My Own Private Reset . . . .

 And . . . I’m back!

Sometimes—as we all know—things don’t go as planned, this blog, for example. Until serious health issues happened, I had a lot of big plans . . . I still do but there’s a lot of catching up to do. Like my series of articles about the TV series produced in the 1970s; with Hallowe’en over 80-plus days away, expect some paranormal-themed articles and a look at the first cinematic universe, the Universal horror films. I’ll also write about paranormal podcasts I’ve been following on YouTube—there a lot of problematic even outright offensive and bad podcasts and a few good ones.

There are a lot of major genre news too. The first four episodes of Stranger Things’ fifth and final season drops on Wednesday, 26 November; the second set of episodes will hit Netflix on Xmas Eve and the last feature-length episode debuts on New Year's Eve.

December will also see Fallout’s second series dropping on Amazon Prime—now date hasn’t been released yet. This season, we’ll find Lucy, the Ghoul (aka Cooper Howard), Dogmeat and Brotherhood of Steel Knight Maximus in the quasi-civilized New Vegas. According to production photos, the New Vegas sets look great and we’ve seen NCR troopers and Rangers, salvaged NCR powered armor, Securitron robots, Deathclaws and Caesar’s Legion. In interviews, the cast have said “a lot of wild shit” happens and I’m looking to see how both character arcs and their dynamics will change.

I’m hoping all the episodes will drop at once—it worked well last season and I think they will repeat the same strategy.

So.

Will we see Felicia Day as BoS scribe, Veronica and Danny Trejo as Ghoul gunslinger, Raul Tejada? In the game, Wayne Newton voiced the AI called Mr. New Vegas and will he do it again? Actor Michael Hogan played Doc Mitchell but Hogan’s had debilitating health problems and, sadly, Matthew Perry passed a few years back—no Benny, not even flashbacks unless the character is recast. MAGAt bootlicker and actor Zacharay Levi’s Arcade Gannon might be re-casted . . . by Macaulay Culkin. I’m fine with it.

Well, that’s it for now.

I hope you all will be checking out the website and I’m looking forward to your comments.

Be seeing you!

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Part 2 Fallout 4 -- Smith's Run: A Scavenger Hunt

This is the second chapter of my Fallout 4 playthrough Smith's Run.

The Mean Machine bus unleashes fire-and-brimstone hell during a late-night attack. Then, it's off on onto a scavenger hunt to the Glowing Sea. If you download the Deus Ex Adam Jenson armor mod, I show you how to find it.

A lot of Cybermen and feral ghouls die. Deservedly so, I believe. They started it, after all.

I unalive myself too.

Deservedly so, some have said.

Be seeing you.

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A Planet Called Vulcan.

According to some sources, in the 18th Century, astronomers hypothesized that there was a planet located between the Sun and Mercury, some calling it Vulcan.

Eventually, the scientific community came to the realization that Vulcan never existed.

But, well, what if it did?

From Night Zero:

Gustav Holst’s The Planets' nine movement suite started playing as I laid in bed, reading the dataflexi; I’d arranged each movement to follow each planet’s orbital path around Sol: “Vulcan, Bringer of Fire,” “Mercury, the Winged Messenger,” “Venus, the Bringer of Peace,” “Mars, the Bringer of War,” “Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity,” “Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age,” “Uranus, the Magician,” “Neptune, the Mystic” and “Pluto, the Bringer of Wealth.” Holst had lived long enough to see Pluto discovered and eventually added the new movement; however, Eris wasn’t known until its discovery in 1981. Mars was my favorite; the Pluto movement, with its eerily haunting choral arrangement, was also outstanding and ranked second among my favorites.

Of course, nothing was ever composed for Tellus, Earth’s co-orbital twin.

The Zedverse: It’s Zed’s world—and we just live in it.

 Hello there.

Welcome to the Cortex Online. This is my website for the Zedverse stories—plus my opinions, views and everything else I want to post. Yes, I’ve tried the Midnight Eye blog before . . . but it went nowhere. I’ve imported old posts that I wanted to keep but having a new website just feels good. A fresh start. One caveat: This website/blog is a work in progress, it’s in a constant state of flux. Various sections will be updated often.

Night Zero is the first novel in the Zedverse series; it’s split into a number of intertwined novellas and novelettes that’ll introduce the protagonist, Zed, and a late 2090s Earth that has a slightly different history—in fact, even the star system is different from ours. The first chapter, “My Echo, My Shadow . . . And Me,” is currently being written.

I plan on releasing the novella as both a paperback edition and an eBook via Amazon KDP. Yes, I’ve been dismissive of self-publishing in the past; I mean, I was something of a sneering rat bastard about the whole concept until noticing that a lot of my favorite writers are turning to self-publishing. Traditional publishing is a nightmare to deal with if you don’t have an agent. The independents are somewhat unstable, at times imploding and leaving writers in the lurch, their unpublished novels in a copyright quagmire. It’s a nightmare.

So, Amazon KDP it is.

What’s the Zedverse and Night Zero about?

Well. Let’s see:

The Zedverse has both cyberpunk and transhuman themes—there are dystopian and near-utopian elements in the stories. Pluto is still a planet and a small, rocky slag heap of a planet named Vulcan is located between the Sun and Mercury; all of the terrestrial planets and large moons have been terraformed—including Venus’ moon, Ishtar. And, from time to time, ancient ruins left behind by alien civilizations have been discovered.

Planets, moons and asteroids have been colonized, even a small number of comets. Orbital habs and drifts—similar to orbital habs but drifting in interplanetary space—are scattered about the Sol star system. Chimpanzees, orangutans, gorillas, mandrills, octopi, dolphins and even orcas have been gengineered to have human-level intelligence; some live in independent city-states and others live alongside humans.

Cthulhu Mythos exists. The Shaver Mystery is real.

Oh, there’s oh so much more.

But that’s a story for another day.

Until next time.

Be seeing you.

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