Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

Home was her sanctuary — their sanctuary. It had been hers alone for so long that Joah could never have imagined sharing it. Then she’d met Zarshay and the naturalness of the sharing had been something she still found strange. It was beautiful, wonderful, amazing, but very, very strange. Their lives enlaced in many sweet ways, enhancing each aspect: work, leisure, friendship, sex.
“You know Heila has been for lunch with a guy from Undergrove Promotions?” Zarshay murmured.
It was so not the kind of topic Joah would have chosen for post-sex warmth and cuddles. She heaved a sigh and sat up, reaching for a throw-on wrap. “All right, if you want to talk about it now. I really don’t mind.”
She heard a snort of amusement from behind her on the bed.
“You are the very worst liar I know. You can’t act worth a thing.”
Warm arms embraced her and for a moment she considered giving in and lying back down again. But it felt wrong to be bringing the stress of day-to-day life into their bedroom.
“If we need to talk work,” she said, turning, “I’d rather do so with a strong drink in my hand.”
Zarshay grinned, her face suddenly that of the mischievous teen she had been when they met.
“Always,” she agreed.

They sat in the windowed alcove of the apartment, on a cushioned couch, taking in the glorious vista of graceful towers and the spans between them, small vehicles dipping like living creatures in the air between.
“Is it serious?” Joah asked.
“For Heila, everything is serious: everything is a melodrama and everything is always on the edge of catastrophe.”
It was, Joah thought, a pretty astute assessment.
“So, we may lose her?”
Zarshay wrinkled her nose in doubt.
“Maybe. But you can’t forget about the Dog factor. There is the huge Hengast and Heila thing all over social media. She loves that and—”
A soft buzz broke into their conversation. Joah looked at the unfamiliar contact details on her phone, then accepted it. It came from the upper floors, which meant it was unlikely to be any kind of time waster. She flashed the screen at Zarshay as she answered, and the other woman’s eyebrows rose.
“Joah Meer Productions, how can I help you?”
“You the people who make Starways Pathfinders? Good. I’m Dain Strand, a personal aide to Toros Strand, and I want to talk to you about a very special project we have in mind.”

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0101

Who is playing chess with Tess Monroe’s life?

Tess Monroe sat at the triple mirror that dominated her dressing room, slowly brushing her smooth, pale hair. She had often thought the greenish glass rather sneered at her, but it was the only thing her husband ever had of his mother so she put up with it.

When her hair was sufficiently tamed she spun it into a complex knot at the nape of her neck which she secured with a pair of emerald-headed hairpins. Shrugging into a fantastically embroidered brocade jacket she picked up her tiny weeny evening bag and walked to the head of the stairs.

The sound of running feet made her turn her head and crouch down to the level of her approaching son. He stopped very still and looked at her for a moment, then his pink lips formed a perfect ‘o’ of surprise.

“Mama,” he said reverently, “you look beautiful.”

“Why thank you, kind sir. Now come and kiss me goodnight because you will be fast asleep by the time I get home.”

He came closer and kissed her carefully. She touched his curly head and kissed a rosy cheek.

“Sleep well babbino caro.”

Philip junior, known as Pip, chuckled, and his teacher-stroke-bodyguard came forward to take one small hand in her own.

Tess straightened up and made her way downstairs to where a car awaited on the raked gravel outside. Her driver, Sylvia, jumped out to open the rear door. Tess smiled, understanding that she was supposed to sit in the back like a proper lady. As they pulled smoothly away, she settled quietly into her seat while the big car ate up the miles to her destination—a place she personally disliked. But she had been brought up to do her duty, however tedious.

This evening’s excursion was a rarity for Tess, as there are few social occasions that are improved by the presence of an extra woman. Tonight, though, the dignitaries of the county were entertaining representatives of a production company, which was filming some parts of a television series on the bleak shoulders of the moor, and she was summoned—no doubt to look pretty and keep her mouth shut.

The drive passed rather too quickly and at the entrance to the restaurant complex, a uniformed doorman leapt to attention. Her driver turned to smile.

“Drop me a text when you are ready to leave. I won’t be far away.”

“Thank you.”

Tess exited the car with the quiet grace she had perfected in her years as the wife of the man who had been touted as the next Prime Minister – until his life had been cut short in a motorway pileup two Christmas Eves ago. As soon as her feet hit the ground, a young man she vaguely recognised as a gofer for the local party chair bustled across. He made to take her by the arm, but she froze him with a glance. 

You can keep reading if you snag a copy of Queen to Black Knight, the new book from Jane Jago which is out today!

Nowadays lives are all lived most virtually
Virtual pictures with filters applied
Everyone now can be kept in a pixel
And our photo albums in small phones reside

I recall times that we lived in monochrome
Black and white telly, and black and white snaps
Black and white memories stare from the photographs
Black and white moments our lifetime maps

Back before then they all lived in sepia
Sepia pictures in sepia frames
Formally posed with hands in laps folded
Gazing from history, lost – without names

Further before that they lived life in oil paint
Brilliant colours that spring from the past
Glorious scenes of magnificent ancestors
Whose mighty deeds will our own deeds outlast.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Jim Connolly junior was a big, bouncing redhead of a baby, and seemed quite well aware of his status at the centre of the universe. Even his father would lean over the cradle when nobody was about and touch a huge finger to the baby’s soft cheek.
The family moved from the flat to a house with its own little garden when Baby Jim was a year old and Betty was already thickening with his brother or sister.
It was a hot, stuffy afternoon, a couple of weeks after the move and Betty was taking the kids to the park, via a visit to Donny’s mam. She turned the corner into the street where Donny’s family lived, and Mrs J came out of her house to see her granddaughter. She hugged the little girl and grinned at Betty.
‘I shouldn’t ought to say this,’ the old woman rasped in her tobacco-roughened voice, ‘but I reckon our Donny done you a favour when he got hisself squashed.’
Betty patted her arm. ‘Maybe so. But we miss him don’t we.’
Mrs J wiped a furtive tear. ‘Yes. The bugger was the apple of my eye. And he knew it. Thanks for letting me see little Donna, she’s all I have of him.’
‘Aye. I know that, and you’re all she has of him too.’
They didn’t stay much longer, as the coolness of the park beckoned. Betty sat on a convenient bench, while Donna clambered monkey-like about the tall climbing frame. Once she was sure the little girl was safely occupied, Betty let her mind wander a little – remembering how Donny’s mam had never had any time for her while he was alive, and the callous way the old woman had driven her from the mean little house she and Donny had shared right after he was killed. None of that had been unexpected, but when Mrs J had humbled her pride enough to come to the flat and beg to be allowed to see Donna that had been a surprise. It had never occurred to her to say no, and when the old woman had gone on her way she also remembered the warmth of Jim’s arm about her and how his approval had made her feel. He had kissed her on the top of her head and spoken in a slightly thickened voice.
‘You’re some kind of a girl, Betty. Did it never occur to you that you could have said no?’
She had looked up at him in some confusion. ‘Why’d I want to do that? It ain’t her fault she’s the way she is, and Donna’s her only grandbaby.’
The thumbs he rubbed across her cheekbones had felt like a blessing of sorts.
The next day he brought her flowers, yellow scented roses and oxeye daisies tied with a bow of yellow ribbon. If she concentrated she could still smell those roses.
But that was then, and now it was time to go home and water the garden before she cooked fish and chips for tea. She scooped up Donna and sat the tired little girl in the end of the pram, where she started up a soft-voiced babble of conversation with her baby brother. They were all but home when a pair of figures in a bus stop caught her eye. They seemed incongruous in this settled family area although she couldn’t at first figure out why. The woman fitted in fine, being young and very modestly dressed with her mouse-brown hair coiled in a neat bun and a blue linen hat to shield her from the afternoon sun. No. It was the man who was wrong. He had his back to her, but his pinstripe suit, patent leather shoes and fedora hat marked him as a wide boy to anyone with eyes to see. Then he turned around and her heart did strange things in her chest. It was Donny. He recognised her almost immediately and the smile that lifted one corner of his mouth took her back to the dancehall where they first met. He winked, and bent his head to the girl in the bus shelter.
As the girl lifted her hand Betty could see the gold of a wedding ring. She looked down at the band on her own left hand and that steadied her more than anything else could have. While Donny pitched his new love whatever tale he was weaving, Donna looked up at Betty and grinned.
‘Hungry Mum,’ she said.
And those simple words solidified something in Betty’s chest, showing her precisely what she needed to do. Donny Jackson had walked away from his life, his debts, his enemies, and his responsibilities. Now, if she wasn’t mistaken, he was thinking he could pick up where he left off. Only he couldn’t. His face might still be able to set her stomach aflutter, but she couldn’t forgive what he had done. Not only had he left her with nothing, he had also left his mother to mourn him as dead. Worst of all, though, there was Donna, and without Jim that little girl would have been going to bed hungry at least five nights out of seven.
Betty stiffened her spine and watched Donny come out of the bus shelter walking with his usual swagger. He walked towards her with his hands outstretched and she blanked him, willing her eyes to show no sign of recognition. She drew almost level with him and he opened his mouth to speak. Betty ran the wheels of the pram over his highly polished shoes and then kept on walking.

© jane jago

Okay let’s get this right out in the open before we begin. Whatever this heap of steaming ordure is it is NOT reality. It is no more real than the soap opera you won’t admit to watching. It’s contrived and packaged to get you to believe in it.

• What is real about putting a bunch of semi-famous people in the jungle and only feeding them beans? Although imagining the aroma is vaguely amusing.
• What is real about shoving a load of attention seekers in a house and force-feeding them booze? This is purely for those who want to watch cut-price porn.
• What is real about getting together a group of the nastiest human beings you can find and offering a job to the last one standing? It would be marginally less boring if they were actually allowed to kill each other.
• What is real about encouraging assorted no-hopers onto a stage and laughing at their lack of talent? This is mostly just so cruel that it can only be watched with beer goggles on.
• What is real about watching over-privileged tossers attempting to get laid? This just makes me wonder precisely how inbred the little bastards are.

I could go on…

And breathe, Gran, you are hyperventilating now. *lights a ciggy and decides that drinking Southern Comfort from the bottle is sometimes necessary*

Having reached the conclusion that it’s all pretty much shite there is one question hanging in the air. Why is it on night after night? Because this shite is popular, and people who begin their ‘careers’ on reality tv are becoming mainstream ‘stars’. Why? Are we so devoid of talent as to make a cult of being a bit dim?

Being genuinely goshswoggled by the amount of airtime devoted to this  regurgitation of humanity at its least appealing I took myself to the pub, where it was OAP luncheon day, had myself some dinner and conducted a straw poll.

What I discovered was beyond depressing. People who are really old enough to know better watch this dross for the following reasons:

• I like to get to understand people in real situations. (Where would that be then?)
• I really like the presenter. (Can one like an oleaginous bastard?)
• It’s an interesting social experiment. (See, even the middle classes get drawn in.)
• It’s lovely to see the children on it. (That’ll be the talent show element.)
• And finally (probably the only honest one). I watch for the tits.

To recap. Reality tv serves only one purpose – to bring forward even more people who are famous for being famous. Oh and maybe to fill the schedules cheaply.
There is only one reason for watching any of it and that’s the vain hope that somebody, somewhere, someday will up and twat one of the presenters…

You can now have a collection of Granny’s inimitable insights of your very own in Granny Knows Best.

Enticknapp was sitting among the cabbages considering his options. He knew he had been a bad puppy and he rather thought a spanking might be on the cards. 

Maybe he should just run away.

But if he ran away he would never see the small human again, and he loved her.

He cried a puppy tear and crept out of the cabbage patch to face his punishment.

Boss man spied him and bent to pick him up with gentle hands.

“Never mind, puppy,” he said. “It was my fault. I didn’t let you out when you woke up.”

Enticknapp smiled.

©️Jane Jago

Dear Reader Who Writes,

At risk of preaching to the converted, I must first take the time to be sure you are all acquainted with me. I am Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV and acclaimed author of the millionth best seller science fiction and fantasy novel, ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. As such I have been delving deep into my treasure trove of writing wisdom to bring a few of the more luminous gems of my experience to light.

It is true that young people today are not as they were. When I was a fuzzy-faced youth in my early twenties, awaiting the chance to shave for the first time, I would not have dreamed of behaving in the manner of my old-school chum’s son when he came to stay overnight the other week on the way to some foreign destination for a ‘Gap year’. He has just turned eighteen. Called Henry.

He swanned into the house and dropped his rucksack on my feet, gesturing imperiously upwards with one finger, no doubt to indicate that he expected me to take it upstairs for him. Then he caught sight of Mumsie, spreadeagled over the sofa as is her wont. His eyes widened and I heard him say: “Em. Eye. Elle. Eff.” After which bizarre incantation he threw himself upon his knees beside Mumsie and whispered something in her ear which made her laugh. Well, giggle.

I retreated to my writing room and when I emerged in the early hours I found the rucksack was still untouched downstairs. By the time I rose to breakfast, Henry had left for Peru and Mumsie was humming happily and dancing around the front room holding a half-empty bottle of Champagne.

It occurred to me then and there, that I should address myself to that phenomenon of recent literary note: the Young Adult novel.

How To Write A Book: The Write Approach to YA

The first thing to remember is that your heroine – and it almost always is a heroine – must be living a normal, but extra-miserable life. She must be the school social reject or the really plain girl wearing glasses and unfashionable clothes. She is probably poor, but if rich, must have an isolated and unhappy time as a result. In a science-fiction or fantasy setting, she will be an orphan, abused, beaten and downtrodden – probably enslaved. At best she may be allowed an ‘ordinary’ background within whatever world she lives. She can have one good friend. 

But, remember, no matter how bad you make her issues, on no account can she be fat.

Having established this dual point of miserable powerlessness and rejected loner, the author must then bestow upon this heroine a magical power or super ability which is linked to a mysterious family heritage. Or may be brought about by the discovery of an artefact – or both. This will then transform our dowdy underdog cygnet into a burgeoning youthful swan.

At this point, the romantic elements should be established. If her ‘one good friend’ was male, he now becomes a suitor and is joined by one or more other suitors all of which now adore the heroine and all want her to adore them. The degree of self-abasement you can portray for these unfortunate males will boost the popularity of your final work. No matter how much the heroine rejects them, or how rudely, they will return and grovel at her feet each and every time. Or storm off and then turn up to save her in the end.

Do be sure to make her suitors as various as possible. If you are writing fantasy or supernatural fiction, they can be an elf,  fairy, angel, fallen angel, demon, vampire or a were-something. If science-fiction then aliens of whatever variety. Be sure to make the nice ones rich and the not so nice ones poor.

On no account allow any long-term romantic liaison to become established between your heroine and any of these males. To do so will end the game and end the series because, of course, this first book will be just the start of a series.

Take this advice to your collective bosoms my dear students and fame and fortune will stalk your steps.

Until next time.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

Built upon an asteroid, these mighty habitation towers are the final stronghold of humanity in a star system ravaged by a long-ago war. Now, centuries after the apocalyptic conflict, the city thrives — a utopia for the rich who live at the top, built on the labours of the poor stuck below. Starway Pathfinders is a science fiction show that entertains the better off and brings hope to the poor…

Dog was half drunk and wondering if he should have accepted the invitation to join his best friend in the dive bar on thirty-three. Teram was the kind who liked to go slumming — said it kept him grounded. He ran the family salvage company and was the hands-on type who liked to do the work at the sharp end. His idea of a good night out was to go drinking with his hard-core salvage crews.
“They are good people, Dog — and they would be made up to meet you.”
“No. They would be made up to meet Sub-Commander Arlan Stude, not Hengast ‘Dog’ Gethick, jobbing actor.”
Teram did not deny it, just rolled his shoulders as they took the glides down.
“They won’t recognise you anyway without that uniform and the sexy half-mask,” he confided. “But you got to know what you are to these boys. They won’t miss an episode. You are like their hero.”
Dog shook his head and altered course to avoid his towering bulk blocking the way for a couple with a baby.
“It’s all crap. Just kids’ stories in grown-up words. None of it real. Not like it’ll ever happen. I don’t see the real Strands ever funding a space exploration mission. They’d not see profit in it.”
Teram glanced up at him.
“You don’t get it do you, Dog? It’s not that it’ll never happen — everyone knows it’ll never happen. It’s that it shows something bigger than this.” He gestured to the buzz of humanity around them. “These are people penned into the cage this city’s become — you, your show, it opens the doors of that cage for a while. Opens the doors and lets in hope. More than hope. Real belief in a future that can be more than this.”
That was too much, and Dog shook his head.
“I’m an actor, not a fucking messiah.”

The bar was not as bad as Dog had thought it would be. It was well ventilated and the people who were vaping whatever noxious substances sat in a side room where an androgyne gyrated naked on a podium. Teram’s crew sat together by the one window which offered not so much a panorama of the cityscape of the kind Dog had at home, but more like a murky glimpse into the bowels of the world — dark and lit by sudden flares.
“So, what you do, Dog?”
Someone had to ask, and lulled by the strong spirits and the rough but good-natured bonhomie, Dog almost forgot himself.
“I’m an actor.” He remembered in time and quickly added, “Used to do that commercial for Eatin’ Quix delivery?”
That met with a few nods of recall and the topic moved on. But it was too much to expect Teram would let it lie for long.
“So, what did you guys make of the latest SP? You think they will find those Kyruku?” His eyes slid to Dog and he winked. “Makes you think. Aliens and all.”
Dog said nothing as the men around him speculated.
“Ain’t no fucking aliens. If there were, we’d have met ’em by now. Stands to reason.”
“Yeah. But The Golden Strand is headed ’cross the fucking galaxy, not just round the block and home; it’s different.”
“Different? You see that view screen they get to see stuff on? Huge thing. Dream of that for our ship. What you say, boss — when we getting that kind of tech?”
There was laughter, and Teram laughed loudest of all.
“What if it was for real, though?” someone said. Dog had not picked up the names; he’d tried, but the faces were too similar — worn, weary and bleak. He recalled an odd conversation he’d had with Heila a couple of days before: she’d been going on about her fans, her people. Well, he guessed these were his people. Gnarled by life before they hit thirty, running on dreams and stardust and the false hope held out by the allure of each episode of Starways Pathfinders.
“What if? You kidding? I’d sign up in a second.”
“Yeah. Think of it. The freedom of the stars. Going where no other fucker’s ever been.”
“Be like, you’d be alive. You’d matter. You’d be doing something — something good.”
Heads nodded and someone called another round of drinks. Dog stared out of the window at the inky sludge that coated it, dulling the grim sights it would otherwise expose.

Star Dust by E.M. Swift-Hook, originally appeared in The Last City, a shared-universe anthology. This version is the ‘Author’s Cut’ and differs, very slightly, from that original. Next week – Episode 0100

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Jane Jago

Hope springs eternal, but, for why?
It’s magic lending wings to fly
Lifting hurt hearts upto the sky
To sink again when truth comes by.

Hope springs eternal like the flowers
Called forth by each seasons powers
Building schemes into strong bowers
Until the truth its scheming sours.

Hope springs eternal from the rocks
Of grim reality’s brutal knocks
Its key the door of dreams unlocks
And from those dreams the waking shocks.

Hope springs eternal, as the stars
But an unfaithful lover mars
The lives of those whose touch it tars
When truth the whole illusion jars.

Hope springs eternal, weaves a rope
With which we bind ourselves to cope
With all that life throws in our scope
And this illusion springs from hope.

E.M. Swift-Hook