Moe Lane's Blog, page 88

Book of the Week: Theft Of Fire.

What can I say? Devon Eriksen’s Theft of Fire is indirectly responsible for what has been the best month of sales since I started putting stuff up on Amazon. It would look weird if I didn’t note that here.

Hopefully the people who bought mine will try out the rest of my catalog…

#commissionearned

Caught an episode of YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN.

It’s not bad! Peter’s a freshman in this one, we’ve already had the Uncle Ben death thing happen offscreen and in the past, and there’s no MJ (at least, not so far). Total wisecracking Spider-Man, and the low-tech suit is fun. I’m going to tentatively score YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN as being worth me checking out at least the second episode.

Light posting for the rest of the weekend.

Nothing bad, but while I’m a lot better the combination of that and a bunch of stuff going on in real time is screwing with my schedule. Sorry, I know everything’s been erratic around here since the start of the new year. Not intentional.

Tweet of the Day, Is There An Online Poll? edition.

On the one hand, I’m in. On the other hand, probably I shouldn’t be in, since I’m not actually an Anglican.

Name him Bishy McBishopface https://t.co/dnVWccYsVT

— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) February 8, 2025

And on the gripping hand? …Well, neither will be the next Archbishop of Canterbury.

‘Lawyers, Guns and Money.’

Lawyers, Guns, and Money, Warren Zevon

#commissionearned

Milken Forts, Part 1.

Something I’m working on for my Backerkit. Still in progress.

Milken Forts

The Old Americans built their roads to last, using advanced concrete and ceramics far beyond the ability of modern engineers to reproduce in bulk, or to even repair without magic. Centuries of disuse and the steady assault of nature has crumbled most of them away anyway, but a remarkable number of overpasses survived in a state of half-collapse. In a world without reliable access to mundane explosives, they’ll survive a good deal longer.

It didn’t take very long for people to take advantage of this. Modern roads tend to follow the paths laid out by the ancient ones, which meant that intersections retained a strategic importance. An Old American overpass is halfway to being a fortress to begin with: the first crude proto-forts simply enclosed the sides, and put a sentry post on top. Later generations got more creative.

‘The Daughter of Doctor Moreau’ being adapted for TV.

Ooh, interesting: “Debra Moore Muñoz  (Mayans M.C., DMZ) is developing Silvia Moreno-Garcia ’s 2022 novel The Daughter of Doctor Moreau for television from UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, Atomic Monster and Telemundo Studios.” I would have preferred Mexican Gothic, or maybe some of her vampire or Mythos stuff, but this looks like it could be fun. I have The Daughter of Doctor Moreau on my TBR pile, too. I guess this means I should move it to the Actually Am Reading pile…

(H/T: GeekTyrant)

#commissionearned

Less than a thousand dollars away from the next stretch goal!

We’re in day three of the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit, and we are doing very well. Well enough, in fact, that I need to start planning out maps and so forth for the first stretch goal, which is:

$2,500: An adventure! A rampaging wolf-man attacked a Second Republic caravan, and stole some supplies! Now he’s been tracked to the abandoned Old American city of Westhaven, where the air is still heavy with saltwater and rotting seaweed, and the sun struggles to shine. Your party doesn’t know yet if this is going to be a confrontation, or a rescue: either way, best to get there soon. Pretty or not, it’s just not safe to stay in Westhaven for too long, since the air is also heavy with evil First Age death magic. There may still be things in the murk that the first wave of exorcists missed. (Based on my short story “The Wolf-Man of Westhaven.”)

We also have two other achievements at the current time: one to encourage more backers, and one to encourage more people to share the project. Please share!

Tweet of the Day, Ehh, It’s Just Another Goram Spectacular Video Of Jupiter edition.

Larry Niven reference.

Europa and Io serenely sailing by with massive Jupiter as their background.

[ NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI/CICLOPS/Kevin M. Gill]pic.twitter.com/C4NJRDG1uz

— Massimo (@Rainmaker1973) February 5, 2025

Via @HeartbreakRidge.

I think I am *finally* almost better.

Which would be awesome, because I got deadlines. I’d say ‘Get the flu shot,’ except it didn’t seem to help my wife. Or maybe it was Covid after all. I just found out the current tests may have a few too many false negatives.

Anyway. Free icecream will resume soon.