Moe Lane's Blog, page 8
August 25, 2025
08/25/2025 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH.
Now is the time where more bodies must hit the floor. Or, well, sand.
…
Blood on the sand. A bunch more stuff, too, but the blood’s the first thing you’ll notice. It clumps up, and doesn’t vanish as it dries. There isn’t as much smell as you’d think, though. Guess the seaweed and salt give the iron a run for its money.
Lucas and I, we aimed for the cops. They were standing around in one of the classic loiters, the kind where you clump up and glare at the onlookers. This being Maravilloso, the onlookers were glaring right back. The scene wasn’t ugly, but it wasn’t gonna win any concursos, either. Hopefully we could wrap our part of it before the obligatory rumble.
The body was covered with a tarp. Tarps. There were three, and not one of them was closer than a foot to any of the others. I could feel Lucas narrowing his eyes at that as we walked up. “I didn’t know you had those kinds of monsters here, Tom,” he muttered at me.
“We don’t,” I muttered back. “Not for long. Okay, here comes the dumbest cop. He’s gonna be a hands-on kind of jackass. Let him.”
Whaddya know? I was right. Dumb Cop started right off with the classic hand-on-chest-and-shove. “Back off, tourist! Nothing to see, here!”
Tourist? We needed to get a full-time Shamus down here, right away. Or maybe a Loremaster or too. Whatever they were teaching the locals in school wasn’t taking. “Hey, Sergeant!” I yelled past him. “This an official beat-it, or is this guy just bored?”
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Risucon map!
Not where I am, just the map of the Risucon site:
October 4, 2025, at the Montgomery County Fairgrounds in Gaithersburg. It’s a single-day event this time, and the table fee is something I think I can recoup this time; also, the RisuCon folks ran a tight ship last year. Also, this year I will have my TTRPG (The Fermi Resolution Worldbook) to sell. I should be good.
Besides, it’s a little fresh air, and the fairgrounds are greener than I was expecting. Early October is still going to be nice and warm, because it’s Maryland. Hopefully, it’ll be a nice day out. See you there!
Moe Lane
PS: If I don’t, buy my books now!
#commissionearned
August 24, 2025
Oh, hey, they’re showing the Tobey Maguire Spider-man films in theaters.
I may go with my wife to see SPIDER-MAN 2 again. She always liked that one, because they got the arms right from a roboticist point of view. It’d be a nice date night.
‘The Great Wave off Kanagawa.’
Keep watching this space! Well, not this specific space. But it’ll be relevant soon, I swear.
I dislike having to do this.
But it’s unfortunately necessary. What you are seeing (and, alas, not as many people are seeing this as I would like) is what you are getting.
Disclaimer #ttrpg #fiction #books https://t.co/2ZTuNdGn1F via @YouTube
— Ogiel (Moe Lane) (@Ogiel23) August 24, 2025
Patreon Microfiction: WMDs.
Aerobic biospheres must be huge problems for sapients from anaerobic biospheres, for exactly this reason. ‘WMDs’ assumes that bioweapons like pond scum (engineered to be even more fecund) will mostly be used on closed environments, such as space stations or whatnot. Not that humans would ever sell any of that stuff voluntarily: Larry Niven’s “The Green Marauder” is required reading in xenobiology classes.
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August 23, 2025
Book of the Week: Contrarian: A Novel in the Grand Illusion.
They finally lowered the Kindle price on L.E. Modesitt’s Contrarian: A Novel in the Grand Illusion to something realistic. Look, I’m just not going to subsidize the traditional publishing industry’s inefficient book-making process. I have intimate experience now in how much it costs to self-publish, and I also know that… :click click click: …Tor has access to economies of scale that I don’t. Stop trying to make me pay eighteen bucks for a .epub unless it’s got something unique about it that I’d value.
I have spoken.
#commissionearned
08/23/2025 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH.
And that takes care of Chapter 11.
“Beach next?” I asked Lucas, after I switched out my rum-and-not-coke for a perfectly reasonable beer.
He surprised me by shaking his head. “Can you handle it without me? I’m kind of wondering what our friends from the capital needed an Adventurer for. That’s worth checking up on.”
That made me squint at him, maybe a little sloppily. I don’t drink my lunches nearly as much as the Lore might make you think. Then again, I was on vacation. “I thought you told them it was none of your business.”
“Oh, it’s not.” Lucas laughed. “So what? Besides, it’s just none of my business now. You know how quick that can change.”
“Yeah. Unfortunately.” A thought occurred to me. “While you’re skulking about, find out more about our old friend Alan. Just to make sure he’s not refreshing a grudge.”
“Smart,” Lucas conceded. “But isn’t the phrase ‘nursing?’”
“Nah. Alan’s the kind of guy who likes to slam them back. I figure that he can’t do much down here, but every little bit hurts, right?”
“Words to live by,” Lucas nodded. “I’ll add the Matter of Alan to the research list, then. Dinner at the Xanadu? You can bring Betty, if you like,” he went on, with a wave. “She’s lovely company.”
And off he went, once again mistaking my sudden panic attack for something a lot more fluffy. The worst part? The wronger Lucas was, the safer he’d be. He’d even thank me for keeping him in the dark, assuming he survived the heart attack that would come from that particular big reveal.
I shook off my worry and got to my feet. It was time to hit more beaches. Hopefully this one wouldn’t try to swing back.
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