Moe Lane's Blog, page 678
September 28, 2021
The Blasphemous DUNE Honest Trailer.
BLASPHEMOUS!
Mind you, it’s been years since I’ve seen DUNE. I might be remembering it through the veil of nostalgia. I certainly remember being bugged by the last scene…
…No, let’s go with my first instinct.
BLASPHEMOUS!
In the e-mail: THE LAST GRADUATE (The Scholomance Book 2)
Naomi Novik’s THE LAST GRADUATE dropped at midnight last night, and that’s a real problem for me. No, really: I have stuff I have to do today. I really shouldn’t try to squeeze it in.
But I will.
Moe Lane
PS: What’s it about? Oh, it’s part of a series about a magical school that’s horrible in every way, but the kids go because the alternatives are all worse. Novik’s a brilliant writer, and this is an excellent series: I can’t wait to hear this year’s excuse as to why they won’t give her a Hugo.
September 27, 2021
THE SANDMAN First Look Netflix trailer.
Okay, this one I retain a certain optimism for.
The clip is compatible with the Sandman books and Neil Gaiman is involved with the production. And since he’s got enough status to keep the outrages down to a dull roar, I can be reasonably sure that if changes are made to the TV version of the series, he’ll at least have agreed with them. I’m not a purist on this, by any means — Good Omens‘ changes to me made sense, since we were getting a TV series and not a book — but I’d rather that any done here were for a better reason than (to mangle… Bob Heinlein?) because editors like the flavor better after they’ve peed on it.
So, here’s hoping. Not for pee, obviously.
Babylon 5 is being rebooted, and I have a complicated reaction to that.
I’m not sure how I feel about this.
[The CW] is teaming with original series creator J. Michael Straczynski for a reboot of Babylon 5.
Described as a “from-the-ground-up reboot” of the original, Straczynski will pen the script for a new potential version of the former syndicated drama from Warner Bros. TV. The new take revolves around John Sheridan (originally played by Bruce Boxleitner), an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war.
(H/T: @brett_lemons)Obvious plusses: it’s more Bab5*, and coming from Straczynski. Obvious negatives: it’s a reboot and there’s an obvious question to ask (“But why?”). And that leads me to my real concern: who do you find to replace the secondary characters? — who were, collectively, the real draw of the show for me. Who the hell wants to be known as Londo Mollari the Lesser?
…And yet, I will probably watch this. Because it is Babylon 5, and Straczynski’s doing the script. Bab5 was always a show that objectively shouldn’t have really worked; and yet, it did. Maybe they can pull it off again. Worth watching the pilot at least, hey?
Moe Lane
*That’s a good deal, that, if you don’t have the complete set already (I have the complete set already).
09/27/21 Snippet, ETERNAL NIGHT OF THE MOON-BEASTS.
I am starting to become concerned about the ongoing lack of moon-beasts in this story.
Patreon!Regular time hit Tobias like icewater in the brain; and the distraction almost killed him, too. It would have killed him, except that he had already fired the engines. If the hopper was pointing straight down… well, it was, that was all. A fireball would do the job of wrecking the monster’s day.
He was lucky: the hopper was theoretically pointing to the sky. And the monster was sufficiently present on this plane of existence that raw amounts of kinetic energy could hurt it terribly. But Tobias couldn’t hold onto the detachment he’d been using to keep from focusing on his enemy, and in that few moments of fusion flame and the liveliest awfulness the human got a full blast of the truly alien.
That malevolence! That calculated evil! — For this creature operated under its own rules, no matter that Tobias’s brain could no more process or comprehend the monster’s thought patterns than it could understand his. It was only barely self-aware, from one point of view. From another it had perfect knowledge of space, and possibly even time itself. Tobias swore afterward that the monster anticipated his moves, striving to avoid the hopper’s wild arcs of fusion flame before they even began.
Reminder: I’ll be at the @FrightReads book festival on Saturday!
Fright Reads will be at Severna Park, MD this year (October 2nd, 12-6 PM). I will there with signed copies of all my books, including my new novel MORGAN BAROD and chapbook DECISIONS. Stop by, say hi, and buy, buy, buy!
:yawn: Good morning, I’m going back to bed.
It seems very unfair that I should feel vaguely hungover after a concert, considering that I didn’t actually drink anything. Well, there was that one beer at the beginning. But then I switched to soda.
Good show, though (Flogging Molly). I missed those. Although I do need to work on my I’m just here for the concert, ma’am protective shell.
Moe Lane
PS: I did wish that they’d played this; oh, well.
September 26, 2021
Patreon Microfiction: Wartime Catastrophe.
There’s a longer short story embedded in ‘Wartime Catastrophe.’ A very bloody and extremely merciless one. So much so I’m not sure if I should be the one to write it: after all, when all is said and done I’m just this big pussycat…
Patreon!
