Sorry about it being today! The event last week messed my entire system up. Anyway, here it is.
Category: Books
In the Mail: Government by Assassination.
This is the Kindle version of GOVERNMENT BY ASSASSINATION, but I wanted a print copy, too. It’s just easier to bookmark a passage in print than it is online, and I suspect that I’m going to need to do a lot of sticky notes. Besides, I got my print copy remarkably cheaply. Guess the bookseller didn’t know he could have sold it for twice the price.
#commissionearned
Looks like Halfway to Halloween is back on the menu.
Thanks to a series of complicated events that are not immediately relevant to this discussion, I am actually going to be free on May 25th to do Halfway to Halloween. One-day affair, fairly local, FrightReads has always been a good earner for me. I am looking forward to it.
PS: If you can’t wait, buy my books here!
Buy my books! …Yup, the direct approach.
April has been the cruelest month, when it comes to sales. I make no secret of it – but my books are good, and I make no secret of that, either. Fantasy, horror, science fiction – I try to do it all, and sales are not the least significant way that I get enough cash to keep doing it. Tell your friends! Heck, tell your enemies, if they like good books and have money. I’m not shy.
#commissionearned
04/17/2024 Snippet, FLIM-FLAM MAN.
Guards! Guards!
The guard squinted at his amulet. “That’s a pretty little thing,” he mentioned, not even remotely casually. “God-touched?”
“Not that I know of, watchman,” Gregor replied immediately, trying not to wince at how this conversation was likely to end. “It is but a keepsake of my travels through these fair lands of ours. If it has powers or virtues, they are unknown to me. I say this for all to hear.”
Sometimes hinting that a valuable item might be cursed if stolen kept people from stealing. From the way the first guard laughed, this wasn’t one of those times. “Well, Traveler,” he snickered, “it’ll have one virtue; letting you in. Wall tax, you understand.”
“I do,” Gregor agreed, unfastening the clasp. Easy come, easy go, he thought, letting a little mournfulness show at the sight of a week’s rations and lodging being placed in the guard’s grubby hand. “Is there a token I might show to prove that I have paid my tax?”
“Sure,” the guard snickered again. “You won’t have my foot up your arse as you walk down the street. Now get! You’re holding up the line.”
Thinking about NaNoWriMo…
…Got two choices: I could finish that fantasy Western I started last year, or I could do that alternate history pulp detective story I’ve been thinking about doing. Although obviously the next novel after this one is going to have to be BANSHEE BEACH. Still up in the air about what book to work on after that, though. Thoughts?
04/15/2024 Snippet, FLIM-FLAM MAN.
Back to it!
Gregor looked at the amulet again. It was golden – no, it was gold. He could barely make out on its central disc the outlines of a budding tree, just like from the altar, which made sense. What he wasn’t feeling was any kind of power. God-items had a greasy feel to them, no matter the god. Besides, if you got close enough to one, you could feel its regard. The priests all said that the gods were always watching through their special items, and Gregor had been an onlooker to enough bad experiences to half-believe it.
There was nothing like that here. The gold was warm to the touch, but there was no queasiness, or half-tangible reek of curdled regard. He breathed in. No smell at all, in fact. Certainly there wasn’t anything godly to block out the simple fragrance of sun and wind, filtered through the leaves of a living forest. Maybe it’s not god-touched, he thought. Or it once was, and when the god died, nothing was left behind. That thought was oddly sad, but Gregor shrugged it off. Dead gods weren’t his problem. Making a living was.
He looked over at the pile of books he had pulled from the temple. On quick glance they looked like scriptures and hymns, which is why he had grabbed them. Gods never minded if you walked off with those. Gregor thought that they’d be worth reselling, since they were in the Old Speech and thus snooty, but now he had another idea. One that might prove more than a little profitable.
Just paid the invoice for Savage Fest.
Guess it’s official-official: I’ll be vending at Savage Fest this June 1st. As I’ve noted earlier, Savage is the name of the town, not a description of the venue. This part of the state used to be a factory town, you see. After that, it’s two weeks to Stellar Con in York, PA, which should be fun. Still looking for July venues, though…
Moe Lane
PS: Buy my books! And my RPG supplement (singular, for now)!
Book of the Week: Murder at the War.
I haven’t thought of Mary Monica Pulver’s Murder at the War in a good, long while. This straight-up murder mystery is set in Pennsic before it was Pennsic, sort of: Cooper’s Lake wasn’t the first place we held that event. Certainly this book is set before the event became PENNSIC, a sprawling two-week behemoth that helps define the SCA.
I do remember being shocked at Pennsic 21 (my first) that, wow, there are authors here! That this was allowed! It left an impression.
04/10/2024 Snippet, FLIM-FLAM MAN.
It wasn’t even his fault!
Things had been going well, up to then. The shrine didn’t have any weapons besides the staves, but it did have a spool of fishing line. More Great Realm stuff, dwarf-made and good for snares, too. Once he’d gotten far enough away from the hole in the ground, the animals had started coming back, only they weren’t used to humans. He’d been able to snag a couple of squirrels for his breakfast, which was very good news.
Staves, spare clothes (that could be sold), fishing line, bits of traveling gear — if you didn’t mind not having any food, or any local animals within half a day’s walk, that hole in the ground had been a great place to find. If only he hadn’t somehow taken an amulet along for the ride! That was a god-item, and everybody knew the gods were unreasonable about having their personal things taken. Often terminally so.
Only, nothing was happening.