Moe Lane's Blog, page 868

TENET is doing well, apparently.

Well… TENET is doing well for the situation. My part of the country continues to have no movie theaters operating, and I can’t drive down to NoVa to see a film. At least, not while the school year is going on, since I’m locked into place here over that, too.

If I seem… irritable, from time to time, it’s because this entire situation exasperates me. Not least because apparently I’m supposed to be on the ragged edge of madness, which is not happening, and won’t be happening any time soon. But it’s easier to be publicly on the edge of a dramatic, nervous breakdown than to be publicly getting tired of all of this [expletive deleted]…

09/13/2020 Snippet, THE THING IN MY HIP FLASK.

Using my utter ignorance of organic chemistry to my best advantage!

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…the formula, when followed, created a non-toxic solid catalyst that could be suspended in the spirits and accrete the pollutants. Fifteen minutes was typically all that was needed to ‘purify’ a five gallon carboy; and while the result was still effectively raw moonshine, it was easily good enough to please our extra-legal suppliers. Indeed, they proved to be our first real customers; apparently the illegal liquor of this region had an ugly reputation, among those who cared about such things. Guaranteed clean and local stock found ready buyers.

David was more than happy with the entire arrangement, as soon as he worked out a method where he could make his student loan balances shrink in a regular and discreet fashion; and eventually I decided to emulate his blissful ignorance. I was aware that conventional chemistry did not work like this, after all. In fact, I spent an entire weekend trying to figure out how any of this could be, and only stopped experimenting when I noticed a recurring spasm in my hands that had not been there before.

This was, I concluded, a hint of sorts. I told myself how there was no need to strain my mind trying to make sense of everything, especially since all David and I had to do was black box the whole thing. Liquor goes in, catalyst goes in, catalyst comes out, improved liquor remains: when put that way, it seemed all very mechanical and even explicable, in its way. As long as you didn’t let yourself think about how the process worked; or why, since it worked, nobody was doing it anywhere else.

09/13/2020 Update, DUTIES Project.

13,140/32,000 Words.

Worked on: The Fight in the Grove

DUTIES is going to be four previously published stories: “Processing Duty,” “The Fight In the Grove,” “Frogman Prince,” and (my personal favorite) “Meatbags.” I was originally going to type “published on Patreon,” but since all the magazines out there insist on treating them as bloody reprints they can damn well not be hyphenated-published stories. Fair’s fair.

A bit of a taste:

In the beginning, there was the Earth. He fell in love with the Sky, and She with Him, and from their union She began to birth the rain. From the rain came all the living things of the world, including the trees — and Those Who Speak. The dryads and others who hold that title do so because they speak for the trees. Oh, and all other creatures that cannot speak on their own; but mostly the trees.

Alas, not all trees are good trees. Once upon a time, some trees had roots that drank too deep, in the wrong soils, and brought up into the air and light that which should have remained dark and deep. Are these abominations malicious enemies of Earth-Father and the Sky Lady, or merely mindless opposites to the Gods? I do not know.

I do know that when wood and plant encounters this corruption it is perverted into an evil mockery of itself which seeks only to grow and dominate, until only it remains. This was the first bittersap, and it twisted many a forest until Those Who Speak learned how its filth could be purged.

Patreon Microfiction: Don’t Fiddle With It.

100WS-Don’t Fiddle With ItDownload

Yes, ‘Don’t Fiddle With It’ is slightly banal. It’s supposed to be. The banal is ultimately the point.

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‘Too Much Time on My Hands.’

Too Much on My Hands, Styx

I’ll take ‘Too Much Time and Matches On Their Hands” for $300, Alex.

Via GeekTyrant. …Well, that’s one way to make it through quarantine.

Book of the Week: Dislocated to Success.

The premise of Iain Bowen’s Dislocated to Success is fairly straightforward, as ‘Islands in the Sea of Time’-type stories go*: what would happen if Maggie Thatcher’s UK was sent back in time to 1730? Answer: the British would end up having a fine time of it. It’s a fun read, not least because the author is quite sound on Maggie. As is only fitting.

*This is, indeed, a genre.

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh…

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh:

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh, Sandy Petersen…

Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn! IA! IA! IA!

And So It Begins: Tom Vargas #2.

I don’t even remotely have a title for this one, yet. It’s also not being actively worked on, every day, and won’t be until November. And, obviously, it’s not going to be on the publication rotation until at least three projects from now. But… I have a plot, and at least I’ve got a start.

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I get a lot of people knocking on my door. I don’t always want to hear their knock, either — but for Daisy I’m always gonna make an exception. It ain’t what you think: Daisy Fukunaga Araujo’s a grandmother and usually a cheerful one, although today she still looked a little sad. But better than she had at the funeral, at least.

Daisy did brighten a little as I hastily cleared off a seat, in the fine old tradition of a New Californian Shamus. I keep those papers around special, just for guests. Dunno why, but clients always like to think that we’re always up to our necks in Cases needing Clearing. Makes ‘em feel special when we take theirs anyway, I guess.

“What can I get for you, Daisy?” I said after she was situated. I keep a cabinet of various things that can be mixed with other things to create drinks; you never know what a client would want to drink. “I can put the water on the boilrock, if you’d like tea.”

She gave me a not-real-strong smile. “Thank you, Tom” — it’s always ‘Tom’ and ‘Daisy’ between the two of us, not ‘Shamus’ and ‘Artisan’ — “but I’d rather a whiskey, if you have one.”

That stopped me cold. Oh, not the whiskey itself; Daisy’s no teetotaler. But if we were starting with the hard stuff then I was already on a Case; and it wouldn’t be an easy one, either.

Not that it mattered, hard or soft. I mean, it’s Daisy.

‘Rattlin Bog.’

Rattlin Bog, Darby O’Gill

…If I could find it, I’d put it up. This one ain’t easy to track down.