Moe Lane's Blog, page 738
April 17, 2021
04/17/21 Snippet, LE ROI EST MORT.
This one is coming along, too. Note that this is for a different chapbook. I dunno why I’m working on them both at the same time, except that I want to get this story blocked out.
Patreon!
The parade travels southwest, taking over Embarcadero as you march with the harbor on your left hand. Even from here the Bridge looms, but there is time still to take in one long, indulgent gaze upon the Imperial City. It is a perfect time for it: the sun shines down upon you all, with no Friscosa dusts to further choke out the skies.
But you do not mind the Friscosa. Not really; not when it could be so very, very worse. There are places in California where the scars and boils from the Great Earthquake of 1906 persist, stubbornly refusing to either heal over, or scab. Not here. Here the buildings remain just as tall and proud as ever, showing the unique mercy of the Great Earthquake towards the Golden Emperor’s chosen home.
The thought of that mercy is a great comfort to you. It tells you that there is a plan, and that you have a place in that plan. And if plans require sacrifice? Well, that thought is an odd comfort, too. In its way.
04/17/21 Snippet, PROCESSING DUTY.
Maybe one more day of this! Then I can start work on the other three. But those don’t need too much work. Huzzah!
Patreon!After all that, I smelled the Brooder before we saw her. God, but those things stink. Brimstone and acid and blood, like the devils they look like. Not the worst things I’ve ever put down by myself, but they ain’t no lightweights.
Either Jack had no sense of smell, or he wasn’t thinking things through, because he kept on moving. I had to put out one arm – the one holding Bang-Man — to make him stop. When he whirled to I suppose glare at me, I shook my head quickly and raised one finger to my lips. Amazingly, he took the hint then.
I went on ahead. “Rangers lead the way,” right? But I did it calm. When you’re down in the dark, it’s real easy to hear what you don’t want to hear and see the monsters that ain’t there. Do that, and you end up getting killed by the monsters that are there. So I just let my heartbeat slow down and didn’t strain my eyes or ears. If there was something there, I’d know. If I didn’t, well, it’d probably be over quick.
April 16, 2021
Getting the first shot Sunday.
Wasn’t gonna mention it – I don’t want to make this a production about me – but mentioning it might help get more people vaccinated. The sooner that happens, the sooner I can get my life back. Aside from everything else, I’m tired of eating half-cold takeout.
Moe Lane
PS: Two shots, dunno which one yet. And as soon as the two week period after the second is over I only wear a mask when I absolutely have to. Because I’m done with that, too.
04/16/21 Snippet, Le Roi Est Mort.
This really needed more expansion.
Patreon!How marvelous is San Francisco, even as it mourns! How glorious is the Imperial City, in its exquisite grief! You travel from cable-car to cable-car, drawing ever nearer to the Ferry Building and your final destination, and all about you the city weeps. Not the scouring lamentation of the Friscosa – that is for later — but the air smells dizzyingly of salt, as if San Francisco itself shed gentle tears at the loss of the beloved Golden Emperor. The love of him for this wondrous place, and its love of him, is the subject of many a poem or dance-hall song. You hum a few as the cable-cars clank about.
There is a sudden tang in the salt-air; a taste of copper and iron on the breeze, as if a nearby mourner has decided that mere tears are not worthy enough to bear the sorrow of this day. You sniff and look about, but see nothing. And soon you smell nothing, either. You tell yourself that the mind can produce many vivid illusions in time of strain, and this day is certainly a time of strain. The thought reassures you, in its way. For if that tang is a sign of sacrifice; is it a sacrifice that you could make of yourself? You love the memory of the Golden Emperor — but do you love it that much?
04/16/21 Snippet, PROCESSING DUTY.
Getting to the end!
Patreon!I was kidding, of course. We don’t get training. —No, Agent Kelly, for real. Uncle Sam figures that if you live through whatever got you to the Site in the first place, you’ll figure out the rest as you go along. And when it comes to half the things we deal with; the more you know about them, the more likely you’re gonna end up in a rubber room. Or worse.
That’s why me and Jack, we were the ones who ended up going through that crack in the wall we found, instead of having a platoon of soldiers do it for us. You don’t know how regular people handle this stuff until they get dropped in it — and once they show they can handle it, there’s always something more important for them to do. Hey: they found something harder for me to do than toting a BAR, right?
I still kind of wished I had one as we twisted our way through the cave tunnels on the other side of the crack. Too much chance of a ricochet, though. The .45 Jack had brought along was bad enough, although I didn’t blame him for wanting to be heeled. I made him keep it in the holster as I tool point. I figured we’d get fewer bouncers from me swinging Bang-Man around.
Tweet of the Day, I Have Comments about the SpaceX/NASA Moon Thing edition.
Mostly involving variants of Who else here thinks SpaceX will be ready for the Moon shot before NASA is? Hell, if SpaceX can get Starship into orbit, somebody might end up saying Why wait? But never mind me: I’m cranky when I haven’t had my dinner. This is cool news.
Via @IMAO_.
NASA has selected Starship to land the first astronauts on the lunar surface since the Apollo program! We are humbled to help @NASAArtemis usher in a new era of human space exploration → https://t.co/Qcuop33Ryz pic.twitter.com/GN9Tcfqlfp
— SpaceX (@SpaceX) April 16, 2021
BEHOLD! FROZEN DREAMS is now available in hardcover.
This was the thing I was talking about yesterday. I can’t really talk about anything else about it, though. Suffice it to say that with FROZEN DREAMS in hardcover I am, once again, blazing a trail through the wild lands of self-publishing. Tell all your friends!
April 15, 2021
A bit from my expansion of Le Roi Est Mort.
Working on this some. It was that kind of night.
Patreon!All of California — poor, battered, bloodied California — mourns. From the sleepless factory towns of Castagne Steel to the dusty hamlets of Outer California, all add their howls to the heavens. In Los Angeles and San Francisco, along the spavined coasts and new badlands, the keening continues. Why, They even say that cries and lamentations can be heard in stubborn, silly Sacramento. Sacramento! Tonight, even they join the mass grief.
How can it be, howl the women at night! Tears water the ground where the Society matrons gather; some kneel in prayer to whoever might listen, other wail their anguish at the yellow-dusty sky. Their husbands show more decorum, keeping their anger at the tragic news cinched in tight, like they are Castagne Steel Company’s steam-boilers fed too much coal. You hear rumors that here and there some of the lower classes have snapped under the strain of grief, and lashed out with hand or foot or knife, the poor fellows. You hope that these rumors are untrue, but you feel pity for their plight. You tell yourself that it is not their fault, really: for the Golden Emperor is dead.
