Two Women and Some Books
The global village is closed today
Curtains closed on homes
While loving mothers miss their young
The lonely die, alone
Out in the streets the tumbleweed
Sighs in the keening wind
Deserted shops with darkened eyes, are
Guarded by empty bins
And should you walk your echoing feet
Sound like a toothless moan
While overhead a banner flies
Stay The Fuck At Home
To celebrate the upcoming launch of A Necessary End, the final book in Fortunes Fools, the first book of Haruspex trilogy, Trust A Few is free to download today.
The first time he had seen it, from above, Stin thought the far-spreading sprawl of low rise, square, flat-roofed buildings looked like someone upturned a truckload of children’s play blocks. Or not. The shapes were too uneven. Maybe more like a skip full of builders’ rubble, emptied out in the middle of nowhere.
The buildings were all shades of ochre, the newer ones more brown or orange, the older ones yellowed and greying. Some close pressed along narrow streets. Others, more segregated in their own patch of land with courtyards and walls. The double dome of the tiny spaceport bubbled up, incongruous, in the midst of it all and anywhere else in the galaxy there would be ninety million health and safety regulators screaming that the residential buildings were too close. Here, though, there was no one with sufficient authority to object – even if anyone had actually cared. From the domes, a street ran to the main square and then continued pretty much straight on until it came to the only other building of real substance. Dominating the mud-brick built housing and offering a kind of low-tech counterpart to the spaceport domes, the stone-built citadel stood as a testament to local architecture, with its odd half-cylinder tower and its own microcosm of courtyards and housing gathered around the curtain wall.
This was the city of Keran. The planetary capital of Temsevar which was surely the most grimly benighted world in known space. It stood – or more sort of slumped – in a vast plain which stretched, dizzyingly, as far as his eyes could see in every direction, bleak and empty with nothing taller than knee-high bushes and an odd grey-green grass which grew all over.
Someone told Stin that before the spaceport, the settlement had just been a trading post centred on the citadel. Back then, it had only a scant handful of permanent residents and a high turnover of the weird tattoo covered nomads, whose tribes ranged the plains around, moving all the time to avoid their livestock over-grazing the sparse foliage. In some ways, he reflected, nothing much had changed – only the city had grown and now the nomads came from beyond the sky and were much fewer in number.
During the short summer the locals told him Keran was a dust bowl and throughout the long winter, it was a frozen hell. For Stin, it was all alien. A place of exile. First impressions always count and he had been left here in the winter. Adjectives that sprang to mind when he thought how he would describe it to people when – if – he got home again were: bleak, desolate, barren and bitter – like finding himself stranded in a gigantic cold-storage compartment. The memory of standing in the vacant dock looking at the empty space that had been occupied by the ship he arrived in earlier that same day, was still vivid. And that of the voice behind him full of friendly sympathy.
“She left without you? Well, no worries, it happens here. You’re not the first and I’m sure you won’t be the last. You’ll get off in a year or two, just might have to earn yourself a bit to pay the passage.”
He turned to see the speaker, a short man with a round face and a balding fuzz of dark hair.
“I don’t know why she – “
The round face broke up into a gnomish smile.
“You’d not be standing here if you did, would you? Anyway, I’m Agernilio Tavi, but everyone calls me Gernie. I’m the one-man band who keeps the port here running.”
“Stin. Stinian Sabas. I’m the dumb fool who just got dumped by his girlfriend. Now I guess I’m stranded.”
“You and me both, only I’ve stuck it out here the last two and a half decades. Oh man, your face. Don’t look so worried – I chose to stay.”
Gernie, he discovered, was the unofficial deity of the spaceport. He ran the place as his own private business venture and that made him the most important person in the whole of Keran. He was the gatekeeper. The one who controlled access to the rest of the galaxy, the one who could arrange for cargos to be shipped in or out.
Everything offworld was prized here – as long as it wasn’t high-tech dependent. The most highly sought after offworld items were weaponry and medical supplies. These would be purchased or exchanged for whatever local trade could offer – exotic food and drink, art and artefacts, some semi-precious stones and metals. Most of what was traded out didn’t come from Keran or even from the same continent. Most trade came – and went – on the backs of the local beasts of burden. These ponies were ugly beasts, with short, stubby ears, broad backs and thick coats, but had peculiar looking split-hooved feet which could spread and grip on soft ground or ice. They would carry trade goods in pack trains, along the single broad road which stretched to the seaport of Vinbrith, just out of sight over the horizon.
Stin went to Vinbrith the once. It had a pretty sounding name and looked totally picturesque from a distance, the cute cottage-like dwellings clinging to the cliffs above the harbour, the little ships bobbing on the tide and the huge wooden wheels turning slowly. It was perhaps only when you saw the wheels, used to lift the cargos on wooden platforms up the sheer cliff face, were treadmills with three ranks of six men chained in together, that the illusion began to fall away. That and the stench. Pretty as a picture from afar, but close to Vinbrith was worse than Keran – and that was saying something. But from there, wooden-built sailing ships carried goods of all sorts to and from the other continent of the planet, which, Stin had been told, was ruled by someone they called ‘The Overlord’ and held the vast majority of the planet’s population and most all of its resources.
Gernie found him the work. There were a lot of things that needed doing which the locals lacked the technical skill to achieve. It wasn’t good pay, but at least it would earn him passage offworld – eventually. Stin was roped in to help keep the port functional and to spell Gernie manning the archaic transceiver which was set up with the one solitary comms satellite in orbit above the planet.
The system was so primitive that it couldn’t even access regular link-based FTL transmissions. That meant that the only real contact the planet ever got with the rest of the galaxy came via the few ships that visited Temsevar each year. But those incoming ships had to communicate through the satellite as the spaceport couldn’t talk directly to them, it was too far behind modern link technology to do so.
It was when he learned that particular fact that Stin finally realised this place wasn’t just at the back of beyond like most Periphery worlds, it was actually a good few kiloparsecs behind the back of beyond.
From A Walking Shadow the third book of Haruspex, part of the Fortune’s Fools series by E.M. Swift-Hook.
The cover is designed by Ian Bristow, you can find his work at Bristow Design.
There are people who live in a convenient world
So much more convenient than mine
If they have a problem they know how to fix it
Their world spins along again fine
They have Amazon Echos and blue-tooth devices
Phones that are smarter than me
I tell them I need something done and they
Say “Use this app. That should do it, you’ll see.”
But I live in a world where technology faltered
And ground to a halt times ago
My phone is not smart, and nor is my dwelling
My downloading speed is too slow
And most of the time that is how I prefer it
Convenience that works right for me
But they don’t understand when I say I can’t do things
They take for granted to be
I like to think it is not generational
As many of all ages surf
I prefer to consider it is more vocational
I choose to live down to earth.
The Working Title crew bring you the opportunity to enjoy again this wisdom from the mysteriously enigmatic Madam Pendulica… You can listen to this on YouTube.
Aries is the cuddliest of star signs, which makes its affinity to horror very surprising. The Arian reader will gravitate to children’s literature or hardcore scary. Nothing in between.
Favourite Book
Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris. Creepiness and sheepiness
Recommended bedtime story for your Aries child
Anything woolly and cuddly. Knitting patterns read slowly ensure peaceful rest.
Taurean readers are stubbornly fond of maps. Give them an atlas or a big fat fantasy tome and they will be happy for hours.
Favourite Book
They would say Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien, although most of them won’t have bothered to read it all. Closer to the truth would be The Hobbit
Recommended bedtime story for your Taurus child
Print out a route from your home to John o’Groats and read it slowly turn by turn.
The astrological twins are continue to be a conundrum wrapped in a question. They are fascinated by mystery and contradiction. Never offer a Gemini reader ‘happy ever after’: they don’t believe in it.
Favourite Book
The Fated Sky by E.M. Swift-Hook or, indeed, any of the Fortunes Fools oeuvre. The sheer complexity of the imagination keeps even the Gemini cynic rapt
Recommended bedtime story for your Gemini child
Purchase a book of mathematical problems and read them out in your most soothing tones. Even Geminis will get so bored they nod off.
Cancerian readers love a book that comes at them out of left field. They spit upon the ordinary or predictable. What they desire is shell-bursting and psychedelic prose that makes them want to scuttle away and hide. If they ever get to understand a book they abandon it forever.
Favourite Books
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, and the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke
Recommended bedtime story for your Cancer child
Nonsense verse, or, failing that, a cookbook that is heavy on crab recipes. They may not sleep, but the little sods will be quiet.
Lazy Leo likes an easy read. Nothing challenging is considered. Ever
Favourite Book
The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis. Or any of the Narnia Chronicles. Leos do like to see themselves as the hero
Recommended bedtime story for your Leo child
It doesn’t matter what you read. Just replace the hero’s name with the name of your small lion and (s)he will fall asleep with a beatific smile.
Virgo readers like tidiness in life – and in literature. For them a book must have a beginning, a middle, and a happy end. Bonuses are awarded for good use of punctuation.
Favourite Book
Anything by Miss Austen or E.F. Benson’s Lucia series. A little waspishness helps every Virgo reader’s day
Recommended bedtime story for your Virgo child
Anything with a strongly moralistic viewpoint. If you can find a story where the annoyingly prim and creepy child comes out on top so much the better
Libran readers like to be puzzled and to pit their wits against both the writer and the antagonist. They get very annoyed by slipshod grammar.
Favourite Book
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle or any of Agatha Christie’s Jane Marple stories.
Recommended bedtime story for your Libra child
Nothing too trendy or humorous. We recommend reading logic problems. Slowly
Scorpio readers are intelligent, short-tempered and easily bored. A book has one page to catch the interest of a Scorpio or (s)he is not going to bother. They like complexity of plot and deep meaning to discern.
Favourite Books
His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman or Charlaine Harris’ Sookie Stackhouse stories. Sweeping fantasy always does it. That or sexy vampires
Recommended bedtime story for your Scorpio child
Just read them whatever soft porn their father is currently into. They will feel special and slightly smug, and they might even go to sleep
Sagittarian readers are hard to please, being intelligent, principled, and a tad dour. Do not expect a Sagittarius to read erotica with anything other than a moue of distaste. They do, however, like evil to get a good thrashing.
Favourite Books
The Redwall Chronicles by Brian Jacques
Recommended bedtime story for your Sagittarius child
The lives of saints and martyrs have the right moralistic and self-satisfied tone. Practice reading unemotionally
Amiable, clever and organised. Capricorn tends not to read fiction. They like logic, explanation, and hard facts. And diagrams…
Favourite Books
Instruction manuals. Yes. Capricorn is the sign that reads the instructions first!
Recommended bedtime story for your Capricorn child
Do not ever read to Capricorn children. They are far too bright, and they are perfectionists. Be warned. Having your pronunciation corrected by a toddler is a chastening experience
Most Aquarian’s will tell you they are too busy to read. Then they will sneak off somewhere with a favourite book and be gone for hours. They like light reading, with defined characters.
Favourite Book
Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome or The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Or anything about water….
Recommended bedtime story for your Aquarius child
Purchase a copy of their business statistics from your local water company. They will be enthralled.
There are two kinds of Pisces readers. Those who like a nice light romance or warm children’s tales. And those who want psychological horror of the most harrowing description. We are looking at Lovecraft or Barbara Cartland. Often in the same person. Odd…
Favourite Book
The complete HP Lovecraft or The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Anderson or Bolded Hearts by Jane Jago. Nothing between the two poles will do
Recommended bedtime story for your Pisces child
There is no perfect Pisces story. The best you can do is read from a random book, and if the child argues hit it with the book.
Madame Pendulica predicts she will return…
Whittaker had been courting Janice for the last forty years.
He started when they were in high school, figuring after fifteen years as neighbours they knew each other well enough to take such a step. They moved in together a few years later and had children, but each time he asked her to wed, she would say: “You just keep on a-courting me”.
So he did.
The kids grew up, moved out and one day he asked: “Have I courted you enough?”
“No,” she said, “but I’ll marry you anyway.”
They were wed in the spring, right after the thaw.
To celebrate the upcoming launch of A Necessary End, the final book in Fortunes Fools, the first book of Haruspex trilogy, Trust A Few is free to download until 13 March.
If heading up a criminal syndicate in the ‘City was one of the things most people expected to involve some degree of glamour and excitement, the reality, as Durban Chola soon discovered, was a lot less dramatic.
The operational framework had been fixed in place the first day he took over. Durban had been recuperating from an injury, sustained during the change of administration. Reclining on a chair in the master suite of the luxurious mansion that under ‘City convention he had just inherited from the previous incumbent, Sarnai Altan, he had been in discussion with Jazatar Baldrik, his head of security — ironically also inherited from Sarnai Altan.
It had been less of a discussion and more of an instructive lecture from Jaz on how Durban needed to comport himself. Both in regard to his own security and as a syndicate crime lord — known as a Name — in the ‘City. Durban had listened and nodded in the right places. When he finished, Jaz stood by the window gazing out at the sunset over the panorama of the mansion’s grounds and the ‘City beyond.
“So how do we play this, in your view?” Durban asked. “I mean the whole running-the-syndicate thing.”
Jaz turned as Durban spoke and looked as though he was giving the question serious consideration.
“You do your job. I do mine,” he said after a few moments.
“Parallel paths?”
“We’ve got the same basic aim, Blondie, shouldn’t be a problem.”
“We need a bit more than a broad direction of travel in common if we are going to make things work in the ‘City. You know that.”
Jaz gave an offhand shrug.
“I don’t mind what you want to do with the business side of things, Blondie. I’ll keep the ‘City scared enough of us for it not to matter, long as you can keep the money coming in to pay for it. You need me to lean on anyone, you let me know. It should be pretty straight forward.”
“And what about Avilon?”
“He can carry on with me as he has been. I can’t see as how he would be much use to your side of things.”
“I meant what about the memories?”
Jaz’s expression darkened.
“Well now, that’s an interesting question. I’d not noticed them featuring in too much of your decision making so far.”
The memories were Avilon’s, of his past life — his life before he and Jaz had served as convict military conscripts. Memories Durban knew could be restored, to make Avilon the person he had once been, instead of an individual with no more than six years of conscious life lived. It was through the intention of restoring those memories that he and Jaz had first been drawn together.
“There hasn’t been a lot of opportunity,” Durban said. “So much happening that there’s been no real opening for us to even discuss the matter, let alone take any action on it and you’ve not been exactly approachable the last few cycles.”
“Yeah. It’s all my fault. I can see that.”
Durban smiled in a conciliatory way.
“Don’t be so sensitive, Jaz. I’m not worried about the past — it’s where we are going now that matters.”
Jaz moved away and looked back out over the gardens for a few moments before replying. His tone was flat.
“I don’t know, Blondie.”
“You’re still committed?”
“To Avilon? Of course.”
“Then what don’t you know?”
Jaz let out a breath and shook his head. “You’ve not even told me what it involves — where we need to go, what we’ve got to do, things like that. So how can I know? Right now I can’t see we can go anywhere or do much about it anyway — I’m tied here. The CSF have me pinned here. They’ve made it very clear if I try to leave, I make the top ten bounty chart and we’d get locked out of the ‘City for life. Until we can get that under control, it’s a bit —” he broke off, searching for a suitable word. “It’s just a bit unrealistic to talk about it right now.”
The opening of Edge of Doom, book two in Haruspex, a Fortune’s Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook
The cover is designed by Ian Bristow, you can find his work at Bristow Design.
Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…
Come on gran, Carpe Diem they said
But the pillow is soft to my head
I have doughnuts and milk
And my jammies are silk
So, f**k it, I’m staying in bed
It was a two-hour drive to Virconium, given a speedy vehicle and a reliable driver. Having both, they arrived without incident. The city was gearing up for next month’s Saturnalia with bright lights and sparkly tinsel in every shop window to lure in gift-buyers. Julia felt an odd pang of nostalgia as she caught sight of a display of sigillaria in one. There were candles moulded or carved into fantastic and beautiful wax sculptures, beside a shelf of grotesque and amusing ones. She wondered how it would be to spend her first Saturnalia away from Rome.
The navi system took them straight to the dance studio, where Julia followed Dai and Bryn as they made their way to the reception desk in a cool quiet portico. The elaborately coiffed young man behind the white and gold edifice recoiled visibly.
“Members only,” he snapped.
Bryn stepped forward.
“The Submagistratus wants a word with Bont.”
The receptionist opened and closed his mouth a few times, but no sound emerged.
“Sometime this week, sonny”
“Not possible. Ulysses is busy right now.”
“Well un-busy him.”
“I don’t think I can…”
Bryn smiled and leaned over the desk, cracking his knuckles. The receptionist swallowed audibly, then he thumbed a button.
“Ulysses Bont to reception. Immediately please.”
Bryn rewarded him with a wolfish grin.“Now you’re being sensible. Got somewhere we can talk uninterrupted?”
They were soon ensconced in a pleasant room, which Julia was delighted to find came complete with beverages and cake. It wasn’t long before they were joined by a lean man wearing a sardonic expression.
“You wanted me, dominus?” he said a waspish bite to his tone.
Dai looked him up and down slowly.
“I think wanted is an exaggeration.”
Bont coloured, but Julia could see he wasn’t brave enough to argue with a man whose blue eyes were as bleak as a winter morning. Bont shut his mouth and cast down his gaze.
“Better. Now. Talk to me about Tales from the Mabinogion.”
“What?” Bont looked up in surprise. “The dance troupe?”
“Yes.”
“We were contracted for a three-month school tour. Then disbanded.”
He met Dai’s stare defiantly for a moment, then looked at Julia. She schooled her expression to stone. Something in her face seemed to get to him, though and he sighed. “Okay, it was more than a bit odd. We were paid well over the going rate and our paymasters were a bit creepy. Too interested in kids. Always girls and always the petite ones. Not that I ever saw them actually do anything, I’d have reported them if they had.” he broke off for a moment as if thinking about what had happened. “You have to understand, they really weren’t the sort of people you question. But…”
“But indeed. Do you have any names?”
“There were two of them, a couple of men, called themselves Smith. Can I ask what you think they have done?”
“Eleven of those girls have gone missing.”
“Oh no. Please, no.” Bont looked truly sick. “Look. I don’t know much that could help you, I really wish I did. That’s – just horrible.” He broke off shaking his head as if trying to deny it. Then he looked up directly at Dai. “Except that there’s this female dancer, I never liked her. Her name is Katya Czesny, she was right in with the Smiths. And she is still working In Viriconium.”
“Where?”
“A nightspot. The Scarlet Letter. She’s cage dancing now. Calls herself Lubricia.”
Julia spoke for the first time.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
From ‘Dying on the Tide’ one of the bonus short stories included in ‘The First Dai and Julia Omnibus‘ by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook
Ramesh is gorgeous!
The first date was pants. He took me to a bloody museum. I had to pretend to be interested. The second, we went to some boring music thing. Four women scratching bows over different sized violins.
But the third date was dinner – except he took me to this god-awful place where I ordered steak and they looked at me like I was demented.
Three bloody dates and no kiss?
So when we left the restaurant I pulled him around, closed my eyes, pouted my lips… When I opened my eyes a minute later, he’d only bloody gone!
To celebrate the upcoming launch of A Necessary End, the final book in Fortunes Fools, Trust A Few is free to download until 13 March.
“You have no idea what you are letting yourself in for. How can you?”
Commodore Vane shook his head as he spoke, it was beyond understatement and beyond belief. The soldier’s green eyes were fixed on a point some distance behind the Commodore’s left shoulder. Their colour, so brilliant, Vane suspected genetic enhancement and their focus had been unwavering since he entered the room.
“I think I do, sir.”
He stood in a formal parade-ground stance, as ordered by the scowling Legionary Sergeant who had escorted him in and now lurked by the door. Vane had made a conscious choice not to relax him from the rigid posture. He never did with the conscripts. Vane glanced back at the remote screen he had called up, its contents invisible to anyone else. “Amnesia,” he read the word aloud and looked back at the soldier. “Total amnesia?”
“Total retrograde amnesia, sir,”
The Sergeant, a big, broad-shouldered man called Hynas, stood almost a head taller than his charge who was not much more than average height, and the ever-present scowl changed to a sneer at the words. Vane ignored him.
“And do you know why?”
“Due to an unknown trauma immediately prior to my arrest, sir.”
“Prior to, not during?” The way most of his men were brought in to begin their military career in his Legion it would not have surprised him in the slightest to find the injury had been inflicted at that point.
“Yes, sir.”
“I see.” Vane wondered if he truly did, the implications here were so disturbing. “You have no knowledge or memory of anything before your arrest?”
“None, sir.”
“And that means you have no direct knowledge or experience of what life is like outside the Legion?”
“No, sir. I do not.”
“Then how can you know you want to leave us, soldier?”
He noticed a slight hesitation then.
“I have no direct personal knowledge, sir, but I have researched a great deal about it.”
Which, he supposed, explained the hesitation. But the idea of researching the complexities of everyday life with zero experience of it, stretched his credulity. Vane tried to keep that disbelief from his voice. “Researched it?”
“Yes, sir. I have talked to other people in my unit and accessed information through the Lattice.”
Everyday life as filtered through the minds of violent criminals and a military tactical data provider. The Commodore shook his head but let the naivety pass. His job was to confirm that this man met the criteria required and was fit to be released. In fact, it had been made very clear to Vane he should do whatever was needed to speed the process and allow as little questioning as possible.
But this man was no ordinary ex-criminal. Once – and for many years – his name topped ‘most wanted’ lists throughout the Central worlds and the broader Coalition: the Protectorates and Independent worlds. In Vane’s circle, this man’s name used to be a household word for mindless destruction – the bogeyman of ultimate evil.
Avilon Revid.
Vane found it a curious experience to meet the man behind the myth, but it made the responsibility he now held a heavy one, weighing up all the factors to consider if Revid should be discharged. Revid might have a legal right to be considered for release, but that was not the same as having the right to be released. That decision ultimately lay with Vane and it was one he was not finding at all straight forward.
“Well, you passed your orientation course without any problem and have been declared no danger to civilians.”
No danger.
A bureaucratic joke even a military man such as the Commodore could appreciate. All the Special Legion were more than just dangerous. All serving a sentence for extremes of violent crime. A sentence that included enforced invasive surgery, implants, and drugs to enhance their capabilities.
The brutal training regimens and suicidal military missions were sweetened by the promise of freedom after five years spotless service – a promise almost never fulfilled. In the eight years he had spent co-opted as commander of the Special Legion, perhaps a dozen other men had stood before Vane for discharge approval. Of those, less than half walked out as free citizens. He was not willing to risk any of the monsters he commanded back onto the streets without a very high threshold of evidence to demonstrate they were indeed ‘no danger to civilians’.
Vane nursed no illusions about the fate of those conscripted to serve under him. For the vast majority, joining the Specials meant nothing more than a deferred death sentence. His troops served with an average life expectancy of just under two years. Most died very quickly, either on active service or were killed in the gruelling training. Others fell afoul of their own violent recreational activities or failed to sustain the psychological strength needed and committed suicide. Some died in brawls or were murdered by their comrades. Yet it remained a truism whenever a dirty job needed doing anywhere in the Coalition’s sphere of influence, the Specials were first on the ground, often ahead of the AI mechs. Vane took pride from that. He heard the troops did too.
Ironically, it meant, to be standing here, this soldier could only be the toughest kind: a man who could survive and even thrive in such an environment.
Trust A Few is now free to download until 13 March. It is book two in Haruspex, a Fortune’s Fools book by E.M. Swift-Hook
The cover is designed by Ian Bristow, you can find his work at Bristow Design.
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