll be ready for alpha by the deadline. So we’re in business.
Patreon!Speaking of knots of pain: Daisy was waiting by my office when I came back from dropping off Graciella. “Hi, Tom,” she said, with the same little sadness I associated with her these days. “How are things?”
“They are going along, Daisy,” I replied as I unlocked the office. “Just don’t ask me in what direction. Drink?”
“Just water is fine.” She sat. “Tom, you need to know…”
“That Eddie was slicing?”
She winced. “I suppose you found that out very quickly.”
“It’s what I do, Daisy.” I handed her the glass, with actual ice from my coldbox this time. “So why are you telling me now?”
Daisy looked at me. “You’re not even mad, are you?”
“If I got mad every time a client lied or forgot to tell me something I should have known from the start, I’d never get anything done. It took years of training to get this way, though. Monks would yell made-up stuff in my ears, then smack me with sticks every time I looked upset about it. It was all very zen.” I drank a sip of my not-water. “So. Why are you telling me now?”
“Because of poor Carmine’s death, Tom.” She looked at me. “He was a slicer, too. An expert at it, if you take my meaning. And he was working a lot with Eddie in the last few months. When I heard about it, I made a connection.” She smiled, wanly. “And now I’m handing it to you.”
December 24, 2021
‘Angels We Have Heard On High.’
Merry Christmas.
Not available on Amazon, alas. #commissionearned
It’s Christmas Eve, and all through the house…
…we’ve done all our chores, and now we’re relaxing before the chaos of tomorrow. The roast is in the fridge, the presents are wrapped, and my wife is finishing the second season of HE-MAN. She watched it a lot growing up (I was a TRANSFORMERS GI JOE guy myself), so it’s been a lot of fun for her.
Merry Christmas, folks.
