Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

The ones that phone and try to sell you shite. You ask what they are selling they deny it. 
And you KNOW they are telling porkies.
And it’s not really their fault.
There are two routes. Hang up.
Or string them along. Agree to everything up to the moment they start wanting money. Then say you don’t have a card or a or a bank account.
They always ask why.
Then explain that your nurse doesn’t let you have money and you shouldn’t even be on the phone. Then laugh like Hannibal Lecter.
It’s funny how fast they run…

He suddenly became aware of how hard it was raining. Jogging back to his car, he found the chief superintendent standing next to it, his stout figure barely sheltered by the large umbrella he was holding above his head.
“Davis, I’d like a word.”
Nodding, he pulled a keyring from his pocket and pushed the button on his key fob. The hazard lights of the BMW M6 he was walking toward flashed twice. He opened the passenger door for the other man to get in, before going round to the driver side and sliding out of the rain himself.
“Chief Super, what can I do for you?” he asked, noticing the grim expression on the superintendent’s face.
“Davis— lad— I want to start by offering you my deepest condolences. Sergeant Williams was a bloody fine officer. I know how much he meant to you.”
Davis nodded but could think of nothing to say in reply.
“So, I think it is best that you take a compassionate leave of absence until—”
“Sir—”
“Until you’ve had a chance to get over this.”
“Sir, my work is all I’ve got. You know that. Don’t—”
“My mind is made up, Davis. When Dr. Hanson is able to sign off on these forms”— he pulled a folded packet of papers from the inside pocket of his coat and handed them to Davis—“ you will be reinstated immediately, at which point you will also be assigned a new sergeant.”
“Sir, it is my request that I be allowed to see a psychologist of my own choosing.”
“Why is that? There’s nothing wrong with Dr. Hanson.”
“I would just prefer to eliminate any opportunity for bias in my evaluation. Dr. Hanson is too familiar with the friendship Williams and I had. It’s possible that he might—”
“Say no more, Davis. I will grant your request, but you will inform me of whom you choose. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir.” Davis replied. He waited until the chief superintendent got out and closed the door, then he started the car. Its tuned engine purred a low note of contentment at being brought to life.
A knock sounded from the window just as Davis was putting the car in gear. He lowered it enough to get a clear view of the superintendent’s face.
“I am sorry, lad. I know how tough this is for you. I just think you need a bit of time to allow yourself to grieve. There is nothing wrong with that, so don’t be so hard on yourself.”
He strode away, leaving Davis unsure whether he was upset or grateful for the chief’s condolences. Coming quickly to the conclusion that he didn’t care either way, he set out for the pub, where he knew he would find the only friend he could count on at the moment. A drink

From Hunting Darkness by Ian Bristow .

“The laws of the jungle must be obeyed,” the oldest of the elephants said. “This new law must be taken from here and trumpeted to all the animals. From hyenas to gorillas, from lions to meerkats.”

“The cheetahs won’t abide by it,” said another member of the elephant council, “they always look for ways to exploit or get around our laws. The rhinos will trample roughshod over it too.”

Youngest elephant wondered why no one addressed the real problem with getting this new law adopted. It was as if they didn’t dare speak about it – the human in the room.

E.M. Swift-Hook

They came across the first body before they had reached the edge of the blackened area. It was so badly burned that Caer could not even tell whether it had been truly human. There were others scattered around, all equally burned and very dead and as Caer had suspected there was nothing of any value left in that blackened zone. Even the metal was too brittle to be of use, shattering if hit hard. But when they reached the part of the hulk that lay beyond the devastation, it was a very different story.
The men left their ponies and clambered into the metal cavern, making echoes with their shouts of discovery. There were several undamaged crates, which they forced open to reveal such familiar offworld devices as flash-lights and power-cells, and a whole range of other strange items which none of them could identify.
Caer instructed Shevek to take one of the other men and ride out in an arc around the hulk away from the burned area, just in case anything else of any value had been thrown clear of it by the explosion. The rest of the Zoukai he set to collecting samples of the salvageable loot to take back to Alexa. Looking around, judging quantities and weights, he realised it would probably take the best part of the next day to remove all that was here. For all the richness of the haul, he could not help but feel a small bite of disappointment that there were no weapons – the kind that could fire many times from a single reloading or burned through flesh and bone with an invisible finger of fire. Caer consoled himself with the thought that the bonus he could expect from bringing this hoard into Alfor, would buy any such weapon that might be imported from Keran.
He had just finished selecting the samples to take back for Alexa, when he heard an excited yell. The Zoukai he had sent out with Shevek, was waving to him. He swung himself onto his pony and rode quickly towards the waving man, who shouted again as he got closer:
“Captain, you must see this.”
“See what, Zarul?”
He reined in his pony beside the young Zoukai.
“A man from the stars, Captain, an offworlder – and he’s alive.”
Caer looked at the younger man doubtfully. He could see no way anyone could have survived the explosion. Even if they had been able to get some distance from it the force alone would surely have been fatal.
“You are certain?”
“Well Shevek says he’s still breathing.” Zarul scratched at his bald scalp. “You can come and see for yourself.”
Caer pushed his pony into a fast trot, suddenly very curious. He might not trust Zarul, but Shevek had been riding with the caravans since before Caer had been born. Though when they reached the place where the old Zoukai was standing, the man on the ground beside him certainly looked dead. He was not burned as the other bodies had been, but he lay as still as a corpse and the side of his head was thick with blood.
Caer slid from his mount and crouched down, his fingers probing beneath the jaw. There was a pulse. For a moment Caer felt an odd sensation of excitement. Although he knew that people lived on other worlds which were out amongst the stars, it had never before seemed fully real, he had never actually seen anyone from offworld before. Curious now, he drew his knife and ripped through the cloth of the offworlder’s garments, surprised that such thin fabric resisted the blade. The other two Zoukai helped him cut and pull off the clothing, including a heavy belt, until they had stripped the man.
Caer’s breath hissed between his teeth. For some reason he had assumed that offworlders would be frail, with weak, puny bodies. From all he had heard they were feeble, using machines they had invented to do the work of their muscles. But this one was as strong as a Zoukai, and his body was built like any ordinary man. His flesh carried several old scars and his muscles were clean and compact beneath the skin. The thought struck him that this man would fetch a fortune in the Alfor slave pens. The castellans would be scrambling over each other to purchase something so rare and exotic as a genuine offworlder.
“See, he is a fighter, Captain. This and this – they were made by blades.” Zarul said, pointing at the scars.
Caer nodded.
“Well, if he lives, perhaps we shall find out what kind of fighter he is, this man from the stars.”

From The Fated Sky the first part of Transgressor Trilogy, and the first book in Fortunes Fools by E.M. Swift-Hook.

Listen to Granny because Granny always knows best!

Rice. Rice with vinegar. Rice with vinegar and seaweed and (often) raw fish.
What the feck is that all about?
Yeah, fish and vinegar. That’s all good. But we’ll have the fish wrapped in batter and served with chips shall we?
Okay. 
Sushi, and all the other stuff, comes from another culture and I accept that. 
I just don’t want to eat it.
The texture is strange. The taste is odd.
And then there are chopsticks – for which uses are limited. You can use them to eat with.
Or
Stab the fucking idiot who brought you to a sushi restaurant. 

Dana Illwind and Growing Shadows by Arthur Daigle is intended to be the first part of a trilogy, with part two out later this year.  It started as a short story for the Fellowship of Fantasy anthology series, but Arthur enjoyed the characters so much he kept writing until it reached book length and he decided to publish it.  

Dana Illwind waited at the forest crossroads outside her hometown of North Lights, not happy with her current situation. That was unfortunate given she was responsible for ninety percent of what was happening to her. More like eighty-five percent responsible.
It was getting dark and cold, and she pulled her cloak tight over her shoulders. She’d worn her extra thick dress and fur lined boots, and a fur cap over her brown hair. It was still early in the year when winter’s cold and spring’s warmth traded places nearly every day. Dana had brought a backpack loaded with two days of food, a lantern and extra oil, a knife (never leave home without one) and a purse with her life savings. Granted fourteen copper pieces and three silver coins didn’t buy much, but her father was fond of pointing out most people didn’t have two coins to rub together and got by on barter. Barter was also harder for the king to tax.
The thick growth of pine trees made it hard to see her guest. He’d said he would arrive today, but they were rapidly running out of today. Maybe he was delayed and wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow. That would be bad. She’d used every excuse she had to get out of today’s chores. Her parents wouldn’t tolerate her missing another day’s work.
An owl hooted to the north. Maybe he wouldn’t come at all. Then why bother writing to say he would? Paper cost money, and the scruffy looking man who’d delivered his letter must have been paid. If he had no intention of coming then he could have saved time and money by ignoring her request.
“Ms. Illwind, I presume?”
Dana screamed and leapt off the road, landing on a thick carpet of dead pine needles. She scrambled behind a tree and drew her knife. It took her half a minute to stop hyperventilating, and another ten seconds to get angry with the smirking man standing off to the side of the road.
“That wasn’t nice!”
“I’m not a nice man.”

A Bite of… Arthur Daigle  

Do you see writing as an escape from the sorrows of existence, an exercise in futility, or an excuse to tell lies and get paid for it? Or is there another option…

I write to make people laugh.  There’s no end of suffering in the world, easily proved by spending ten minutes watching the nightly news.  My goal in writing is to help people, make them laugh.  I write to make my audience laugh so long and so hard that when they’re done the world is a better place, easier to deal with.  Strange as that sounds, I have been contacted by readers who thanked me for doing just that.  One said, no joke, that I helped him get through the Covid lockdown.  That’s an unqualified win for me

Have you ever written somebody you know into a book? A lover? A friend? An enemy?

So far I have not written a living person into my book, although that may change soon.  A former coworker asked to me to make him a character in one of my books.  This is a first for me, and I felt it only right to honor his request.  But in general I prefer to make my characters rather than write real people into my books.  You never know whether you will offend by doing it, especially if it is done without the person’s permission.

If you could meet one person (alive or dead) who would you choose? And what would you talk about? And what do you bring d a gift? 

If I could meet anyone, Jim Henson would be on the top of my list.  I modelled much of my work off his movies and TV series, with their good natured humour and family friendly material.  I think that’s the way to go to reach the most people.  I’d like to talk to him about how he came up with his ideas and later refined them, and how he promoted them and dealt with the marketing side of making content.  I understand he was a humble man not given to extravagances, so for a gift I think I’d bring a home cooked meal.

Arthur was born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois. He received a degree in biology from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, which sounded like a good idea at the time. This led to work as a zoo intern at Brookfield Zoo, an assistant fisheries biologist at the Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation, and a research assistant at Morton Arboretum. Most recently he’s been employed grading high school essay tests and working as a garden associate (yeah, the job market is that bad). In addition to writing, Arthur is an avid gardener and amateur artist.
Arthur is the author (no jokes, please, he’s heard them all) of eight books. These include William Bradshaw King of the Goblins, William Bradshaw and a Faint Hope, William Bradshaw and War Unending, William Bradshaw and Fool’s Gold, Goblin Stories, Dr. Moratrayas Mad Scientist, William Bradshaw and Urban Problems, and Dana Illwind and Growing Shadows. These books were almost inevitable given that the author has been a fan of science fiction and fantasy since he was old enough to walk. Arthur is also a regular contributor to the Fellowship of Fantasy anthology series. Major influences include the works of the puppeteer and filmmaker Jim Henson and the British artist Brian Froud. Expect more books in the Will Bradshaw series, as all attempts to stop Arthur from writing have failed.

Every year for the last twenty, Wilf and Anna took the train to the coast and stayed a week at Mrs. Appleby’s guest house. 

They’d walk along the pier, buy ice-cream from the Italian parlour and candyfloss from a young woman whose face changed but whose piercings and tattoos always seemed the same, and celebrate their anniversary with a glass of bubbly in the Indian restaurant on the prom.

And every year for the last twenty both thought how much nicer it would be in Spain – or Bali.

But neither ever said. 

So the next year they took the train…

E.M. Swift-Hook

Because life can be interesting when you are a character in a video game…

Milla felt as if she had become suddenly invisible as the two talked in an indecipherable code.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked as a translucent ring of shields appeared around Pigsy.
Pew shook his head. “Unless… Is your pendant recharged?”
She glanced down and saw it was once again glowing with brilliant light.
“It seems to be.”
He gripped her arm briefly. “When I ask for manapower, do what you did before.”
Then Pigsy was bounding at the figure on the throne and for the next few moments Milla was blinded by dazzling spell effects. In the midst of it all she heard String shout “Out!” and she had to step back against the wall as the two Visitors nearly crushed her.
“It’s self healing,” Pew said, a real hint of desperation in his tone, “and I’ll be out of manapower soon.”
Beneath the throne Ruffkin was scrabbling at the back of his cage and as she watched him, her heart aching, Milla realised that there was a simple sliding bolt holding it shut. The two men had moved in again and Milla made up her mind. Even if they couldn’t defeat this lich lord, maybe she could rescue Ruffkin whilst it was distracted by having to defend itself. She reached out her hand and sent the manapower from her pendant to Pew, then slipped around the walls, careful to avoid the combat zone. The Visitors and their foe were so focused on the fight none of them noticed her as she left the safety of the wall and ran quickly in and up the steps to the throne from behind.
Ruffkin saw her and redoubled his efforts to escape, scabbling desperately. She reached the cage just as String shouted “Out!” again. But she ignored him. The boney bolt slipped as she tried to grip it, and then jammed solid. She drew the knife Pew had given her, hoping she could prize the bolt open with the point of it. Instead, the cage burst apart as soon as the tip of the blade touched it. Ruffkin shot out and pausing only to lick at her face, scurried to the back wall where Milla could now see there was a small hole in the shadows.
From the doorway she heard a shout.
“No! Pew!”
She looked back in time to see a bolt of black lightning piece through Pew’s chest, lifting him off the ground before he collapsed unmoving.
“Nooo!” Her own anguished shout echoed back String’s words and without thinking of the danger she leapt onto the rear of the throne and stabbed down with the dagger into the back of the lich lord. The force of the explosion threw her against the wall and the world dissolved into sparks and shards.
When things came back into focus she opened her eyes to see Pew crouched beside her, his snout wrinkled with worry.
“Pew? I saw you…”
“String rezzed me. But you, you dispelled the lich lord. String was on his last hit point. You saved us from wiping.” He sounded almost in awe.
“I was just rescuing Ruffkin,” she murmured and slipped back into unconsciousness.

Some days later Milla was sitting on the beach with Ruffkin and Pew, enjoying a picnic of fruit tea and flyberry cookies from One Eye’s shop. She was thinking that maybe ventures weren’t quite what she had believed them to be and that perhaps she preferred her life beachcombing after all.
“String is still convinced it was a glitch in the game and reported it,” Pew was saying. “He claimed that as I wasn’t given the quest reward it needed fixing. He just didn’t get that I’d refused to accept your pendant. Anyway, the devs said they never even put the quest he’s complaining about into the game. They said it doesn’t exist. So he rage quit.”
“Rage quit?”
“Deleted all his characters and left the game.”
“That sounds a bit drastic.” Milla shivered even though the day was as hot as it always was in Wrathburnt Sands. Something about the word ‘deleting’ seemed so terribly final.
Pew picked up a stick and threw it for Ruffkin who bounded happily after it.
“It is. But I know String. He’ll come back sooner or later. And meanwhile, I don’t care if you’re a glitch or not. To me you are just my amazing Milla.”
His hand found hers and held it tight.

We will begin Return to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook next Sunday.

Wrathburnt Sands was first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology.

How fares the one I chose to love now that the years have passed?
The face that I once looked upon each day will be much changed.
I wonder how I once believed your love for me would last
When even then I saw your heart from me was oft estranged.

But folly is as folly does and youth’s not folly’s foil,
Full hearts will empty wit and blind the eye from truth so plain.
When in the field of love just one doth plough and plant and toil
The harvest reaped at season’s end is only tears and pain.

I never gave my heart again into another’s keep
And lived my life in many ways that seldom brought me peace.
Yet still, in dreams, we walk the hills, steal kisses as I sleep
And know again the trust and strength I’d thought could never cease.

Tis forty winters, come and gone, since I did see you last
How fares the one I chose to love now that the years have passed?

E.M. Swift-Hook

There are some things worth fighting for, even if you think you won’t win. There are some people worth trying to save, even from themselves— and even if they fight you every scrap of the way.
Lorelea Lastas reminded herself of this as she walked through the chilly concourse of the small-freighter zone of the spaceport, her travelling bag on her shoulder. She needed to hold onto what had brought her here and make sure it still mattered as much as it had when she was safe at home, surrounded by people she knew, cared for and could trust.
Here she was alone.
Completely alone.
She couldn’t even link home. That was a big scary first.

It had started with the thirty-eight adult members of Clan Lastas, sitting in the bar of The Last Hope. A Clan council trying to decide what they should do about the recent visit from a Coalition Security Force investigator to their home, the domed settlement on the planetoid of Hell’s Breath.
Having the CSF throwing threats around had shaken Vel more than Lorelea had ever seen her affected by anything. Velia might be her cousin but wasn’t her generation, more a mother to Lorelea than anything and grandmother to the child Lorelea had named after her. She was also the matriarch of Clan Lastas.
“Jaz don’t care about you, presh. Walked out on you twice. He’s not even Clan by blood,” Vel said.
“You never called him an outsider to his face, or thought of him as one when he lived here,” Lorelea retorted. “He belonged.”
And he had. They had all felt it. But not anymore. Because now they believed he had abandoned her and that somehow, his presence had brought the CSF to their door and endangered them all. They were wrong. She wanted to tell them how wrong, but even if she did, they weren’t going to listen. Not now. From being their star of hope, Jaz had become the bringer of their destruction.
It made her see red. “You can’t blame him for what happened. It wasn’t his fault.”
She could see from their frowning faces that they gave her words no weight. But then they hadn’t been there that last night. She couldn’t tell them about that. Even if she did it would only make things worse. They wouldn’t understand.
Dom cleared his throat.
“He upped and left you. We could find him, make him pay. Like we made your little one’s father pay.”
They had made that bastard— the father of her daughter— pay alright. A man who had sold her a thousand promises and betrayed them all. The Clan had chased him down when they heard what happened and made sure he understood he could either part with much of his wealth or with all of his life. The money had paid for her share in the ship with which she now made her living.
But Jaz was different. He was nothing like Lia’s father and Lorelea opened her mouth to say as much. To remind them all of exactly who he was and what he had done for them. Vel beat her to it, but not in the way Lorelea would have chosen.
“Don’t be stupid. This isn’t anything like that was. And no matter the rights and wrongs of it, he’d kill whoever we sent and not even break a sweat. This is Jaz Baldrik, not some corrupt corporate slime like little Lia’s father was.”
That was met with silence.
No one could argue Vel’s words and not just because she was their matriarch. They all knew what she said was the truth. It was completely the wrong reason to leave Jaz alone, but at least it would keep them from trying, so Lorelea said nothing too.
“We’d not know where to find him anyway,” Dom muttered as if that was the one thing stopping him carrying out his threat.
“He’s ‘City,” Vel said, her tone dismissive. “He’s ‘City the way we’re Clan. So he’ll always go back there. It’s in his blood.”
There was another silence, this one even less comfortable. Starcity, Thuringen. The place they called the criminal capital of the galaxy. Where Jaz had grown up not even knowing who his parents might be. An orphaned child, alone on the streets. Lorelea, knowing all her life the strong familial bonds of Clan, could never think of that without a tug of grief.”We have a bigger problem than that man,” Vanda, Dom’s aunt, put in, her words heavy. “We all know it, just no one wanting to say it. And the best solution is the obvious one. We need to be moving on. We been here so long some of us have clean forgot who we are. What we are. We’re Clan. We’re travellers. It’s been good times here, but this— this is too dangerous. It’s past time we shifted.”
Someone had been bound to suggest it. Halkom Dugsdall, the CSF investigator who called himself ‘Grim’, had single-handedly seen to that. His visit had left everyone unsettled, Lorelea included. He had made threats that had grown bigger with each retelling until, Lorelea was sure, half the Clan expected a cohort of the dreaded Special Legion convict troops to turn up on Hell’s Breath any day.
There were rumbles of agreement with Vanda’s words. Mostly from the Olders. Those who had spent half their lives lots of places elsewhere before settling on Hell’s Breath, an abandoned rock twirling through space. Lorelea herself had early childhood memories of that way of life, the transient faces of playmates on other worlds. Playmates who she had never stayed long enough to get to know, but had stayed plenty long enough to miss when the Clan moved on.
“I think we should stay,” she said. “I don’t see as how shifting’ll help us any. If they want us, they’ll find us.” But it was not heard. Too many other voices were being raised, some for and some against. People were more interested in saying what they felt than listening to other opinions. She sat back and sighed. It made no odds in the end what the Clan decided to do. None of it would change anything that really mattered in her own life and her daughter’s life. She had a simple choice, to accept that or to take action.
It was with that thought a realisation came to her. Not in bits and pieces or hints, but suddenly there in her mind, fully formed. If something mattered enough you had to fight for it. Whatever the cost.
The Clan were still arguing about the way things should be and not thinking much of the way things actually were when she slipped out of the bar.

From Iconoclast: Not To Be part of the Fortune’s Fools series by E.M. Swift-Hook.