Moe Lane's Blog, page 687

I wonder at the Lovecraftian overtones of LEGEND OF WOOLEY SWAMP.

So I’m discussing 1950s horror comics with my wife – like you do – and I was telling her about one I read that involved confidence men who got hold of Confederate treasury currency plates and started forging Confederate money for the antiquities trade. They got caught, they killed the guy who caught them, his ghost (I think) killed them, etc. etc. And she goes Isn’t there a Charlie Daniels song about an old evil guy who got robbed of his jars of money and then his ghost killed the robbers, and you can still hear their screams and his laughter?

And I said, Well, there’s an HP Lovecraft story called “The Terrible Old Man” which is about an old evil guy with talking bottles who some people tried to rob, and then they disappeared because he pretty obviously killed them with magic.

Turns out we were both right. Here, read and listen for yourself.

Legend of Wooley Swamp, Charlie Daniels

It’s not a one-to-one correspondence, but I’m pretty sure Charlie at least read that story once. I say that without criticism, mind you. Inspiration is where you find it.

Doctor stuff today.

Nothing very serious, although next week I get to have them fix my hernia. Because that’s what you get when you get to be my age: old-people diseases. I’m already taking the over-50 vitamins, and isn’t that fun.

I know, I know. Being in your fifties in 2021 is nothing like being in your fifties in 1921, or even 1971. I have decades left in me. But pretty soon college students will stop being one-half my age, and start being one-third. Yay! …I’ll stop now.

My mini-review of THE GREEN KNIGHT.

Short version: I have a very particular set of skills. Skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make it possible for me to enjoyably extract 95% of the meat of THE GREEN KNIGHT without difficulty. …Your mileage may vary.

Slightly longer version: have you read SIR GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT? As in, voluntarily, and with enjoyment? Then you will have no trouble whatsoever with THE GREEN KNIGHT. It will be an open book to you, so to speak, and you will get to enjoy an excellent movie that is steeped in that particular myth, with no incomprehensible deviations from the text. You’ll enjoy it.

If you have not read the source material, though… yeah. I won’t blame anybody in the slightest if they came out of the movie theater going “Huh?” Even the ending ruthlessly assumes you’re familiar with the original work. Mind you, I’m fine with that, but how does A24 expect to make their money back on this one?

Bottom line: if you like Arthurania, go see this quick before it goes away.

‘Fanny Power.’

Video live: music from album.

Fanny Power, Sheena

So the next novel I’m working on after TINSEL RAIN will be…

…GHOSTS ON AN ALIEN WIND. This was originally a short story that I did a few months ago for my Patreon, only I think it could make for a decent novel. It is absolutely not set in the Fermi Resolution universe, but it does draw from my Unfiltered SF-horror RPG setting. I’ve put a little bit below.

God knows when it’s getting published, mind you. But at least I’ll have put in the writing for proper exploitation later.

Patreon!

The post-flight checklist for Amalgamation vehicles is likewise a masterpiece of elegant efficiency which I’d love for some human cyberneticist to decipher. It shouldn’t work, and yet it does; and if you think for too long about how that could possibly be, your head begins to hurt. And that’s why I don’t think about it too much (which is really the best way to deal with Amalgamation tech generally) while I’m using it. The important thing was I was out of the hauler in a minute and a half, which meant I could find out what was going on.

The drumming picked up as I popped the hatch. It rains a lot at Luxor Base, but pretty regular, too. If I had been another thirty minutes it would have been pouring — and if I had somehow managed to be late for a whole hour the storm would be over. There are some parts of the planet where the weather isn’t this accommodating, but the old weather programming still works just fine in the area, which is why the corp had put its main settlement and offices here when we started developing 118-G-002. That and the weather, which is shirtsleeves all year around. When you have an entire empty planet to choose from, why not settle in the nicest parts?

I was met at the hatch by Greg, which was both not usual and unwelcome. Not personally unwelcome, you understand; Greg’s a good guy. But when your project head is waiting for an in-person talk, it’s rarely for anything minor. “Pam,” he said as soon as I cleared the hauler, “how quickly can you do a turnaround?”

Picture of the Day, How DOES The Two Trees Thing Work, Anyway? edition.

I have spent forty years trying to visualize how the Light of Valinor in the Silmarillion worked. Which is why I’m not upset that they put the Two Trees together; sure, it doesn’t visualize what Tolkien was thinking, but what can? I can almost guarantee that the man did not waste a single moment on worrying about how tough some poor bastard would find it to actually put some of this stuff up on the screen.

It definitely looks pretty, though.

On September 2, 2022, a new journey begins. pic.twitter.com/9tnR7WqDoA

— The Lord of the Rings on Prime (@LOTRonPrime) August 2, 2021

My new illustrated chapbook DECISIONS will have a 2021 3Q release.

Four stories, with original illustrations by Ben Fleuter. This book will stay at the $2.99 price point that I’ve established for the other chapbooks. No art yet, because that’s still in progress (I hope to have this ready in September, too, but no promises). DECISIONS will be mostly fantasy, although there is one straight-up horror story in it. Keep watching the skies! And buying my books!

My new novel MORGAN BAROD will have a September release!

I’m self-publishing, so I am comfortable saying that. September 1st, with any luck: the editing is on-schedule and the book cover art is done (and below). I’m going to be working up a rough estimate of page count this week so that I can get that information to the book cover designer, and while MORGAN BAROD is not yet available for pre-order I encourage everybody to buy my books.

So there you have it! The new novel is indeed coming. Tentative price will be $4.99 in Kindle, $12.99 in paperback. I say tentative because I have to let KDP finish crunching those numbers first.

The new ‘Wait, the first one grossed $850M?’ VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE trailer.

I figure Sony was a little surprised how VENOM racked up a very, very respectable box office score. Happy-surprised, to be sure – and they’re not taking any chances, here. VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE looks about what I expected. Which is to say: gonzo, Venom and Eddie squabbling at each other for comic relief, and Woody Harrelson chewing up the scenery, then spitting it out in bloody fragments.

Can’t wait to see it.

Quiet day today.

It’s the first of the month, and I’m always drained then. Did do that writeup earlier and worked on chapter edits, so it wasn’t unproductive. But I just didn’t have much to say.

Moe Lane

PS: I do gotta be relentless about advertising my stuff now, though, so… buy my books! Or tell other people to buy my books. That works, too.