Stephen Theaker
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Stephen Theaker
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First
and foremost of the Silver Age brood, having stepped on the beaks of the rest in
his sudden dash for literary recognition, readers have already been stunned by
this author’s brash pilfering from the grave of Arthur Conan Doyle, in the shape
of his debut novel,
Professor Challenger in Space.
Stephen William Theaker was born to parents in 1973.
His earliest conscious memory is of standing by an old blue trunk while his
mother told him this would be his first day at playschool.
The earliest dream he can remember was of eating
Weetabix, only to find it full of worms and woodlice, all because he had applied
sugar and milk in the wrong order. It was many years before he realised that
this had been a dream. Similarly, having been told several times as a youngster
that he had cracked his head open, it was decades before he realised that the
white bone of his skull had not actually been exposed to the cold Yorkshire
drizzle. The creativity that welled within this new-born dreamer would not be stifled. His favourite game as a boy was one of his own invention, by the name of Torpedoes. This would involve placing a medium-sized stone in the centre of a square cut out from a plastic carrier bag, then from the other side of the plastic using an elastic band to tightly gather it around the stone, creating a tiny missile which he would launch by holding one of the corners and swinging it very quickly. Released, they would fly through the air like torpedoes through water. These deadly implements were never, of course, used in combat, but instead were thrown as high as possible, over telephone wires and houses. One other favourite use was to throw them under the wheels of cars or buses as they slowly turned a tight corner on his street. (However, when this version was being played, an interesting variation was used – pieces of glass replaced the stone, and part of the interest was to see how finely the glass was crushed. To this day, Stephen has a little bump between the thumb and index finger of his left hand, a scar of playing with glass in that way.) Stephen was upset one day, when, playing this game, a passer-by called him a tramp.
In 1984 he got hold of his first word
processor and produced his second proto-novel - Another Stainless Steel Rat,
a tender love poem to the works of Harry Harrison. 40 pages on Tasword II
produced on the fly make this a tale of interest only to true devotees.
In 1987
Stephen completed his third proto-novel -
Death and
Destruction, detailing the fantastic adventures of Pall Rochefort as he
battled against the odds in a castle filled with demonic enemies. Written as a
special project for GCSE English, this got an A, so it must surely
When he was 16, Stephen was offered a role, along
with many other students from Oakbank School, in a video being made for
Elvis-lookalike singer-songwriter Tanita Tikaram – sister of now-famous actor
Ramon Tikaram, of This Life, Kama Sutra and Dream Team fame. After one scene of
rural village dancing was filmed, Stephen and his brother were selected to make
a second appearance in the video, as working class ruffians wolf-whistling as a
pretty middle class miss walked down a cobbled road. Unfortunately, the lighting
rig blew up and it is quite possible that Stephen cannot be seen in the video.
What makes this story even less believable is that he does not even know the
name of the song, though it probably appears on
The
Best of Tanita Tikaram. Perhaps it was the song called “Little sister
leaving town”.
At about the age of 17, Stephen appeared briefly in
a school performance of selected highlights of Macbeth, in which he probably
played Macduff. No kilt being available, he took the stage with a car blanket
thrown bravely over one arm. We imagine he looked most fierce.
Following this, Stephen fell into those difficult
“angry young man” years, where he found it difficult to write anything because
nothing he could write could adequately convey the futility of life.
Luckily, he
soon found a girlfriend, and began to write any old nonsense. At about this time
he put together a collection of his old short stories for his old friends,
Steven Gilligan and John Greenwood. Inspired by the presentation – Stephen had
put them together in a mock magazine –
New Words 0 – the Brighton duo took the ball and ran with it, and the
legendary ground-breaking
fiction magazine
New Words was born
(not to be confused, unless the editors
were able to get away with it, with the classic Michael Moorcock magazine,
New Worlds).
The
greatest accolade to head Stephen’s way during that period was to have his short
story, "The Sad, Sad Story of Henry D", described as "average" in Interzone.
Despite that, other excellent stories did appear in the magazine during that
period, during which he shared the editorship with his long-time friends and
literary allies, Steven Gilligan, the infamous punk
In 1998
Stephen briefly spent time as an installation at the Pompidou Centre in Paris. The painting is a
detail from a portrait
of SW Theaker yelling his defiance at a Brighton storm. In 2000
Silver Age Books had the privilege of publishing his first full-length novel,
Professor Challenger in Space, kindly described by Interzone as “a
handsome little volume”.
It was
hoped that publication in paperback form would follow in early 2002, but
unfortunately the publication date was brought forward to 10 December 2001! Does
no-one ever think of the Marketing Manager when they make these decisions?
Regardless, the book has now found its way to many literary homes across the
country. When Stephen drinks wine, he toasts, as did Stendhal, to the happy
few! His
third novel,
Rolnikov, Mad Knight of Uttar Pradesh, was due to be published in December
2002, but as with so many of the Silver Age breed, he allowed time to pass too
quickly, with no sign of the novel’s appearance. Hence, pre-orders had to be
cancelled, and only when it is finished will we allow him to offer it for sale
once more, even if he is the publisher.
Asked to pick out a few of his favourite books, Theaker picked the following: Imajica, Clive Barker, Horace, Pierre Corneille, Jacques le Fataliste, Denis Diderot, Bouvard et Pecuchet, Gustave Flaubert, The Stainless Steel Rat, Harry Harrison, A Nomad of the Time Streams, Michael Moorcock, Spacehounds of IPC, E E “Doc” Smith, The Time Trip, Rob Swigart, The Demon Princes, Jack Vance, Planets for Sale, A E Van Vogt, Book of the New Sun, Gene Wolfe.
Later that year, Theaker wrote his most ambitious novel so far, The Fear Man, a high-concept science fiction thriller. What would happen if the wife of the President of Earth was having a baby, thanks to alien assisted fertility treatment, and then someone (perhaps anti-alien religious zealots?) kidnapped that baby, teleporting it from the mother's very womb? It's a story destined for Hollywood, without a doubt. But first, it appeared in TQF!
Theaker has created many less than fascinating characters in the course of his writing, including Howard Phillips, Alec Abernathy, Walt Brunston and Vicki Proserpine. He created Howard Phillips as an outlet for the sides of himself that he did not like very much – the arrogance, pompousness, pretentiousness, argumentativeness and pedanticism – only to find, over time, that he increasingly found himself more comfortable writing in Howard's voice. In 2008 Stephen became the editor of Dark Horizons, the journal of the British Fantasy Society, taking over from issue 53. It's hard to imagine anyone taking him seriously in that position when his website is full of such silly nonsense as this... – HP Novels
Professor Challenger in Space (2000)
Read a sample! /
Order from Amazon!
Quiet, the Tin Can Brains are Hunting! (2001)
Read a sample! /
Order from Amazon! Novellas Death and Destruction (juvenile) (1988) Stories Short Stories Cartonia Orange (1994) (co-author) Stories | The First Sally of Klothe and Melenkius; or, How Things Came to Be (as William Higman) (1995) New Words #1 | The Sad, Sad Story of Henry D– and Edgar C– (1995) New Words #2 | The Terrible Trio Dig to the Earth's Core | The Terrible Trio Meet the Flipstanley Who Moved Too Fast (2005) TQF #4 | The Return of Jak Perceval: Death in the Darkness! | The Wizard Who Chose to Wait! | The Secret Destination | The Rubber Plant | Master Zangpan's Resolution (2007) TQF #15 Plays Klothe and Melenkius Take Centre Stage (written 1996, published 2006) TQF #11 comics and cartoons Invasion of the Eggmen (juvenile) (c. 1984) Comics Milon, Intergalactic Assassin (script only) (1995, unpublished till 2004) New Words #5 The New Adventures of Milon the Assassin (originally published in the Comics Warehouse newsletter) (c. 2001) Comics NON-FICTION Salvador Dali: God Emperor of Dune? (1995) New Words #1 November Spawned Editorials (2005) NS #1 #2 TQF Editorials (2004-) TQF #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #8 #11 #12 #13 #14 #16 #17 #18 #19 #20 #21 #22 The TQF Manifesto (2007) TQF #17 REVIEWS Meet the Robinsons (2007) TQF #16 The Last Mimzy | Earth Defence Force 2017 | Pirates of the Carribbean: At World's End (2007) TQF #17 Apex #10 | Transformers (2007) TQF #18 Zencore! (Nemonymous #7) (2007) TQF #19 Halo 3 | Test Drive, by DJ Burnham (2007) TQF #20 Mass Effect | Back to You (2008) TQF #21 The Game, by Diana Wynne Jones | Spider-Girl Presents: The Buzz and Darkdevil | Deep Secret, by Dianna Wynne Jones | John Constantine, Hellblazer: Reasons to be Cheerful | John Constantine, Hellblazer: The Gift (2008) TQF #22 ILLUSTRATION November Spawned Interior artwork (2005) NS #1 #2 November Spawned Cover illustration (2005) NS #1 #2 #3 TQF Interior artwork (2004-) TQF #1 #2 #3 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #11 #12 #13 #14 #15 #16 #19 #20 #22 TQF Cover illustration (2004-) TQF #1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10 #11 #14 #15 #19 #20 #21 MUSIC Master Zangpan and the Mechanical Housewife The Lost Teakettles of Atlantis Unpublished and/or unwritten Rolnikov, Mad Knight of Uttar Pradesh (unpublished and unwritten, originally due Dec 2002) |
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Upon its
publication in that magazine, it quickly proved inspirational to other artists,
and