[NOW WITH A PRE-LAUNCH RESERVATION BONUS!] Tom Vargas goes to the beach in the latest novel in this post-apocalyptic high urban fantasy pulp detective series! Action! Magic! Surfing!
Note: if you make a pre-launch reservation, you will get a free collection of poetry written in the Fermi Resolution universe! Filks! Heroic verse! Actual rhyme and meter!
Welcome to the Banshee Beach Backerkit! Tom Vargas is back! And on vacation!
How it started.
If you're new here, Tom Vargas is the hero of my post-apocalyptic high urban fantasy pulp detective series (set in the world of the Fermi Resolution). As the above picture suggests, he lives in an an... interesting world. You can read the first two books in the series here if you just can't wait.
Latest from the Creator
Moe Lane
4 days ago
Thirty days to go!
The clock is ticking, and the project will be live in a month! I've put up a poll and a discussion topic; feel free to participate in both. Also feel free to pass the link around. The more followers I get before launch, the better.
I actually should ask this question more often. I mean, I like the series because it's got scope for me to tell all sorts of stories, as well as have fun with the settings. What about the rest of you?
(If you're new to this setting, links to my existing books can be found here.)
Since not everybody reading this may be familiar with my work, I thought I should put up this guide to it. Should be fully up to date. A Guide to my Stuff
First off: hi, I’m Moe Lane. I write fantasy, horror, and science fiction novels. I also do tabletop roleplaying games, or RPGs. I flatter myself that I’m good at them. Check out my Patreon if you want to give me money right away.
Novels:
Fermi Resolution (post-apocalyptic fantasy)
Conceit: in 2100 AD or so, humanity works out the laws of magic. Unfortunately, an idiot then downloads them to everybody’s cellphones, which promptly causes civilization to collapse. The series explores the results for the next nine centuries. Not grimdark!
Here are the books, in publication order:
Frozen Dreams: post-apocalyptic high urban fantasy pulp detective fiction. My first novel! Tom Vargas is a Shamus in Cin City, the tinsel capital of the magical kingdom of New California. He Clears the Cases nobody else can. In this one, he needs to figure out how to prove the murderer wasn’t the murderer. Lots of affectionate jokes about movies. Lots. Audiobook here!
Morgan Barod: sword and sorcery in the wilds of New Jersey. Our hero is Conanesque, in the original Howardian sense (he wears whatever armor he can find, and actually has a functioning brain). Lots of affectionate jokes about New Jersey.
Tinsel Rain: sequel to Frozen Dreams. Tom Vargas is back, and trying to solve a series of magical murders before they tear the city apart. More jokes about movies, and more of a mystery, too. Audiobook coming!
The next book - Lunatic's Hope - is at the editors. It's based off of my science fiction cosmic horror stories set on the Moon that accompanied many of my Kickstarters, now finished and turned into a novel. $10/month subscribers can read the pre-Alpha draft here.
The next next book - Banshee Beach, a Tom Vargas on vacation novel - is going to be in Backerkit's Printopia this September, obviously! It wasn't going to be this early, but Backerkit reached out, and getting it into that particular ecosystem was too good a chance to pass up. Don't forget to do a pre-launch reservation to get all that poetry!
Unfiltered (Science Fiction Cosmic Horror)
Conceit: we finally discover FTL travel, to discover that something murdered Galactic civilization in the Eighteenth century AD. We don’t know who did it, how they did it, why they did it, why they didn’t do it to us (because they knew we were there), and whether they’re ever coming back. Earth is gingerly trying to study the Tomb Worlds, even so. Terrifying corpse-planets or not, the technology is too enticing to ignore. Decidedly grimdark.
Here is the first book (an anthology is taking form):
Ghosts on an Alien Wind: a Cthulhu Mythos novel where the phrase ‘Cthulhu Mythos’ is nowhere to be found. Pam Tanaka is a pilot on a world everybody except her finds disquieting. When things start to go wrong, she is faced with a mystery that could end in her entire colony destroyed. It’s happened before. It’s probably happening somewhere else at that very moment, too.
Chapbooks: for these I take four of my stories from Patreon, pay an artist to draw pictures based on them, and then sell them. I like the intimacy of them.
Anagnorisis: four spooky stories. Illustrated by my mom!
Decisions: a mixed bag, from Cthulhu Mythos to something that started out that way.
Duties: a variety of stories, ranging from science fiction to straight-up fantasy.
Covenants: more spooky stories, including one from Unfiltered and a reverse Cthulhu Mythos tale.
Consequences: four more stories, different genres all around. Tales of ramifications!
Anthologia Licentiae Moeticae, Volume 1: a collection of my microfiction and curated longer short-short stories and TTRPG adventure hooks from Patreon, from 2015 to 2017. First in a series!
Table-top RPGS:
Sourcebooks
Fermi Resolution Worldbook: Post-apocalyptic fantasy roleplaying, in the world of the Fermi Resolution. This is my first published worldbook. Available on DriveThruRPG, in both print and PDF form. Uses the GUMSHOE rules.
Unfiltered: science fiction cosmic horror roleplaying, in the world of Unfiltered. Not yet organized into a worldbook, but much is available on my Patreon.
Splatbooks
I’ve put together a bunch of PDFs, based on stuff from my website. Kind of a mixed bag of stuff:
As the Golden Emperor Lies Dying: an alt-history King in Yellow cosmic horror setting featuring Emperor Norton! Note that it is decidedly and even gleefully grim.
Midmonth of July, and everything is going smoothly.
My plan for the next couple of weeks is to create a video for the Banshee Beach Backerkit, which is the last major thing that needs to be done before the project drops on September 10th (as part of Printopia 2026). I'll be requesting a review for the project after that, which will hopefully go very smoothly. It won't go perfectly on the first try, because Backerkit itself takes these projects very seriously, and they go over everything with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. Which personally I find fairly reassuring.
I really need to write a story about this.
I've included below for followers of the project a recent microfiction from my Patreon: From “Tom Vargas and the Case of The Bear With a Hat.”Three guesses what it is about! But please do follow, if you haven't yet. Every little bit helps in the pre-launch period.
Two months to go! And adding Ghosts on an Alien Wind to Add-ons!
Huzzah!
Everybody is going through some stuff there.
Ghosts on an Alien Wind is my first non-Fermi Resolution novel - oh, yes, I plan to write others - and it's pretty much creepy cosmic horror science fiction:
Something murdered the Galaxy. There was no warning, no explanation, and no mercy... except for humanity. Humans were the only sapients spared, and nobody knows why. Now Earth and her colonies gingerly explore the Tomb Worlds, picking through the ruins of dead civilizations for answers, or at least treasures. The researchers sent out can bring back wonders. If they survive.
Pamela Tanaka is the Chief Pilot for a research outpost on the terrifyingly comfortable world of One-Eighteen, and she is precisely where she wants to be. But when madness, murder, and mass sacrifice profane her chosen home, she must search for answers on her own - but not "before it's too late." Everybody who goes to the Tomb Worlds knows 'too late' has already come and gone.
Click the link abover (or here) to grab the Kindle, if you can't wait - but it'll be available as a physical add-on in the Backerkit. US shipping only, alas.
In other news: two months to go! And things are moving along. Looking forward to the Backerkit; and if you haven't followed the project yet, please do so!
