Guest Blog: David Tallerman talks Giant Thief's Easie Damasco

Very thrilled to have David Tallerman chat to us about Easie Damasco and what went into creating him as the main character in Giant Thief:

Kicking From the Sidelines

I've never thought of my - let's just say protagonist - Easie Damasco as a hero, or for that matter as an antihero. Over the course of my debut novel Giant Thief, he certainly does some heroic things, but also some completely despicable deeds, and often in close succession. Mostly he tries to stay alive, using whatever resources are available. It that means stealing a giant then so be it. If that means abandoning said giant, or drugging a friend, or robbing a palace full of nobles then likewise.

The thing is, I've always let Damasco choose his own path as much as possible. Right at the beginning, he had a few fixed character traits, most of them defined by the role I knew he'd be playing. He was a thief. That meant he didn't have too much of a conscience; at least, not the kind of conscience people who don't habitually steal things have. I knew he was going to have off with a giant and some other choice treasures too, and I knew he'd be taking them from a uniquely dangerous individual, which meant he was impetuous to say the least, with a knack for getting into trouble. I knew a tough-as-nails hero would have just stabbed his way out of there instead, which meant Damasco was a talker not a fighter.

At the start of chapter one, I took those basic ingredients, thrust his neck into a noose, and more or less figured things out from there. I'd be lying if I said Damasco wrote himself, because things are never that easy, but it didn't take me long to gain a sense of how he'd react and what he'd say in any given situation. For the former, thieving, running away and betrayal tended to feature high on the list. For the latter, wisecracks and sarcasm were a safe bet. Often, the difficulty was in remembering that there was a little more to him than that ... that like most people, Damasco was capable, in the right circumstances and given the right motivation, of behaving like a semi-decent human being.

As for the nurture side of things: Well, Damasco's back-story, so much of it as is revealed in Giant Thief anyway, could be written on the back of a large postage stamp. Giant Thief is his tale, after all, and it only seemed right he should tell it his own way. If he's cagey about his life before the opening chapter, can you blame him? When you've been stealing since you were introduced to long trousers, maybe some things are better left unsaid. What Damasco has is not so much a past as a history of trouble. He's been run out of most everywhere and offended most everyone. He makes enemies far more easily than he does friends, and people tend to remember a name like "Easie Damasco."

One last thought. Looking back, the thing I find most interesting and fun about Damasco is that, though I described him as a protagonist at the start, he actually fits far more readily into the role of sidekick. He's hardly ever the one to push the story forward. More often he's trying to derail it, or get out from under it in one piece. The real protagonists of Giant Thief are Moaradrid, the warlord whose lust for power and revenge thrust Damasco's world into chaos, and Marina Estrada, the brave small-town politician who sets herself up against Moaradrid when no one else is willing to.

But then, I like the idea of characters who watch a plot unfold from the sidelines, especially ones with big mouths. And as much as Damasco frequently misses the point or just plain ignores it, he does have one clear advantage: he sees everything and everyone in shades of grey. He's no more taken in by heroism than villainy, he's always looking for the angle and it takes a lot to make him see anything as other than enlightened self-interest. His take on events might not be the most complete or the most honest - and Giant Thief would certainly be a completely different story if either Moaradrid or Estrada were doing the telling - but I'm not sure Easie's version is any less the right one for all that.

David Tallerman was born and raised in the northeast of England. A long and confused period of education ended with an MA dissertation on the literary history of seventeenth century witchcraft that somehow incorporated references to both Kate Bush and H P Lovecraft.


David currently roams the UK as an itinerant IT Technician-for-hire, applying theories of animism and sympathetic magic to computer repair and taking devoted care of his bonsai tree familiar.

Over the last few years, David has been steadily building a reputation for his genre short fiction and increasingly his writing has tended to push and merge genres, and to incorporate influences from his other great loves, comic books and cinema. David’s first novel, Giant Thief, was published in January 2012, with two sequels to follow.

David’s home on the net is here: davidtallerman.net and his brilliant blog is here: davidtallerman.blogspot.com

His debut novel - the Leiberesque Giant Thief - is available now from Angry Robot.

Giant Thief by David Tallerman

Meet Easie Damasco, rogue, thieving swine and total charmer.


Even the wicked can’t rest when a vicious warlord and the force of enslaved giants he commands invade their homeland. Damasco might get away in one piece, but he’s going to need help.


Big time.

I had such fun reading Giant Thief. It is the equivalent of a Sunday Matinee movie, it's a popcorn book, the kind of fantasy you give a friend who has never read fantasy and wants to give it a try. It's easy on the eye, the characters are immensely likable and the story sweeps you along.

By no means is this a mad George RR Martin style sprawling fantasy epic which feels like it will never end, no - the key here is that the author has given us a chase book, albeit in a fantasy world, and after an initial wobble where the chase scenes become a bit dull, we find a narrative full of great world-building and interesting characters, but he reigns in all the exposition, which gets many votes in my book. See, Easie (best name ever?) manages to steal something from a Very Bad Man. And of course, the VBM wants it back. And he has an entire army to throw at Easie. And so Easie does something rather unexpected, he steals a giant. One of the giants from the VBM army, to boot.

You are never in doubt, for a single second, that Easie is trouble. The first line of the book tells you this - The sun was going down by the time they decided to hang me- and as he goes on the run with the giant Saltlick, I fully expected him to become more disagreeable and unpleasant. I was ready to dislike Easie, I was ready to dislike the story. But what won me over, after the initial running and hiding from the VBM's army, was the developing relationship between Saltlick and Easie. Easie is selfish, self-absorbed and you know that he'd sell his best mate in a twinkling of an eye. And yet, there is some spark in Easie that you can't help but like. He is the unreliable guy you can't help but like, because you think that deep down he's a good guy gone wrong.

The author plays a very delicate game, showing us that Easie is not to be trusted, and yet we do place our trust in him, because he saves the cat.

There is action aplenty and great dialogue and by the time I had finished reading it, I wanted my own Sallick and was ready to start learning how to pick locks and creep about in the shadows.

Cinematic and cool, Tallerman gives us a fun, fast debut where old fantasy tropes are dusted off and given a newer sheen for a new audience, ones who may be put off by giant-sized fantasy epics, but who are keen to try summat smaller in size and scope.

Giant Thief is out now from Angry Robot in book and digital format.