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Banshee Beach (Tom Vargas Mysteries #3)

Created by Flying Koala Publishers

Beach Blanket Bingo meets monsters and mayhem in the latest novel in the post-apocalyptic, high urban fantasy, pulp detective Tom Vargas series! Action! Magic! Surfing!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Five days before we start!
about 1 month ago – Sat, Sep 05, 2026 at 03:05:26 PM



If you need to get caught up on my books, I recommend going to my Linktree, and start grabbing stuff there. Plenty of stuff to grab, too. Do check out things like the roleplaying games, too. There's lore in there.

We will be doing a launch party the day of, by the way. I'm not sure how it all works, but people insist that it does work, and I respect expert opinions when they're from legitimate experts. I do suspect that my audience model is somewhat different than Backerkit's standard one, because some of the things they treat as being very hard are... not, and some of the things that they consider almost trivial to accomplish are... not, as well.

Note that I'm not complaining! My audience is very, very good to me. I'm still trying to get as many people to follow and do reservations as possible, though. There are rewards for both.

See you on Thursday!

Moe Lane

PS: Don't forget my cross-collaboration partner Sherlock Holmes: Mistletoe Mysteries! 

More on our cross-collaboration partner! And more on incentives! And some poetry!
about 2 months ago – Sun, Aug 30, 2026 at 08:16:07 AM

 (Click this link to follow and make a reservation for the BANSHEE BEACH Backerkit!) 

As I mentioned earlier, we're partnering with Belanger Books* for Printopia. His project is SHERLOCK HOLMES: MISTLETOE MYSTERIES, which will (obviously) be a set of Christmas-themed Sherlockian stories. Conveniently, this is a project I would be backing anyway, so I can happily encourage all of you to follow that project, as well as this one. For our special cross-collaboration project, we'll be each providing an e-book of one of our novels to people who back both projects (mine will be FROZEN DREAMS, the first book in the series). Belanger Books is also currently giving away four Sherlockian e-books in memory of pulp fiction author Will Murray (co-creator of Squirrel Girl), who passed away earlier this month.  See here for further details.

Moving on, this is the current state of incentives and whatnot for the Banshee Beach Backerkit:

  • All of my pay tier Patrons on Patreon get a discount on the Ripper pledge level (higher levels are not affected, but get the relevant awards anyway). Link will appear after the project starts.
  • Returning backers will get a PDF advance copy of the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Companion. This consists of all the tabletop RPG material for that setting that I’ve done since publishing the Fermi Resolution Worldbook. If you don’t play roleplaying games, it still has tons of lore and worldbuilding (and spoilers)!
  • Anyone who makes a pre-launch reservation will get a free collection of poetry written in the Fermi Resolution universe! Filks! Heroic verse! Actual rhyme and meter!
  • Anyone who follows the Backerkit before launch (or backs in the first 48 hours) will get an E-ARC (Electronic Advanced Reader’s Copy) of my upcoming Fermi Resolution novel Lunatic’s Hope. That book is at the editor’s, even as we speak. 

Finally: if you want an idea of what the pre-launch reservation poetry is going to look like, I've included the beginning of a saga that I have commissioned from my local Anglo-Saxon verse expert. ...Yes, I did marry most exceedingly well. Thanks for noticing! Anyway, you need to follow to be able to see it. Such is life.

It all starts in eleven days!

Moe Lane

*Derrick Belanger, BSI ("The Board Schools"), PSI ("Albert, the Dove") is an award-winning author, publisher, and educator most noted for his books and lectures on Sherlock Holmes and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Derrick is co-owner of the publishing company Belanger Books, which published the first eBook editions of the original Solar Pons books by August Derleth.  Derrick's work has been published in The Baker Street Journal, The Sherlock Holmes Journal, The Strand Magazine, and in The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year (2023). Derrick is a board member of Dr. Watson’s Neglected Patients, the Denver-based Scion Society.  In January 2020, Mr. Belanger was awarded the Susan Z. Diamond Award in recognition of outstanding efforts to introduce young people to Sherlock Holmes, and in 2024, he won the Arthur Conan Doyle Society Doylean award in fiction for his short story, "The Joyce-Armstrong Confession".  Derrick currently resides in Broomfield, Colorado.  Find him at <www.belangerbooks.com>.

Introducing our Cross-Collaborator: Sherlock Holmes: Mistletoe Mysteries!
about 2 months ago – Tue, Aug 25, 2026 at 07:14:41 PM

Belanger Books (Sherlock Holmes: Mistletoe Mysteries) has agreed to cross-collaborate with us!

"Sherlock Holmes: Mistletoe Mysteries is a collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories to be read over the holiday season (i.e. from December 1st to December 26th). Each story has Sherlock Holmes solve a mystery with another great detective!"

...Which is cool, because this was one of the projects I was interested in. I'm not an expert Sherlockian, but I've read all the original stories and a ton of pastiche, alternate, and cross-genre Holmes stories. Mistletoe Mysteries looks like it'll be a lot of fun.

We're still working out a cross-collaboration reward. Keep watching this space! Oh, and be sure to follow Sherlock Holmes: Mistletoe Mysteries. I have, and I did it days ago.

PS: Amusingly, this is for-real the beginning of BANSHEE BEACH:



Doing a poll on videos!
about 2 months ago – Sun, Aug 23, 2026 at 07:28:11 PM

Mostly a survey on whether people think videos actually make a difference in crowdfunding. I know Backerkit (and Kickstarter) swear by them, and I know these companies know what they're talking about, so I plan to make one this week anyway. I just want to know why they work.

Also: I just need four more followers to beat my previous record. Tell all your friends!

Just a quick announcement on Returning Backers.
2 months ago – Sun, Aug 16, 2026 at 02:06:36 PM

We're plugging away on the Backerkit, and I've just decided on fixing the incentive for folks who have backed one of my crowdfunding projects before. Now, returning backers will get a PDF advance copy of the Fermi Resolution Worldbook Companion. This consists of all the tabletop RPG material for that setting that I've done since publishing the Fermi Resolution Worldbook. If you don't play roleplaying games, it still has tons of lore and worldbuilding (and spoilers)!

Check it out!