Moe Lane's Blog, page 89

‘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.

The “I feel so bad for the people that I want them all to die” JURASSIC WORLD REBIRTH trailer.

Universal Studios. You utter sadists. You’re just torturing the characters in this IP at this point. You know that the humans in that universe are fundamentally incapable of dealing with dinosaurs in any way, shape, or form; and yet you continue to make them face situations that they cannot face. It’s like watching somebody give a toddler a Nerf sword, and then forcing them to fight a hungry Bengal Tiger.

The dinosaurs aren’t the monsters here, Universal Studios. You are. End this poor world’s suffering, once and for all. And then go and think about what you have done.

Don’t forget! The Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit Early Bird Special ends tomorrow morning!

So, hey, lemme talk about the things that I want to be excited about. We had a great first day with the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Backerkit: we backed by mid-afternoon, and we’re about halfway to a stretch goal that suddenly doesn’t seem quite so theoretical. The Early Bird special ends at 11 AM tomorrow, so if you want that discount on getting both the digital and the print version*, now is the time to back.

Also, and as I mentioned yesterday: we’re collaborating with the Lead & Chrome post-apocalyptic TTRPG project. Same genre, different take on it. I figure it’s gonna be a lot of fun. We’re hashing out a joint reward now.

I hope you can all back my Backerkit!

Moe Lane

*As a reminder, we’re fulfilling everything through DriveThruRPG. Specifically: OPTIONAL DISCOUNTED PRINT-ON-DEMAND VERSION – For this campaign, you will have the option of using DriveThru’s Print-On-Demand (POD) service to purchase a physical, printed copy of the worldbook included in your list of rewards directly from their POD partners at discounted cost. When the POD versions are available to order (sometime after the worldbook has gone to print), you will receive links to purchase these versions of the worldbook from DriveThru.” I’m not covering shipping for those. So, no signed copies – and no USA-only physical reward tiers, either. The add-ons are all America-only, but that’s how it goes.

Hopefully my last post regarding the SPFSC.

Look, I might as well stop pretending that this isn’t relevant to my readers.

There’s been more people withdrawing from the SPSFC, in light of the thing that happened. While I never actually wanted to get more book sales out of simply saying Please remove my book from consideration (it’s like being thanked for not spitting in the baptismal font), it happened – and I’m fortunate. I have an audience already. Heck: I knew I was almost certainly not passing the first checkpoint.

Some of these folks were under different circumstances. I also know that my regular readers here want this information. So here goes: the other people I know of who withdrew from the contest. Or, in Eriksen’s case, tossed. People thinking about buying one of my books should at least take a look through this list instead.

Devon Eriksen, Theft of Fire.Gregory Michael, Chloe’s Kingdom.G.S. Jennsen, The Thief: A Cosmic Shores Novel.C.R. Walton, Wilderness Five.Zachary Forbes, Slipspace: Terra Nullius.Steve Gavin, Cosmic Strife: Assault

…I really wish none of this had ever happened.

‘Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic.’

Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic, The Police

#commissionearned