Mister Tut
– Author
Long Bio:
MisterTut is the author of The Bromeliad, a satirical fantasy series beginning with Book 1, Bartleby Bromelard: Renegade Scrivener. He crafts character-driven adventures fueled by dry wit, bureaucratic absurdity, and sprawling world-building. When he isn’t navigating the labyrinth of red tape at his writing desk, he can usually be found tending an indoor grove of over thirty jade plants, all of which patiently listen to his first drafts. Readers can discover more of his work and sign up for an in-story newsletter, free prequel story and other bonus material at www.Vaelenweld.com.
Medium Bio:
MisterTut writes satirical fantasy with dry wit, bureaucratic absurdities, and characters in improbable predicaments. He is the author of Bartleby Bromelard: Renegade Scrivener, the first volume of The Bromeliad series, available now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. When not writing, MisterTut can usually be found tending to an indoor forest of more than thirty jade plants. Readers can claim a free companion short story and newsletter at www.Vaelenweld.com.
Short Bio:
MisterTut is the author of Bartleby Bromelard: Renegade Scrivener (The Bromeliad series), available on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. A purveyor of sharp fantasy satire and custodian of over thirty jade plants, he connects with readers at www.Vaelenweld.com.
Current Book:
Bartleby Bromelard, Renegade Scrivener: The Bromeliad Vol. 1
Fantasy Satire
Released 9/15/26 in eBook and Kindle Unlimited
210 Pages, ASIN: B0HJX1DKYQ
“What if Terry Pratchett and Monty Python wrote a six-volume satire of Dickens (and Melville)?”
A fantasy satire. Lowly apprentice Bartleby the scrivener must fix his boss’s faux pas, or all his back pay and retirement fund will retroactively disappear! He is forced into a quest from quaint Upper Dithering to the great metropolis of Vaelen-Craig with the help of an alcoholic gargoyle and a wily thief. They will face bounty-hunters, accountants and actuaries in a world where writing in a ledger can alter reality and a notary stamp can change the universe. All told, He would prefer not to.
Reviews:
“Bartleby is not a hero who knows he is a hero… somehow that is exactly the right protagonist for this story. Recommended if you enjoy stories where the world is held together by paperwork and the paperwork is actively trying to kill you.” – Anankista
“Dickens meets high fantasy? Really liked this fresh take on the fantasy magic adventuring genre. The idea of magic via paperwork and you can literally make something disappear by mis-indexing it, very cool. Bartleby isn’t quite the milksop he seems in the beginning, which was nice (not a fan of ‘sad losers’ so this ‘underappreciated wallflower’ was definitely more my speed).” -A. Antunes
Excerpt (From Chapter One):
The finest thing about ink, in Bartleby’s professional opinion, was that it stayed where one put it.
If one applied a steady, moderate pressure to a well-tempered goose quill at an angle of forty-five degrees, the ink would flow onto the parchment and remain there, precisely bounded by the margins, for three hundred years or until the damp got it. It did not argue. It did not re-interpret its instructions. It certainly did not, under any circumstances, attempt to fast-track its career.
“Bartleby,” a voice boomed from the doorway, “how would you like to see the world?”
Bartleby did not lift his nib from the middle of a rather delicate capital S in the word Swinestead. To lift a nib mid-flourish was to invite a blot, and blots were the first step on the slippery slope toward administrative anarchy.
“I have seen the world, Master Finch,” Bartleby said mildly, his eyes fixed on the ledger. “The parish boundary stone at the northern ridge is quite visible from the privy window on a clear day. I found the topography unnecessary.”
“Nonsense! That isn’t the world,” Master Finch said, stepping into the cramped, low-ceilinged back office of Finch & Associates, Scriveners to the Gentry. “That’s just the mud we happen to be standing in. I’m talking about the metropolis. The spires of grand commerce! The cobblestones of destiny! None other than Vaelen-Craig itself!”
Bartleby carefully completed the S, laid the quill across the brass rest, and blew gently on the wet ink. Only then did he turn to look at his employer.
The view was somewhat disconcerting. Master Finch was a stout man of some sixty-odd years who usually possessed the florid complexion of a man who considered gravy a beverage. Today, however, he looked remarkably like an ill-printed ghost. His left shoulder was perfectly solid, but his right elbow appeared to have been sketched in charcoal, and through his waistcoat, Bartleby could clearly read the titles of the tax registries on the shelf behind him.
“Master Finch,” Bartleby noted, adjusting his spectacles. “You are experiencing a transparency in the midriff. I believe your third button is currently hovering over the Imperial Ledger for Well-Rationed Hay.”
“A minor administrative friction!” Finch waved a hand, or at least the general area where a hand ought to be; at the moment, it resembled a faint gray mist. “A mere clerical backlog, Bartleby. The Guild for the Licensure of Scrivening, Accountancy and Spoon-Lading has filed a preliminary motion of Extreme Unction against my person. A standard legal maneuver. High-pressure tactics from the big city, nothing more.”
Bartleby blinked. “Extreme Unction? The Guild would actually legally un-invent your grandfather? That would cause your entire lineage to dissolve retroactively into the timeline!”
“On paper, yes,” Finch said with a breezy, terrifying optimism. “But you know how the courts are. It takes months to clear the docket. Which brings me to your quarterly performance review.”
Finch reached into his coat—his arm momentarily blurring into a kaleidoscope of gray lines—and produced a long, narrow mahogany box wrapped in a stained tea towel. He set it down on Bartleby’s immaculate desk, right on top of a perfectly clean blotter.
Bartleby stared at it. The box was bound in tarnished silver, and engraved upon the lid was the crest of the High Guild: an inkwell rampant over a balanced ledger, flanked by two fiercely crossed soup spoons.
“Is that,” Bartleby whispered, his heart executing a small, bureaucratic flutter of pure dread, “the Sacred Silver Pen Set of the High Licenser? The one that was reported missing from the Grand Ministry forty-eight years ago?”
“Missing is a very aggressive word,” Finch said, leaning over the desk. “Let us call it ‘erroneously filed in my personal luggage during the great ink-panic of ’78.’ I was a young man, Bartleby! The air was thick with soot, the filing clerks were screaming, a bottle of permanent indigo had burst in the third-floor registry—it was an easy mistake to make.”
“And what, you hid it under your floorboards for half a century?”
“And I have preserved it beautifully!” Finch beamed, his teeth temporarily vanishing as his upper lip went translucent. “But the Guild has recently updated their tracking ink. Splendid technology, really. They know it’s in the parish. And they have issued a general bounty for its return. A massive bounty, Bartleby. The sort of sum that drives men to bad poetry and brigandage.”