Welcome to the Hotseat of Truth, a device in which your protagonist is trapped. The only way to escape is to answer five searching questions completely honestly or the Hotseat will consume them to ashes! Today’s victim is singer Selena Morisot, also known as Selena M. Heroine of Aliens Crashed in My Back Yard and the upcoming My Spaceship Calls Out to Me, and Space Girl Yearning by Mike Van Horn.

Why did you become a singer? Were you following your passion?

Hah! I wish. When I was in college, my big brother got drafted into major league
baseball. He taunted me, “See, guys can leave school and make big money like this, but girls can’t.” I took that as a dare. I recorded this song we’d played around with, “Cotton Candy Lovin’,” and it became a hit. That launched my singing career. It’s still my most requested song, even though I’m sick of it.
My brother never did make it in the big show, but I’ve made enough money to buy my dream house up along the coast. So no, I didn’t go into singing as a passion.
But things changed. This funny looking alien crashed on my hillside, and we learned to communicate by singing. I called her Breadbox. She left her home world because she was not allowed to sing the songs most meaningful to her. She kept urging me to do the same—to sing from my heart. It took me a long time to get this. One night I dreamed of my namesake, the painter Berthe Morisot, and she said she only paints from her heart, all else is empty. This had a big impact on me. So, singing is my passion now—I always sing my heart song. And I miss Breadbox more than I can say.

You’re surrounded by men, yet you seem to have no romance in your life. What
gives?

Hey, I just got a proposal for marriage! *giggle* Don’t know if I’ll say yes; that must unfold in another story. Seriously, my singing career with all the touring got in the way of romance—at least with a man. Ever since Doug, my one true love, got tired of waiting for me and married somebody else. I don’t even remember her name. And zipping around other worlds in a spaceship also makes it tough for romance.
My life is full of romance—the romance of adventure. I know, it’s not the same.
On the other hand, I have great men in my life—men who aren’t looking at me for
romance. We’re just friends and collaborators, and they’re always there for me.

Did you ever feel squeamish being so close to all those strange-looking aliens?

Do you mean the time I got drunk and fell into the swamp where all the Fofonoloy were swimming, and in their rush to get away from me they brushed past me like a bunch of miniature hippos?
Or the night when I was awakened by what looked like a giant spider the size of an orangutan, and I screamed? Then I found out it had been sent to clean my room and do my laundry.
I still laugh about these, but I was terrified at the time. Squeamish and screamish. No, most of the time I was very comfortable around them, even when touching or embracing them. After all, they were busy saving my life. They are now some of my best friends. I’m hoping the people of Earth can accept them as I have.

If you had your life over and were forced to choose between space travel and
music – one without the other – which would it be?

Ah, this is so hard for me to answer. I don’t think I can choose. Look, I chose more than once to follow my passion for singing on Earth, but every time I got pulled into some other adventure in outer space. But when I was invited to come to Everbright and do a concert, I thought, wow, I can do both!
When I returned from my last adventure I had a quiet realization: I have been touched by the Infinite. I can never be happy staying put. And I can never give up my singing.

What is the one principle you would die for if you had to?

I never saw myself as one who would die for a principle. But when my best buddy Clay had terminal cancer while I was orbiting the Moon, I risked my life to pick him up from Earth because only the instruments on my spaceship Star Choice had a chance to eliminate his cancer. With Star Choice, I made a perilous dash down to Earth where I knew the Air Force was gunning for me. I got him and the cancer doc from the Stanford Med Center before zipping back into orbit. We saved his life!
So I guess you’d say I’d risk my life for my friends. That may not count as an abstract principle, but it’s a real life principle. I also did this for my alien friends. When I was on Sfofong, their world, I argued their case before their Elders who had threatened to kill me. They tried but I eluded them.

His angelic glory lit the small room as he spoke.

“Be not afraid. You have been chosen to bear a divine child,” Gabriel hoped he didn’t sound too weary. 

“Afraid? You’re kidding, right?” She stood arms akimbo by the laundry bucket. “No. I’m not having anyone’s baby. Go away!”

Gabriel left. Her words, “Creepy weirdo!” following him out. The fourth sulky teen he’d asked and so far no joy. Literally.

“Be not afraid, Hannah…”

“Go away!”

“Be not afraid, Rachael…”

“Stuff off!”

Gabriel checked the list. The next one was engaged already. This was so not going to go well…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Leo made another coffee and put it on the table. It wasn’t too many minutes before Frank appeared with two boxes of groceries looking like child’s toys in his huge hands. He put them down on the worktop and turned in time to receive an enormous cat in his arms.
‘Hello you soppy old bastard’ he said conversationally before giving the cat a perfunctory stroke and dropping it onto a cushion on the floor. ‘Sorry about him. But nobody wanted.’
‘That’s all right’ Leo laughed. ‘It’s a him is it?’
‘Neutered but still most definitely a him.’
Leo looked at what appeared to be a sack of fur and fat. ‘Maybe just as well he can’t procreate, although I do have a certain amount of fellow feeling.’
Mike grinned, Ro studied her shoes, and Frank looked just plain puzzled. Leo took pity on him.
‘Ten years ago I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. They caught it in time, but I lost one of the boys. It took some getting my head around, but it’s OK now. And I find I can even talk about it.’
Frank looked shrewdly at him for a long moment.
‘How much did it cost you to say that?’
‘Not a lot. But it’s taken a lot of time and patience on other people’s part to get me to that point.’
‘Mostly Mike’ Ro said quietly. ‘And I never thought I’d see this day.’
Leo smiled at her. ‘Not mostly Mike. All Mike. Without her I don’t know if I’d have ever.’
Mike shifted uneasily in her chair. ‘OK. Enough now. I don’t think I can do emotional about this. I’m still getting my own head around the new improved Leo.’
‘Fair enough’ Frank was his usual calm self which helped.
They drunk their coffee quietly and nobody could really think what to say next. They were saved by a creeping cat, who appeared halfway up the leg of the table. Mike pointed a finger.
‘What did I say about no animals at the table.’
The fat feline slid to the floor and began ostentatiously washing himself.
‘I think he’s going to take some house-training. How much has he stolen so far?’
Ro grinned. ‘Not much. But you do got to watch him. He’s as untrustworthy as Bogg and Scrat, but a good deal more agile.’
Mike laughed until until she could scarcely breathe. ‘It’s good to be home.’

From Shall we gather at the river? by Jane Jago

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

I am old, and persistent abuse
Has rendered my skin somewhat loose
So it shouldn’t be news
That it’s made my tattoos
Grow misshapen and blurred and abstruse

© jane jago

I never knew you. Not really.
You haunted my dreams and my daydreams, filling the well of my soul. I even felt you watching over me that day, I still could not really believe you had gone. No word. From my bed, from my life. Five years and then – nothing.
I walked up the path and the sky darkened. When the rain came, it was as if your tears splashed on my face.
The river ran deep and silent here, between the high walls built to contain it’s might as it ran through the city. I thought I saw your face, from the corner of my eye. It was reflected in the dark water, like the ghost of a memory.
Something made me turn and scour the path, not thinking to see you, not thinking at all.
An old lady was there, carrying her world in a huge carrier bag and dressed in too many clothes.
“You alright, pet?” The concern in her eyes brought a hot stinging to my own. I looked away and back at the alluring promise of oblivion in the water running silent below. “You look like you could do with a nice cuppa. There’s a caff just round the way.”Her hand touched my arm, tentative and tender. A fellow human being lost in the abyss of life.
The first step back was the hardest and, as if she knew, she gripped my hand, briefly. Steadying me. Then the next came more easily and by the third, I could release her hand and meet her compassionate gaze.
“I might have enough for two teas,” I told her.
“You’re alright, pet. Come on, let’s have a chat. They do free bourbon biscuits too.”

E.M. Swift-Hook

“It must be a terrible place to live,” Oliver observed as the documentary went on, “I mean, having a social score based on who you’re friends with and what you buy, determining whether you can get a train ticket.”

Krista nodded agreement and finished leaving a bad rating for the delivery driver. He’d been five minutes late. Some pathetic excuse about traffic. “Just glad we live in the free West.” Her fit-watch vibrated and she sighed. “I’ll have to leave you to it. If I don’t get enough steps done today they’ll cancel my health insurance – or quadruple the price.”

E.M. Swift-Hook

As far as discreet went, Bene Placito served that up in buckets. The place was in one wing of a small villa, presumably also the home of the chef who owned it, that nestled in the hills behind Viriconium. The villa had a long private driveway which wound past fields of vegetables and livestock, showing off the produce that they would soon be eating.
Dai and Bryn were greeted at the door by a simply dressed waitress who asked their names and explained that each party or individual was given their own secluded dining room.
“Domina Cynddylan is in the Rose Room. If you will come with me…”
Bene Placito was a small slice of Roman elegance and opulence thrust into the British countryside. The decor and furnishings were all items that might grace the pages of patrician’s lifestyle magazines and set in amongst the modern, sophisticated, decor were exquisite examples of ancient Roman statuary and other artefacts.
The Rose Room turned out to be well named. It had a window onto a small walled rose garden, though at this time of year the bushes were little more than pruned back twigs, and there were several pots of indoor miniature roses sitting on small pedestals. Dai’s heart sank as they were shown in. he should have expected it, but somehow he had not. It was a triclinium. The three couches had been set to overlap, in three sides of a square with the table in the middle.
Justina Cynddylan was already ensconced on the central couch, helping herself to some olives from a bowl on the table. She smiled as the two men were shown in and made a sweeping gesture to the empty couches on either side of her.
“Thank you for joining me, please make yourselves comfortable and we will see what the chef is providing today.” Dai eased himself on to a couch, feeling awkward, but noticed with surprise that Bryn seemed completely unperturbed and slid onto his couch as if patrician born.
“You will have to excuse me from getting right down to business, but we can’t be assured of complete privacy until the meal has been served. The timing of that is always a little uncertain as Chef can be very temperamental.”
“I understand,” Dai said, though he was not sure he really did. But he sought an alternative topic of conversation. “There are a few antiquities here I see.”
“Oh yes. I have sold several genuine ancient pieces to Chef. He is a bit of a connoisseur of Etruscan art and it has been my pleasure to help locate and arrange the purchase of one or two for him.” She lowered her voice “To be honest he is a little obsessed, he is convinced he is descended from Etruscan ancestors, but when one is such a great artist as he is, one can be forgiven such foibles.”
The door opened as she was speaking and the waiting staff piled the table with heated stands and small covered pots, as well as plates with a few multi-coloured leaves strewn over them. A bottle of good wine and glasses completed the spread, then the staff withdrew.
Justina lifted a few lids and helped herself to some of the contents, and made the same imperious sweeping gesture with which she had greeted them. “Eat up. We can talk and eat.”
Dai eyed the items on her plate with some suspicion. He went for a plentiful portion of the grains and vegetables and only a couple of the more innocent looking meat slices, spooning garum over the whole lot to disguise any odd flavours. Bryn, meanwhile, was cheerfully piling his plate with samples from all that was on offer.
“The flamingo is excellent, don’t you think?” Justina nodded towards the meat Dai had chosen. He had some in his mouth at the time and chewed and made himself swallow before managing a nod. Why did the Romans insist on eating such things?

From Dying for a Vacation a Dai and Julia Mystery by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago

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

I am old, which increasingly means
That my ass is outgrowing my jeans
I guess my mistake
Is doughnuts and cake
Instead of dry muesli and greens

© jane jago

From Iconoclast: Not To Be, the eighth Fortune’s Fools book by E.M Swift-Hook.

The funeral was beautiful and her death had been a liberating experience.

Kahina Sarava knew she had a lot to thank her murderer for and made a mental note that she should be sure to do so if probability ever permitted it.

Not that many here knew Kahina had been murdered.

A few would be raising a slight eyebrow at the official pronouncement of her having passed away after a sudden, unspecified, illness, recognising in that formula the designation that suggested foul play. But Coalition policy prevented the assassination of those at its heart in Central being generally known unless they were so public that it could not be avoided.

The official commemoration of her life was everything Kahina could have wanted. Smiling beneath the all-concealing mourning veil, she listened to music commissioned especially for the occasion and eulogies from those who had spurned her so completely, following her fall from grace as one of the key pivots of Coalition power.

Her death had been a liberation. It had freed her from the need to lurk in the shadows, eking out an existence, closeted away in the extravagant country estate she had always loathed and allowed her to return to her true home in the midst of the greatest Central metropolis.

Admittedly the luxurious apartment she now occupied was slightly less desirable than the one she had lived in at the top of Sarava’s headquarters building. But it was chosen for being perfectly placed to allow her to access and be accessible to, those who breathed the refined air at the pinnacles of power in the Central establishment. She was not about to allow the inconvenience of her demise to prevent her from living out a full life in the manner which she preferred.

A Bite Of… E.M Swift-Hook

Question 1: As Fortune’s Fools draws to a close, we are no nearer to really understanding Durban Chola. Will we ever really be allowed inside his head or will he remain a ‘man’ of mystery? Do you understand him yourself?

I think the issue here is that Durban is something of an enigma even to himself. As author I know his motivations, his intentions and aspects of his character that he, in the story, is utterly unaware of. 
There is a lot more to come about Durban in the last two books and in Iconoclast: Not To Be we finally get to understand what he has been working towards since he realised exactly who and what he was. However, understanding what he wants to achieve doesn’t necessarily mean understanding the full impact of it.

Question 2: You manage to make your readers empathise with even the darkest of villains. Is this a conscious choice or is it simply your own empathy with your characters spilling out onto the page?

Both, I suspect. I struggle to accept the idea of any individual being one hundred per cent good or evil. Most who do ‘evil deeds’ are not the classic pantomime, moustache-twirling ‘evil for evil’s sake’ variety of antagonist. Some evil people find themselves that side of the line because of a choice made in one moment from a place of high emotion. Other have a sincere belief in the necessity and rightness of their actions for the greater good. Some are driven by strong selfish ambition. But most are people of goodwill who are simply and profoundly ignorant when it comes to the reality of life for others. They have things in their lives they take for granted so much it never occurs to them others don’t have the same.
I call this ‘The Marie Antionette Effect’. She said ‘let them eat cake’ when told the poor were starving from a lack of bread, not because she was callous, but because she truly did not realise that those who didn’t have bread couldn’t even dream of having cake. In my opinion, this kind of lack of understanding and ignorance is responsible for many of the shortcomings in our world and, being human nature, will continue to be so.  But if we ‘other’ such people, we lose all chance of ever changing their viewpoint. And, if we look into our own hearts we all have some places where we echo their deeds…

Question 3: Who has been your favourite supporting character to write?

Jaz. He is so completely unlike me and represents the kind of individual that I would never wish to have anything to do with in real life. His worldview is light years away from any that I could live with. But maybe because of that rather than despite that, I find him the one I most enjoy writing.

Question 4: There is a core of grimness to these stories, and as a reader, I find myself constantly bracing for the next blow. Do you understand that is what you are doing, or is the story simply driving your writing?

‘Grimness’ – I see what you did there! A story needs conflict so a lot comes from that. The setting the characters are in is not utopic – though I do feel it is far from a true dystopia. Like the real world, there are places, cultures and strata in society where people can live a decent life. But, as in the real world, there are also those where life is indeed grim.
I do try to point out on more than one occasion that the lived experience of the vast majority of the people in the Coalition is not bad. They may not have access to all the top high-tech toys, but they have decent homes and freedom within limits. Much of this world’s population live like that too. They are happy enough with their lives, not feeling downtrodden, miserable and oppressed all the time by it.

Question 5: Who the hell sets out to write a nine-book series? And why set yourself such a mammoth task?

I had written over four of the books before I knew it was going to take three full trilogies to tell the tale. Before that, I had a kind of open-ended idea it might be four or five books. I don’t feel I set myself the task, more it needed that amount of time and space to unfold things in a way that would do justice to the story, the characters – and the readers.

E.M Swift-Hook is the author of the Fortune’s Fools dark space opera series and co-author with Jane Jago of the alternate history whodunits the Dai and Julia Mysteries.
In the words that Robert Heinlein put into the mouth of Lazarus Long: ‘Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.’
Having tried a number of different careers, before settling in the North-East of England with family, three dogs, cats and a small flock of rescued chickens, she now spends a lot of time in private and has very clean hands. You can follow her on Goodreads and Twitter and keep up to date with Fortune’s Fools on Facebook.

Kanu lay down in the sacred place in the Dreaming Room and closed his eyes. The rolling chants of the priests in the god’s sanctuary reached in through the doorway lifting his inner self free.
Then he was standing on the shore beneath a dark star-filled sky on the shores of a blood-red sea.
“Look!”
The voice was that of the High Priest and yet also that of the god. Kanu looked into the water and saw his reflection. Talons. Wings. Horns. A towering body with primal strength.
It was true.
The prophecy was true.
He was indeed the Destroyer.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Inspired by original artwork from Ian Bristow