The silverbacks called her ‘ball breaker’, and he knew he had been sent to do a hatchet job. The wry humour in her golden lioness eyes told him she knew it too, which shamed him.

But a job’s a job, and he sat opposite her recording every word and every nuance.

It would, he thought, be easy to smear her reputation with a tweak here and a spin there. 

Then something in the simplicity of her honesty caught at his throat and the principles he thought long dead awoke.

They read his piece as part of her Nobel prize citation.

©️jj 2019

Fargo wondered what it was that he had done to displease the gods.
All his life he had served them faithfully and well, to the fullness of his ability. He had mastered their complex teachings and worked hard to be obedient to their every command. Thus had he had walked when he would rather have run. He had waited when his whole heart wanted to leap in. He had set aside his own desires to serve their will.
It had not always been easy, but in return the gods had always rewarded him for cleaving to their ways. As the years passed, kept close in their love, he had lived in their sacred precincts, protected from harm and never had to face a cold bed or an empty stomach.
But now things had changed.
There was pain in his bones and the gods did not relieve it. He sat before them, prostrated himself in the way he had learned from the teachings of the gods themselves, but to no avail.
What had he done to offend them?
Why did they punish him?
Fargo could not understand and could only keep trying to show the gods his love and devotion in the hope that they might soften their hearts and release him from the pain. Finally, greatly daring, he laid his head in the lap of the god and looked up in silent prayer. The touch of the god was on his head and for a moment he had hope. For a moment he thought he was forgiven.
The god spoke. “You’re a good old dog, Fargo.”
But the pain remained and the god turned his face away to watch the moving pictures in the corner of the room once more.
Fargo slunk from the presence of the gods, despair settling deep in his heart.

E.M. Swift-Hook

The harpist was blind, but his talent was such that the travelling singers bought him a slave to guide his footsteps. After a decade of service the boy got bitten by a snake and died of its venom.

This time they bought him a woman. She was plain and unappetising to their eyes, but they thought she might be kind to the musician and anyway he wouldn’t see her scarred face.

He called her Rose, and bought her scented flowers from a roadside seller.

She thought that was the day she fell in love with him.

They married that spring.

©️jj 2019

When Roland went away to the war, Ida died a little inside. She kept walking and talking, but some spark of humanity was snuffed out by the belief she would never see him again. 

She watched the waterlilies bloom in the moat and wondered if her end might be among their entangling roots.

It was five years, in which she grew paper thin and brittle, before they heard the men were coming home.

Even Ida dared to hope.

But he didn’t come.

Instead they brought her his sword and his boots.

They found her next morning floating among the lilies.

©️jj 2019

Tempest Blades: The Withered King by Ricardo Victoria is available for pre-order now and is the first book in the Tempest Blades science fantasy series.

The sky was raging in fury, lightning slashing across the dark skies, the wind blowing away the mist. The square was being emptied, the townspeople trying to get as far away as possible from the giant creature, whose red eyes were locked on the man standing in front of him in defiance. Any other mortal would cower before the behemoth, but this one was smiling. The creature started a conversation, its deep, booming voice echoing all over the place.
“Why don’t you run like the other mortals?”
“Not really my thing.”
“I will crush you.”
“You can try.”
The creature roared with anger, stomping its way across the plaza. Fionn didn’t waste time and jumped into the fray, slashing it with Black Fang. The creature replied in kind, raising its massive right claw and trying to shred Fionn like paper. He parried the attack with the sword, but the strength behind it almost broke his arm. He got ready to parry the second one, biting his lips to tolerate the pain, when an attack by Gaby on the creature’s back interrupted the exchange between them. Gaby’s twin blades were out of their sheaths and each shone with a clear, bright light, one glowing blue and the other red.
“Are those Tempest Blades too?” Fionn asked with an incredulous stare.
“Yes,” Gaby replied with her crooked smile. “Their names are Heartguard and Soulkeeper.”
“How did you…”
“You are not the only one with secrets, Greywolf,” Gaby said. “But that will have to wait, there is work to do.”
Both Fionn and Gaby jumped, attacked, dodged and parried the blows coming from the creature. But after every attack that the creature suffered at the hands of Fionn and Gaby, it regenerated immediately. It was growing angrier by the moment, picking up trash cans and throwing them, breaking walls and destroying the windows of the shops and pubs. The creature kept throwing things at them, forcing them to take cover behind a semi-crumbled wall. Behind the cover, they saw the men-spiders returning, attacking the scared patrons who were trying to get away from the creature.
“Those civilians need help. Would it be too much to ask you to help them?”
“As much as I would hate to leave you with all the fun you are right. They need me more than you do.” Gaby winked at Fionn. “Be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
Fionn could only smile at her with admiration in his eyes. Gaby ran towards the running people, not losing a second in attacking the men-spiders. Her blades were streaks of red and blue light in the dark. Parts of the spider-like creatures started to fly off. She was efficient, Fionn thought, too efficient even for a Sister of Mercy. There were so many things he wanted to ask her. But that would have to wait. A girl, running away from the conflict, broke a heel and fell in front of the path of destruction of the larger creature. Its collection of sharpened teeth was in full sight in a mockery of a smile. Seeing that, Fionn ran towards the girl, covering her with his body as the claw descended upon her.
“Oh shit,” Fionn managed to say before the creature hit him fully in the back with all its strength, sending him flying away with the girl in his arms. He managed to twist his body mid-air to absorb the blunt force of the imminent impact when they hit the ground. His jacket and the skin of his back were torn to shreds and he was bleeding profusely. His head was spinning. Fionn looked at the girl who was scared and crying, but safe. He shook his head to clear it and smiled at her.
“I will distract him while you escape. Can you run?”
The girl only replied with a nod and Fionn let her go.
She ran away into the streets. It was then that Fionn noticed a faint cut on his right cheek, a cut that started to heal amidst tiny green sparkles of energy.
This is gonna hurt tomorrow.

Tempest Blades: The Withered King, is Ricado Victoria’s first novel published by Shadow Dragon Press. It will be released on 20 August and is available for preorder now.

A Bite of... Ricardo Victoria

(1) You write science fantasy with an anime feel to it, what were the biggest influences on your writing?

Anime wise? Probably Vision of Escaflowne, Slayers, Ruronin Kenshin, Robotech, Saint Seiya and Shadow Skill. But my influences also come from similar sources, namely old school RPGs such as Final Fantasy VI and VIII, Secret of Mana, Baldur’s Gate and even Xenosaga.

(2) If you didn’t write in that genre, what genre would you most want to write?

The easy answer would probably be Science Fiction or perhaps horror. But in reality I have been suffering from an itching to write either Slice of Life stories with a touch of fantasy (again due out anime influences) or something pulp/researchy set in the real world, in the venue of Indiana Jones. I’m not sure if I would be good at it though.

(3) Street food – what’s your favourite and why?

Pizza. Although I can’t eat much of it anymore. But pizza, in the immortal words of the poet known as Michelangelo from the Turtles, is “a flying saucer food delight”. And technically can have all the basic food groups all bundled together.

Born in the frozen landscape of Toluca, Mexico, Ricardo Victoria dreamed of being a writer. But needing a job that could pay the rent while writing, he studied Industrial Design and later obtained a PhD in Sustainable Design, while living in the United Kingdom and working in a comic book store to pay for his board game & toy addiction. He is back now in Toluca, living with his wife and his two dogs where he works as an academic at the local university. He has short stories featured in anthologies by Inklings Press and Rivenstone Press, and he was nominated for a Sidewise Award 2016 for the short story Twilight of the Mesozoic Moon, co-written with his arch-nemesis, Brent A. Harris. He also won a local contest for a fantasy short story during college. But hey! That one doesn’t count, does it?

You can find his rants and other work—both fiction and opinion pieces—on his own website/blog and follow him on Twitter.  

This trend wasn’t quite as stupid as the puffball skirt or stiletto heels, but it wasn’t exactly a pair of flat sandals either.

The premise was that women who had been forced to wear jeans so tight they right about cut them in half would be thrilled by a garment whose whole raison d’etre was bagginess.

It was going okay – until a young starlet was attacked by a stalker. She screamed and tried to run, but her trendy gear effectively tied her feet together at the ankle. 

The sidewalk sleeper who rescued her was lionised and the fashion quietly died.

©️jj 2019

My dear Readers Who Write,

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV at your service, author of the science fantasy classic (or SciFan as we cognoscenti prefer to say) ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth’. Mummy was the one who identified the genre for me when she had been sipping on her fourth pernod and organic Greek yoghurt smoothie. “Moons, if you think that anyone is ever going to call that poop science-fiction you are living in a frigging fantasy.” I recall she spat the stone of an olive she had fished out from the bottom of her glass with the final words, so they impacted me deeply.

Today mes estudas, after our brief plunge into the murky pond of reviews and reviewing, we will return to the primrose paths of prose preparation.  To those of you who have had the supercalfragilistic fortune to be winnowing worth from my words of wisdom I say welcome back, and to those who have only just discovered my delightful calligraphy I say sit quietly at the back of the class and be sure to revise later.

And thus, my happy followers, my RWW, I propose to you the finest flora and bejeweled gems of my inestimable intellect. Read carefully, learn assiduously, and ingest intestinally that you may benefit from the experience of one whose writing skills are superior and sans pareil.

How to Start Writing a Book –  The Write Character

When creating fantabulous fiction, one of the building blocks one should consider perspicaciously is the characteristics of one’s characters, the pontification of one’s protagonists, and the mentality of one’s mendicants.  May one humbly suggest the ritualistic dismemberment of the dichotomy of despair is the first essential in the realisation and roundaboutification of perfect protagonists.

As we are fast becoming closely intertwined, one feels comfortable in sharing some of one’s own little ritual-ettes for the construction of credible character traits. Place upon the table a virgin sheet of the most beautiful of papers and upon its sensitive surface inscribe certain informations about the person growing in one’s psyche. Once you have these facts inside your cranium attempt to dress your shrinking physique in the insubstantial anatomy of your putative creation. Once having assumed this physical envelope, model it as carefully as if you were a supermodel on the catwalk and allow it to permeate every pore of your being. Only then can you begin to set it down with its contemporaneous companions inside the delicate framework of your histoire. Tread gently and allow each one of your persons to speak in their own tones, to walk in their own shoes, to listen with their own ears, to feel with their own hearts, and to expostulate to you of their hopes, dreams, passions and personalities.

Never, mes enfants, permit yourself to press your own expectations upon the psyche of those who inhabit your writings. Rather let them fly on their own wings and listen with your inner ear as they speak to you of their lives and their loves.

Ah mes estudas, quel excitement, quel bonheur, as your little people walk the pages of your magnum opus and clamber around in the canyons of your consciousness. Let your creativity be as verdant as the grass, and allow your imagination to be impregnated by the words of those persons who have grown up to inhabit your worlds with the organic ossification of their beings.

And there we will leave the characterisation of Calliope and her sisters until next time when we shall consider the impact of those most precious people of our imaginations on the mundane and dour dross of everyday life.

Ecrit bon!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

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

It had been years since the train had taken him out of the valley to the university five hundred miles away. He swore that he would never return – taking nothing with him but the memory of a pair of velvet brown eyes.

But his father had died and he was duty bound to attend the funeral.

As the train pulled into the halt he realised they were gathered to see the prodigal son, but he saw nobody except her. As she came to greet him he saw his brother’s ring on her hand and his brother’s child in her belly…

©️jj 2019

She was just the girl
The nameless heroine
In pretty frocks and curls
Her face made up.

Each Hollywood show
There she is once again
Every TV drama
Her role remains.

Only to be seen
To titillate and lure
To decorate the screen
Not play a part.

The token female
To stir and slake men’s lust
Her words don’t count, just the
Size of her bust.

E.M. Swift-Hook

“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.

If you want to keep reading, Trust A Few by E.M. Swift-Hook is FREE to download until 2 June. Check out these other FREE sci-fi and fantasy books available this weekend.