Zraxy’ct had wanted to be an alien archaeologist from the time she had squaddled out of the brooding chamber. She had gained the right knowledge nodes to be accepted into the chosen clutch of those training for that elite career.

Now she was undertaking a course on one alien culture and its as yet untranslated languages. There was an odd broken circle symbol found everywhere thought to show generative power. It was clear to Zraxy’ct what the elements of it represented. The very obvious fact it showed a symbolic penetrative sex act was the basis of her acclaimed final thesis.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Paula came forward. ‘Okay. Listen up people. Danilo and Grandmother will lead, followed by the camera crew. The rest of you come along behind. And please keep quiet. Everybody got that? Let’s move out.’
Danilo and Grandmother moved off and the rest of us followed in relative quiet.
They led us to a point in one corner of the beer garden, where there were some tables standing on an area of flagstones. Danilo bent and touched the stones. He spoke in deeply formal tones, and with the cadences of his Rom heritage very evident under his slightly estuarine accent. ‘Beneath these stones is where Christopher Acres buried his beloved Rosalind. She calls for us to find her bones.’
One of the digging crews came forward and carefully moved aside the tables. Angela signalled to a tall young man with ginger hair, who peeled off the group and took a small video camera out of his pocket.
Danilo offered his grandmother his arm, and they turned away from the car park and headed towards the oldest buildings on the site, those to be found around the courtyard at the side of the pub. The oldest of them was empty, but it was obvious that someone had started, and then abandoned, a restoration project. Danilo walked inside and threaded his way through a forest of metal props and heaps of abandoned tools. He put his hand flat against one wall.
His voice rang out strong and sure. ‘Within this wall lie the bones of Aline Midwinter. A woman driven to suicide, who now begs to be found.’
The second digging crew came forward, and Angela left a thin, dark young man with another little camera.
‘And that’s the easy bit over’ Danilo said. ‘Now we head into the unknown.’ He bowed to his grandmother and she took his arm once more. This time, everyone who followed them was absolutely silent. The walk to the barn took a few minutes and the mood became more and more sombre as we progressed. As we got near, two of the crew ran forward and opened the gate. We filed into the field and Ben went to unlock the big double doors. He stepped back, and the same two crew members pulled back those doors and secured them open. We all stayed where we were, while Danilo and his grandmother walked slowly inside. For a moment, nothing happened, then the very air around us seemed to crackle. Beside me, Angela shivered.
‘I don’t like this.’
‘You ain’t seen nothing yet. Just wait.’
Then the singing started, softly and plaintively.
‘Ding dong bell.
Pussy’s in the well.
Who put her in?’

From Who Put Her In? by Jane Jago

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks – with free optional snark…

Being old, I am bored with the news
So instead let us talk about shoes 
The wearing of crocs
Which all elegance mocks
Versus skyscraper heels. What to choose?

© jane jago

…. or ‘How To Speak Typo’ by Jane Jago

aminal (noun) – the knitted thing dragged around by a toddler which it can never be persuaded to part with for long enough to be washed

chocies (plural noun) – the best chocolates in the box

eithert (noun) – the face pulled by drunk people lighting the wrong end of a ciggy

hampet (noun) – a small furry rodent, genetically engineered to be uber cute

horriblt (noun) – foul mouthed hobbit

insprit (verb) – particularly of toddlers to insert any foreign object in the left nostril. Example: The inspriting of his sister’s craft beads caused Peterkin an uncomfortable interlude in A&E

jakstrap (noun) – piece of S&M equipment of whose uses I wot not

kow (noun) – ungulate animal with a pouch and an udder

mulchy (adjective) – of gardeners boots being rendered three sizes bigger by the addition of a mixture of thick clay and well-rotted manure

noludar (noun) – delivery driver whose satnav has picked up, often found crying in a lay-by on the B793 near Harrogate

relaly (adjective) – of getting pissed again on coffee after a heavy Pernod night

sandles (noun) – extra springy love handles

tatstes (noun) – slightly overripe gonads with an odd odour

upshit (verb) – in deference to those of gentle sensibilities I will merely explain that this refers to the bodily functions of those inebriated enough to be face down in a gutter

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

The gods had gone.

Imhotep bowed his head as they left in their boat of millions of years, which was the translation he gave his Pharaoh for the odd phrase the gods used – ‘time machine.’

They had taught him so much and around his neck he wore their final gift. A power button, they called it, engraved with the symbol of the power the gods wielded – a horizontal line with a circle above and a vertical line below.

He placed it in the hands of every god so one day they would see and know he had not forgotten them.

E.M. Swift-Hook

They were sitting in the park, a child had come running up chasing a creature no one else could see, playing a game in augmented vision. She swiped at something in the air between them.
“Got it!”
Yris watched her run off already obsessed by the next intangible she needed to track down.
“She knows,” Soraya said, as the child danced away over the sunlit grass. “She called me to account for my activities this last cycle.”
The pit of his stomach tightened and he looked at the woman sitting beside him, unsmiling. Her face was haunted by shadows of sadness and fear, beneath the sweep of blue-black hair. He reached out and gripped the two slender hands resting in her lap.
“Then we will have to go. I won’t lose you.”
“But -”
“But nothing. It is time to make a stand. My sister has dictated the course of my life long enough. I will not have her destroy the one thing that makes me truly happy.”
The shadows lifted from her face for a moment, and the smile was as sweet as life itself. “She will not let us go easily.”
“I know. I’ve known her a long time. A very long time, more than four times as long again as you have been alive. So you must trust me when I say I know how to deal with her.”
The blue-black hair swung as Soraya turned her face away, watching the child running after her private ghosts. For a moment, Yris envied that unknown child, her freedom and potential had yet to be curtailed by life.
“I don’t know,” Soraya’s voice came from behind the veil of her hair. “I’m not sure we get to live happily ever after.”
“No ‘ever after’ is happy forever.”

It got dark as he spoke. The air was no longer crisp and fresh, but brackish and still. Shadows flickered from the weak lights.
“But ‘tsa story, Gran’pa. It says so – so they did.”
The small dark eyes looked up at him from a face wearing a defiant expression. “Wha’s a tree?”
Yris shook his head. It would not help the child to know.
“Just something in the story,” he said. Then trying to distract the child: “You read it all yourself, that is very good.”
For a moment, the dark eyes seemed to study him as if doubting his words, then the small face smiled.
“You need to come for sleep time.” The child’s mother stood by the entrance. It was hard to know which of them she was addressing. The child of course, but Yris was tired. Recently, he found his sleep times more often matched the child’s than its parents.
He remained there, sitting with the story open, staring at its cheerful pictures of chubby clouds and a smiling sun painted across a pink-blue sky. Of course, he had many images and even VRruns of the real thing, but somehow these designs captured more of the essence of them. Someone had thought what the essential concept was for ‘cloud’, ‘sky’, ‘sun’, what symbolic place each held in the human psyche, and had created these images to project that sense of ‘sky-ness’ or ‘cloud-ness’.

From ‘Tongueless Caverns’ by E.M. Swift-Hook, one of the stories in the Inklings Press  anthology Tales From The Underground: Twelve tales of hidden legends

The life of an elderly delinquent in limericks poetry – with free optional snark…

When I was young and in my prime
I had to get to work on time
Dress up smartly fix my face
Comport myself with style and grace
But now I’m old and very flighty
I go shopping in my nightie 

© jane jago

The Rabid Readers Review Wings of Earth: 1 – Echoes of Starlight by Eric Michael Craig

A Fresh, New, Classic Space Opera Takes Off!

Ethan Walker is the captain of a freighter carrying a bunch of tech to a colony. He has a friendly crew, people like his co-pilot Nuko Takata and the AI, Marti. But not all onboard the Olympus Dawn are as amenable. Ethan has to deal with two very difficult passengers and Leigh Salazar, the Cargo Compliance Controller who is not a member of the crew but there to supervise the cargo for the shipping company and ensure it arrives intact. When they reach Starlight colony and find no one replying to their communication, Ethan goes down to discover why and finds himself at the centre of a major incident.

What I Particularly Enjoyed.
The atmosphere. This book has a really great space opera feel. It’s there with shades of Star Trek and Farscape, but firmly rooted in a harder sci-fi tradition. Shipboard life and relationships are very well described.
The worldbuilding. It is very easy to slip into this world and pick up on the setting. The tech-base is well explained and when it has to pass beyond that we have ‘alien tech’ as the explanation.
The AI. I am not a big fan of AIs as characters as I seldom find them convincingly portrayed, but the author really sold me on Marti. I loved the idea of an AI being paid like any other crew member and using their pay to buy robot bodies of various kinds and upgrades for them.
The writing style. Smooth and flowing. I was never bounced out of immersion by a poorly chosen word or a clumsy construction.

What I Kind of Struggled With.
Leigh Salazar. The sole role of this character seemed to be for setting up conflict. Most of the time I could buy it, but as the story went on she seemed to lose all sense of proportion. 
The job threat. That Ethan could lose his job was, I felt, over repeated and overplayed.  I couldn’t see how it really counted for anything set against the far more crushingly existential issues faced by himself and the crew.

Overall thoughts.
I loved this book, the setting the characters and the sense of something huge coming down the line. It is a five-star classic space opera and those who love all that should pick this up right away.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Full disclosure, this book is not at all my usual fare and I approached it with some trepidation. But as it turned out I need not have worried. Although ‘hard’ science fiction is a foreign country to me Eric Michael Craig has an easy writing style, and his avoidance of jargon makes this story accessible and readable even for a Luddite.

We are presented with a cargo freighter on its way to make a routine delivery – that turns out to be far from routine. Where have a hundred thousand people gone? Captain Ethan Walker finds himself in the middle of a perfect sh**storm.

As an exploration of what an ordinary man does in an extraordinary situation the book works well, although, for me, it is less convincing in its handling of relationships.

A resounding four stars and a safe recommendation.

Jane Jago

“But this is beautiful!” Love’s goddess was enchanted by the blue and green planet, abundant with life.

The God of Evil smirked. “I know.”

“I don’t see anything evil,” she said, admiring the humans, something he’d invented for this new world. They could love, feel and create, almost like gods themselves.

“No?”

A shriek came of agony and fear. The goddess, horrified, watched one beautiful animal killing another.

“No!”

“Yes!” Evil’s deity gloated. “I designed this world so living things must kill and eat others to live themselves.”

The goddess paled as she realised the true horror he had wrought.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Maybe by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook . Sometimes we walk the edges of realty…

The sounds continued, slither and scrape and tapping claws, as the creature passed the bottom of the old roller coaster. Annis could feel the vibrations through her feet. On the bed, Jessica’s eyes were suddenly wide and her mouth opened into a silent gasp as she felt the presence of the Old One for the first time. Annis put a finger on her own lips and Jessica pressed her  hand over her mouth, as if to stop a cry escaping, as the blood eater slowly passed.
They sat in silence until the sounds had faded back into the quiet of the night and, slowly, sounds of the small creatures could be heard again. One of the cats on the bed, stretched and licked the head of the other who started purring gently. 
Once the Old One was gone she became aware of another entity. Also hunting. 
“Silent,” she hissed. “Vampire. It follow you…”
Jessica’s face was a study in terror, but she held herself together even when a masculine voice filled the air.
“Jessica. Jessica. I know you are here somewhere. Come to me.”
Annis saw the other woman shiver and pushed the cats closer before putting more wood on the fire and throwing a handful of herbs onto the flames. The fire burned blue and Annis smiled thinly. A few moments later the hunting vampire began to cough and sneeze and the sense of its presence receded.
“Not gone. You stay.” 
Hoping that the female would have sense enough to stay put, Annis called the two mongrel cats to her side and slipped silently from the cabin. She made her way along the tops of the piles of twisted metal until she reached a vantage point from which she could watch the drunken lads around their bonfire. They appeared to be drinking themselves into a state of complete oblivion and she wondered where they had got that much booze. She didn’t have to wonder for long, as a tall figure strolled into the firelight.
“Evening lads” he said genially.
The youngsters looked incuriously at their visitor, who rolled a log into the firelight and sat down.
“Any of you boys seen a woman tonight?”
“There was one, but she kicked Robbo in the nuts and run away,” the speaker laughed coarsely. “You lost one?”
“You could say that. Which way’d she go?”
“Out of the park. Maybe. We think she run up the road.”
“Right. Thanks.”
The vampire uncurled himself and ambled off carefully slowly and with seeming unconcern. Once he was out of earshot the loudest and most obnoxious of the drinkers laughed inanely.
“If you can’t keep your woman under control you needn’t expect me to tell you where she’s gone,” he slurred then fell into a drunken stupor.
For whatever reason it had happened, Annis was grateful that the vampire had been misdirected. With any luck he would spend the rest of the night searching the verges of the road for Jessica. As she turned to head back home, she noticed a small pile of stuff in a dark corner. A rucksack and a soft bag. Jessica’s stuff, she would bet. Could she get it?
She sat on her perch for a long time, thinking and watching as all but one of the young males fell asleep. One who was easily incapacitated with a smooth round pebble accurately placed from a slingshot. 
Even then it took her many minutes to creep down the pile of distorted ironwork until she and the cats could sneak from shadow to shadow to a spot from which she could pick up the bags and ghost away with them.
Returning home encumbered by the luggage took her some while, so that when she slipped into the room the atmosphere was one of great strain. Jessica sat up and stared as she dropped the bags on the sleeping platform.
“Drunken males have. We take…”
Annis grinned a feral grin and was surprised to see her enjoyment reflected in Jessica’s eyes.
“Will you tell me who you are, and what is happening?”
“Will try. Eat first.”
Annis put the soup kettle on the hot plate atop the fire, then went to the food store drawer and took out flat breads and a lump of hard cheese. She grated cheese onto a wooden board and bent to retrieve bowls and spoons from another drawer.
Jessica spoke. “I’m a vegetarian.”
Annis looked at her in genuine puzzlement.
“You say?”
“I don’t eat meat.”
“Me not too. Soup potato and onions. Come eat.”

Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook

Part 7 of Maybe will be here next week…