Moe Lane's Blog, page 831
November 19, 2020
The last stretch for TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION!
We made it over the line for the six short story sampler stretch goal in the TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION Kickstarter, leaving us a mere $900 to hit the last stretch goal in the next :looking at clock: five hours. Easy as pie! No problem at all, I’m sure. More importantly (and realistically): I can afford Backerkit at this point, so we’ll be using it for fulfillment and whatnot.
It’s been a fun and educational trip, this Kickstarter. If you signed up for it, thank you. And we’ve still got the morning for you folks who didn’t to get onboard! Hey: Always Be Closing.
November 18, 2020
Tweet of the Day, If This Is True Then It’s Absolute Bullsh*ttery edition.
I think it’s true: but the problem is, it’s deep in Too Bad To Be True territory. The short version is, Alan Dean Foster did a press conference today with the SFWA about how he’s reportedly not getting paid royalties on books that Disney now prints (the Star Wars stuff, basically). According to them, the reason he isn’t getting paid is because Disney bought ‘the rights, but not the obligations.’ Which… makes no sense. If the contract says Foster gets paid royalties, he gets paid royalties.
If you are a writer it behooves you to stand with Alan Dean Foster against @Disney https://t.co/3VCwioGgIx
— Kenneth Hite (@kennethhite) November 19, 2020
And, yeah, I have a nasty, suspicious mind about Too Bad To Be True stories, too. Which is why I’m keeping an eye on this one. If it falls apart, we’ll know soon enough. But if it doesn’t… jeez. Basic contract law, people. Or, hell, basic PR. Pay the damn royalties.
Day 18, TINSEL RAIN NaNoWriMo: 37138/60000.
Today was almost a complete bye day – my youngest had to go to the dentist to get some baby teeth taken out, and that more or less torpedoed my schedule – but I did manage to get enough of my brain together to write some fight scene. Fortunately, I have a buffer, so I’m still ahead of my target number! Unfortunately, I now need to rebuild the buffer before Thanksgiving! Ach, well.
Patreon!‘That’ was a rattling doohickey — I’m sure it had one of those weird alchemical names like The Refining Pickle of Antimony or whatever, but ‘doohickey’ works — and from the way people were reacting it wasn’t supposed to be doing that. Or graduating from rattling to hopping on the table like a jumping bean. But people didn’t start clearing the space until the doohickey started puffing out purple smoke. Even I knew that was a bad sign.
One interesting thing about alchemists: they’re real good at diving for cover. Teresa and I didn’t have anybody in our way as we ran towards the doohickey, which made for a nice change. Normally there’s this one guy who wants to get right up and babble something or other until he gets shoved out of the line of alchemy, but this time we had a free path. Happy day!
Yeah, yeah, if I didn’t want to give messed up doohickeys the chance to blow up in my face, I could always run the other way. I can’t, though. That’s not how it’s done. Something bad might happen, and none of these people it might happen to had it coming, probably. Or if they did, I hadn’t heard about it yet, which is pretty much the same thing. I can carp about it all I want, and I do, but I’d better be going into trouble while I’m flapping my gums.
That’s why I was heading towards the doohickey, at least. And Teresa? Eh. Adventurers. Just what it says on the can, right?
The Cyberpunk 2020 Humble Bundle.
Although Humble Bundle’s not quite calling it Cyberpunk 2020, mostly because it is 2020 and – contrary to popular opinion – things aren’t actually as bad here on planet Earth as was predicted. You get used to that real quick when you have an interest in dystopian fiction. Compared to what we were told things would be like, things are actually pretty good. And yeah, that’s even when you factor in the coronavirus.
Anyway: $15 gets you a lot of classic RPG material. Just in time for the actual video game RPG, too. Check it out!
24 hours and counting on the TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION Kickstarter!
Last day of the Kickstarter, and the last chance to get in on the ground floor of TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION! It’s been a learning experience and a half, and I’m glad to have had it. I’m also ready to get to the next step in the process. The goal is, after all, to publish.
Pfizer finishes Phase 3, reports Covid vaccine 95% effective.
A leading coronavirus vaccine candidate developed by Pfizer and BioNTech will be submitted for regulatory approval “within days,” the companies announced Wednesday, after their final analysis suggested the drug was even more effective than previously thought.
The U.S. pharma giant and its German partner said their Phase 3 trial was now complete and that it found the vaccine was 95 percent effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 — up from the 90 percent announced last week.
(Via Hot Air Headlines) That number represents over forty thousand adults in that stage. Side effects were remarkably mild: a small percentage reported fatigue or headaches. …I can live with either, thanks. Pzifer says it can get 50 million doses out by the end of the year and 1.3 billion in 2021; if Moderna’s vaccine (which needs only standard refrigeration) also works out, we’re in a good position to have the coronavirus suddenly slam into a brick wall. Which would a no-fooling good thing to have.
November 17, 2020
The “Wow, this looks engrossingly bad” IRON MASK trailer.
There’s just something about IRON MASK that’s fascinatingly awful. But, like, in a kind of good way? It has the potential to be one of the great goodbad films, if only because the CGI manages to look highly unrealistic while at the same time being polished to a fare-thee-well. It will suck, but it might be worth watching anyway. I just don’t know.
11/17/20 Update, TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION Kickstarter.
We made it past the $1000 mark (thanks to both old and new backers)! That means we’re up to five stories in the short story sampler, and with any luck we’ll hit six before the TALES FROM THE FERMI RESOLUTION Kickstarter ends. Which is excellent. There is still one $100 pledge level left for anybody who wants a character with their name in TINSEL RAIN; but time is, as they say, running out. The Kickstarter ends Thursday, after all.
