02/05/2023 Snippet, VERDICT OF HISTORY.

Setting up an attack run!

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Razor-Claw Singh would never admit it to anyone, but he liked how spells couldn’t dig into him. Oh, it sucked when it came to healing potions and shit like that, but that was only sometimes. The rest of the time, it was like having weightless armor that nobody could see, steal, or strip off him. He had spent years fighting a doomed war against the Universal Dominion; he’d take what breaks he could get.

That got him through the first line of defenses around this Festering Lacewing (second, if you counted all those fucking brain-dead guards that used to be wandering around). It was supposed to only get harder from there, because next would be getting through Lacewing’s lackeys. Three solid mages, Firebrand had told him. Not Archmages, but they’ll kill you if they see you. And if you somehow kill one of them, the other two will know, and come running.

That was funny: Firebrand thought Razor-Claw was going to sneak past, or something. Like he’d leave anybody around to come after him afterward! Being told about the no-killing thing was good, though. He hadn’t planned on murdering any of them, but it never hurt to have a good reason for doing the thing you wanted to do anyway.

The Tolkien Fandom Oral History Collection is looking for interviewees.

Via Facebook comes this interesting project from Marquette University:

An ongoing effort to document Tolkien Fandom, this collection consists of brief (up to 3-minute) interviews from fans of English author J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973), responding to three general questions: When did you first encounter the works of J. R. R. Tolkien? Why are you a fan? What has he meant to you?

I grabbed a Wednesday slot.

Patreon Microfiction: Practical Physics.

100WS-Practical PhysicsDownload

Although… don’t we have something like what’s going on in ‘Practical Physics’? That entire situation where quantum mechanics and general relativity are inconsistent with each other in some places, but you can use either theory to do things. Or something like that. I just write books.

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02/04/2023 Snippet, VERDICT OF HISTORY.

This might be important, later. Like, years later.

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Razor-Claw knew how to get somebody off of a restraint frame. There was a trick to physically breaking the control spells you could learn, if you had enough time, and bodies to practice on. By now he could do it quick, and safe — safe to him, at least. The other guy? Well, they could usually tough it out. This fucker toughed it out. In fact, he recovered almost before Razor-Claw could slap a hand over his mouth.

Almost. “Shut the fuck up, and listen,” Razor-Claw hissed. “You got one chance to get the Hell out of here. I ain’t got no food, no water, no bandages, and I ain’t gonna help you find any of that shit, neither. I don’t even want to ever see your fucking face again. This is all you’re gonna get from me. You hear?”

The guy nodded. Razor-Claw gave back a tight grin. “Good. I’m gonna take my hand away. You try anything dumb, I’ll kill you.”

He wasn’t entirely sure about that — this fucker looked like he had been a hardcase before the Dominion bagged him — but the guy didn’t do anything dumb.

So, apparently THE AMAZING MAURICE isn’t *bad*.

THE AMAZING MAURICE has decent-to-good critic and audience ratings, in fact. Which seems to be the problem; the general consensus seems to be that the movie’s… all right. No need to rush out and see it, but it’s not a waste of money. You won’t throw things at the screen at what they did to Pratchett’s story.

It’s not quite ‘damning with faint praise,’ though. ‘A stretch in Purgatory to head off possible concerns raised in the last evaluation report,’ maybe? Although admittedly that doesn’t even remotely scan.