Tallis Steelyard. A Fear of Heights by Jim Webster

Tallis Steelyard Takes Off!

When I pick up a Tallis Steelyard book I know I am going to have the most enjoyable of rides start to finish. There will be social comment and cynicism, there will be intriguing concepts and fascinating settings, there will be battles of wit and cunning plans, but two things above all will stand out – the incredibly interesting characters and the wonderful moments of both subtle and laugh-out-loud humour.
The author has an eye for personality quirks and the humorous possibilities in just about every occasion, and seldom leaves either unexploited to the full.
This book was, however, something I embarked upon with a little more trepidation that usual when approaching a Tallis Steelyard book, because unlike the collections of vividly imagined and portrayed cameos which I have come to know and love, this is an entire novel.
Yes, there are still those wonderful cameos, but there is also a rare opportunity to follow Tallis through an unwitting adventure, all thanks to the indomitable Maljie of course. The way Jim Webster writes, I was sitting in the hot air balloon along with them.
If you enjoy Tallis Steelyard in shorts, you will enjoy as much in long form. If you have yet to make his acquaintance, then dive right in and do so, but hang onto your hat it’ll be a very wild ride!

E.M. Swift-Hook

Wit, wisdom and a deeply unreliable narrator

Tallis Steelyard, Maljie and a balloon. What could possibly go wrong?
Of course the answer to that should more properly be what couldn’t. Our guide is a poet, fixer, sometime conman and prolific fibber and his companion on the journey is a larger than life lady of strict if eccentric morals and definite ideas on every subject. Cue fireworks.
As we fall headfirst into this madcap adventure the only thing that is truly guaranteed is an enjoyable ride.
Jim Webster’s writing is quintessentially English in its sensibilities, being dryly humorous and sparely undecorated. He excels at the quick pen sketch of even the least important character, without ever pushing judgement down our throats.
I particularly liked the guard who felt queasy having to sit on a trapdoor to prevent our heroes escape – of such little gems are happiness made.
I will admit to having wondered if Tallis Steelyard could sustain a full-length novel, but my doubts were completely unfounded. This book is a delight.
Of you have never visited Port Nairn and never encountered the lives of a certain poet and his acquaintances may I suggest you remedy this lack tout suite.
Five stars and a big fat recommendation.

Jane Jago

The biggers remodelled the pond so a naked figure looked as if she was emerging from the water.
Big Bertha was scandalised.
“Ain’t you cold.”
“I’m freezing.”
“Come here and we’ll find you some moss or something.”
“I can’t move. They cemented my feet to this rock.”
Nardo and his little boat left the stream and he rowed the pond with a cold chisel grasped in his plaster lips.
When he had freed the maiden she walked along the bottom of the pond and just kept walking.
They never knew where she went. But wherever it was Nardo went too.

©️jj 2021

The adventures of Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson.

At the inn, Bearson was glad just to roll into bed, as was Yore, but Homes waved away their concerns.
“I shall smoke a pipe with our genial host before I make my way between the sheets,” he declared.
It felt like only minutes later, when Bearson was shaken from his sleep by an impatient trotter.
“Up. Old chap. Up. And be quiet about it. There’s evil afoot on the muir, and it’s up to us to stop it.”
Bearson groaned and looked at his watch. It was four in the morning. He groaned again, but knowing the futility of arguing with a determined Homes, he dressed quickly and crept out onto the landing. Homes waited impatiently.
“Bring the bag of breakfast,” he instructed, before going back into the room where Yore still snored.
Bearson fetched the linen bag and was back on the landing in time to hear a muffled scream from Yore’s chamber.
“I warned you,” Homes was adamantine. “Now get up and stop being a bigger fool than you can help.”
Bearson sincerely hoped Homes hadn’t actually bitten the inspector, although the probabilities leaned that way.
However he had been persuaded, Yore followed Homes onto the landing, and the great detective led the way downstairs. At the back of the inn, there was a small stable where a sleepy lad was busy harnessing a grumpy looking donkey to a small cart. Homes flicked the lad a shilling and Yore led the donkey out into the morning darkness. Once out of the stable, the donkey seemed to become angry and it put a good deal of force and determination into trapping Yore against the stones of the stable wall. The inspector pulled the animal’s ear down to his mouth and whispered something.
The donkey stepped back, and Yore smiled toothily – his good humour having been wholly restored by the exchange.
“Horseman’s Word,” he said and jumped onto the driving seat. “Where too Mister Homes?”
Homes and Bearson climbed aboard.
“We need to be where we stopped last night.”
Yore nodded. “I took note of the place.” He shook the reins and they were off.
If it had been strange to drive across the muir in moonlight, this ride in a creaking little cart, with Yore profanely deciding their route, was surreal. The weird light of false dawn lit a pearlescent mist and the donkey’s unshod hooves made very little sound as it plodded along.
Bearson would have been hard put to say where he was, but both Homes and Yore seemed satisfied when the cart drew to a halt. Yore set the brake, before hobbling the donkey and providing it with a nose bag of sweet-smelling hay.
In the half light Bearson saw Homes bare his sharp, yellow teeth in a feral grin.
“Break out the breakfast, old man, we’ve naught to do for a while but wait.”
Nothing loath, Bearson passed around thick ham sandwiches, slices of crumbly cheese and hunks of richly spiced fruit cake. They had all but finished their repast when Yore’s large ears twitched.
“Company coming,” he growled.
“I hope so.” Homes was at his most demurely irritating.

Piglock Homes and his sidekick Doctor Bearson will continue their investigation into The Affair of the Dartymuir Dog next week…

Jane Jago

I wonder if there’s a rainbow bridge
Or is that just a story?
I hope you crossed today my friend
To a place of shining glory
A place with beds of softest down
And endless games to play
A place where you can wait for me
I’ll be along someday
And then all we, the pack and me
Will cross the stepping stones
Across the stream, beneath the bridge
To our forever home

©jj 2021

At the City of a Thousand Stories the Pilgrim Route leaves the Imperial Highway and enters more uncertain territory. Prudent souls rest a while whilst those in charge of their safety engage such protection as they can afford.
The best assurance of security lies in the cadres of pensioned-off Imperial soldiery, although they cannot be hired cheaply.
One such group of battle-hardened veterans was under the leadership of Caleb Cross, a thickset plain-faced ex-sergeant of some forty summers. He was a man characterised by few illusions, alongside proven courage and integrity. He and his men had enjoyed a brief furlough in the fleshpots of the city and they were now ready for the road. They sat at their ease at one of the pavement cafes that border the slave market and awaited whatever clients the City Watch might send their way.
It was something of a surprise to see one of the Captains of the Watch escorting a tall cadaverously thin character in a snowy white pilgrim robe towards them. Caleb’s second whistled.
“Some money must have changed hands there,” he said quietly before spitting a gobbet of something truly vile into an adjacent humidor.
“Indeed my friend.”
Caleb stood up and watched the two men who approached him through narrowed eyes.
The Watch Captain looked as if he wasn’t much enjoying the company in which he found himself, while the pilgrim had wealth, privilege, and entitlement ingrained in every lineament of his almost skeletal frame. He stared at the group of soldiers in their stained leather breastplates and his mouth formed a sneer.
“Is this the best your city can do?”
The Watch Captain sneered right back. “That depends what you want. If you want spit and polish obviously not. But if you want to get to the Dragon Temple safely then, yes, they are the very best.”
The pilgrim must have been less of a fool than he appeared, because he dropped his superior act and looked carefully at the score of men who lounged at their ease under his scrutiny.
“How much?” he asked brusquely.
Caleb answered with a sneer of his own. “It doesn’t work like that. There are a few things we have to get clear first.”
The pilgrim looked down his high bridged nose. “What is there to get clear? I pay. You do as you are told.”
Caleb sat down.
“Come back when you are ready to listen.”
He turned his back. Nothing happened for some appreciable time and in the end he turned back to where the rigid pilgrim stood in silence but with his jaw out thrust.
“I’m listening,” the man grated.
“First thing. Everybody walks.”
“But we have just bought sturdy mules.”
“I don’t care. Where you want to go people walk.”
The pilgrim’s eyes glittered angrily, but then he drew himself in. “If I am buying your expertise I suppose I have to listen.”
“You do. And no women.”
“But…”
“Not negotiable.”
They eyed each other for a long cool moment before the pilgrim gave a thin smile.
“Very well. No women.”
“Finally. I’m in charge. I won’t make an issue of it, but if I take your money I’ve put my reputation on the line.”
The pilgrim actually seemed amused. “You are welcome to a task that I have found akin to herding cats. Now. For the second time. How much?”
“How many pilgrims?” Caleb was pretty sure he knew the answer, but he asked anyway.
The pilgrim drew his dignity about him once more. “We are one and twenty, as the Holy Book sets out.”
“Thought you might be. The price is one hundred gold ducats.”
“Excessive.”
Caleb just looked at him.
The pilgrim turned his cold gaze on the Watchman who leaned against a stone pillar grinning.
“You man. Would you pay this rabble a hundred gold ducats?”
“Depends.”
“On what?”
“Whether I wanted to get to the temple and back with my skin in one piece or not.”
“Very well. You are hired.”
Some worm of unease was scratching at the base of Caleb’s brain and he was tempted to refuse the contract and wait for the next caravan. But a hundred ducats would see them all through winter in comfort so he nodded.

Jane Jago

To hear the rest of the story tune in to TallTaleTV:

The Pilgrim and the Soldier

O calories, I love your flavour
Away, you rolling kilos
I’ll take you sweet or savour
And fat I’m bound to to be
With a wide tummy!

O weighing scales, I hate to see you
Away, you rolling kilos
I’ll happily deceive you
And fat I’m bound to be
With a wide tummy!

Seven years, I’ve been a-dieting
Away, you rolling kilos
Seven years, I’ve not lost anything
And fat I’m bound to to be
With a wide tummy!

Oh calories, I’ll always crave you
Away, you rolling kilos,
I’ll hors-d’œuvre and dessert you
And fat I’m bound to to be
With a wide tummy!

E.M. Swift-Hook

Alright you lot it’s me, Jacintha Farquar, here again to shine a magnalight of common sense into the weird and wacky dark spaces you writer types choose to inhabit, and brush away some of the cobwebs of illusion you seem to have draped all over your craft.
You still reading?
Good, then perhaps you might even learn something today – but I for one am not holding my breath.

Life Lessons for Writers – Nine: Why Do It?

I mean, why?
Seriously. There are over a million new books a year appearing on Amazon and most of them are written by someone exactly like you – a wannabe JK Rowling.
What amazes me is that you seriously believe that if you hit publish on whatever you just wrote somehow, magically, you are going to become a world famous author and have everyone praising your book to the skies.
Could it happen?
Yes. You could win the lottery too – in fact you probably have more chance of winning the lottery.

So, back in the real world.
Why do you do it?
If the answer is for the money, stop now. Go away and look at the top earning jobs and careers. Then cross off all those that require or bestow celebrity status and what are you left with?
Pick the one you like best and do that. Do not bother being a writer.

If the answer is for the fame, then you would do better to think about vlogging or just walk naked through the capital city of your nation with your body painted in tessellated shapes in primary colours. That would make you more famous than most of those who have a book for sale on Amazon will ever be.

You still here?
So it’s not for the money or the fame?
Then why do you do it?

This is a question you need to ask yourself very seriously in front of the mirror so you can see if you are lying when you answer, because I still think half-of you believe that you are somehow the special exception to the rule who will one day get fame and fortune, movie deals and TV mini-series.

The rest of you, hello.
I’m seeing two sorts here.

The first lot of you know exactly why you write and your ambitions are set at where you know you can pitch. You likely passed up doing that creative writing course for one in business and marketing because you figured early on that if you want to make a living as a writer that is what matters more than the content. Or you’ve learned the hard way and are now focused 90% on the marketing and 10% on the writing. And well done to you. I doubt you’ll ever be JK but you stand a good chance of being a self-supporting writer.

The second lot, well you know why you write too and it has very little to do with fame or fortune. It comes down to having stories to tell and knowing there are a few folk out there who will read and enjoy them. For you, it is plenty reward enough that someone somewhere has had a few hours of escapist entertainment because you wrote that book. Well done to you too – I loved your last one!

If you still don’t know why you write, you need to figure it out and fast, because if it is more about ego or money than telling stories, you are looking in the wrong place and wasting everyone’s time, mine included.
Now bugger off I’ve got important work to do catching up with the old crowd down the virtual Dog and Duck.

Sometimes they see us, and sometimes they don’t, but we have always been here. Our work is to bear witness as their lives spin out.
When a child is born, we number the day of its birth and know the preordained day of its death.
We don’t mind when the old ones fade away, but the death of a child is a deep sorrow. We close our eyes when He comes for the little ones.
Today, though, we rejoiced because the child stopped at our place and sat down among us.
“I’ll just stay here.”
And he couldn’t stop her.

©️jj 2021

The dragon spiralled down out of the sunset, with the orange light setting his skin aflame so that he looked as if he was made of oil and steel. Tia stood and watched, wryly noting the Diamond Throne banner, whilst being careful not to move or speak until the shining one’s feet touched the ground and he furled his wings.

She bowed her head in a formal gesture of welcome.
“Greetings lady,” the voice inside her head was deeper than she expected. This must be a full male, which meant he would be a shifter as well. He would bear watching. Carefully.
“Greetings, bright one.”
The dragon regarded her out of whirling multi-faceted eyes before bowing his head. The silence lengthened, and seemed to Tia that her uninvited guest was trying to make her nervous with his lack of comment. She broke the silence in a deliberately small voice.
“What does my lady mother want of me?”
“Naught. She would merely ascertain that you are well.”
Tia cast down her eyes so he could not see her contempt.
“Perhaps my lord dragon would care to assume his human form and venture inside, to where we can speak in more comfort.”
If it was possible for a dragon to look puzzled, he did so.
“May one ask what makes you think this dragon has a human form?”
For a moment Tia dropped her shield of humility.
“Who am I?” she raised a narrow dark eyebrow.
He thought about that one for a moment before dipping his head.
“One is ashamed.”
Tia was at great pains not to show her contempt for that remark.
“I apologise. It was not my intention to cause you disquiet.”
She felt the dragonish laughter as a vibration that ran right through her skeleton.
“My name is M’a’tsu, and I would be honoured to visit with you.”
Tia curtseyed.
“I will leave you to make the change in privacy.”
She turned and made her way across the flower strewn meadow to the grey stone buildings that clustered at the base of the cliffs and the stone stairway to the temple.

M’a’tsu watched her go, enjoying her long-legged stride and the way her body moved under the simple linen robe she wore. He found himself fantasising about tying her up with the rope of her own black hair, which hung in a braid almost to her knees. Giving himself a sharp inward reminder that he wasn’t there for pleasure, he took the necessary time to compose his mind before making the change.

Once he was in his human form, he stretched for a moment enjoying the different sensations afforded by thinner skin. He looked down at his muscular perfection and briefly considered remaining unclothed but the pleasure of the rapidly cooling air against his human flesh had to be balanced against the possibility of giving offence. Accordingly he shifted himself leather trews and a waistcoat, electing to remain barefoot for the sheer delight of the feel of grass beneath him.

This is an extract from ‘Dragonheart’ one of the adult fairy tales in The Dragonheart Stories by Jane Jago. You can listen to this on YouTube.

Advice on growing old disgracefully from an elderly delinquent with many years of expertise in the art – plus free optional snark…

I am old, that’s no bone of contention
And I got here without intervention
So why would I think twice
On your so-called advice?
Hush your mouth, I’m not paying attention

© jane jago