Coffee with Steven Savile - Author
I suppose one quite important thing about meeting somebody, is getting the right location - who knew there were two hotels with the same name on the same street... go figure! After a few more texts, we actually found the right place and had to look for the guy in the garish red checky shirt (Steven’s words, not mine). And, soon as soonest, we were face to face (and I got a big hug :D ). Initial expectations of my driver (that’s posh for ‘me fella’) was that Steven would, as a “literary type”, be sporting a wide brimmed Fedora hat, an open necked shirt with a Cravat and elaborately decorated cane with his initials embossed at its head and, of course, flanked either side by a publicist and stylist. But no, what we got was a bundle of very down-to-earth fun!
Steven managed to avoid the temptation of planting himself in front of the big-screen-telly showing some football match... couldn’t tell you who was playing... blokes in coloured shirts... no doubt overpaid. We found a nice table close to a potted tree (see picture), not quite the cover of Primeval: Shadow of the Jaguar stylie, but hey, it broke up the beigeness of the whole place, and we weren’t exactly Hidden away. Here Steven and me fella had caffeine chasers (coffee and coke)...
I did my fan-girlie bit and got a couple of autographs... I now have it in writing that I am Number One Fan, Stalker, and Ebayer in the front of my copy of Slaine: The Defiler (already have a signed copy of Slaine: The Exile, and The Hollow Earth - validating my fan-girl status, I thank you).
And so the fun started. Storytelling and writing has formed a large part of Steven’s life, as early as 15 in fact (so he’s well placed to be writing about dinosaurs, as he could claim to be one). He has a wicked sense of humour, taking himself only as serious as was really necessary . Although, I think a lot of the humour was also down to the fact that all three of us were born within sixteen months of each other (so I can make that dinosaur joke), and I’d doubt most reading this would have had a clue what we where talking about ... but, there was quite a bit of *giggles* going on. Steven told us how he learnt to speak Swedish, by combining words he picked up to make phrases... (don’t think I should repeat the phrases here though).... and how he had the perfect come-back to a rather loud teenager boasting on a mobile.
More coffee...
Steven mentioned a couple of his writey friends. I liked the story of how one of them thought he’d tell a guy about to buy one of his books “I wrote that”... can’t tell you what the bloke said back though. Another story involved mistaken identity where Steven was asked to sign another author’s book because they look so alike. He also told us about some Stargate SG-1 novels coming up.... and I kick myself now, as I wanted to quiz him about Fantastic TV (which, according to his website is: a study of genre tv shows from the last 50 years). Personally... I think Steven should write Doctor Who novels... lots of them... but only if he can stay off the football and Swedish websites long enough.
Anyhoo....
Cheers for the great evening, Steven.... next time you’re local: my round at the coffee bar.
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