The Occult Detective’s Last Writes with… author Steven Savile

TODAY’S DEPARTING:

Steven Savile is a prolific author whose body of work includes numerous media tie-ins and franchise novels (such as Star Wars, Dr. Who, and Torchwood), game related materials (for Warhammer, Pathfinder, and Trudvang), and dozens of other properties, not to mention his own creations.

The guy’s a freaking beast. And bloody good too. I was exited to learn that he’s working with the brilliant folks at Dream Realm Storytellers on a tie-in novel to their popular RPG, Svilland, currently on Kickstarter.

Now, without further ado, let us once more delve into the macabre and perform Mr. Savile’s Last Writes…

LAST MEAL

There’s a pizza place in Riva del Garda where I had the single best meal of my life, we are talking taste explosion that belied the rather dull sounding Quattro Formaggi that was more like a spiritual experience than a meal. So, with a one off, last meal, it would have to be a wood-smoked, stonebaked Quattro Formaggi from that little pizza place, washed down with a sparkling San Pellegrino, which when it comes to last meals sounds fairly basic but in reality is a little slice of heaven before I get sent down to the pit.

LAST BOOK

There are a few comfort reads I’ve collected over the years, books that mean something to me, books that shaped me or changed me or in some way transcended simply being an entertainment. If it was going to be the last words I ever read, I think I’d go back to a beloved book, something that really meant something, but something that I would have to have faith wouldn’t let me down on a return visit, which is a huge gamble… unless I’ve already revisited it a few times in this life. There are few that hold my interest on multiple reads, something like David Gemmell’s Legend I’ve read five or six times and it has never failed to delight me, or Clive Barker’s Weaveworld which was my favourite book when I was 21, and was probably my favourite book when I read it again at 42 for entirely different reasons. At first I’d fallen in love with the audacity of the imagination and the wild dark horrors of his fantastique, but second time around it was about his world view, his philosophies and his language. It was a special book… but for a last read ever? Jonathan Carroll’s Sleeping in Flame. It was a book I’d found almost by accident because of the Wayne Anderson cover in the UK, with it’s little cloven hoofed devil full display… and in a few short pages completely and utterly changed my taste in books. Nothing short of pure magic.

LAST SONG

I’ve got a ritual, every time I buy a new piece of hifi equipment, be it a turntable, an MP3 player, even a phone these days, I play the same song first… I also play it first every time I move into a new house, and in the last minutes when the old house is empty, play it again to say goodbye. I’ve been doing it since 1987, which means this is a 37 year old ritual for me now. It would have to be the last song for the world, too… Time Stand Still, by Rush, from the Hold Your Fire album. It has been a fundamental part of the sountrack of my life and there isn’t a more fitting lyric to go out to, asking the universe to freeze this moment a little bit longer, make each sensation a little bit stronger, as experience slips away…

FIRST PERSON YOU’D LIKE TO MEET ON THE OTHER SIDE

This is hard, how do you equate the values of lost loved ones, family, friends, and pick The One? The thing is I was at my dad’s hospital bed when he went, we shared his last moments, and in that there was as sense of closure even if I miss him every day and he’s referenced most times mum and I talk, or even when I’m sitting in the garden with Marie, my wife, or just when we do something we know he would have loved… but there’s someone else I’d like to see just to know she’s at peace now. They say first loves are the strongest, that they’re unforgettable and mark our souls forever. The first girl I ever loved, and by that I mean properly loved – it started out as friendship, and ended in heartbreak – was called Vicky. I was maybe 16-18, something like… it was college years, and she was very much the heart of that. We did everything together, even when she got together with one of our classmates (and he utterly broke her heart) and afterwards, as we all went our different ways, we had that last summer, my folks were away, hers were away, and we just had that ‘such sweet sorrow’ summer that Shakespeare captured so well. The last time I saw her she’d just met the man she would marry. The thing about Vic was that she felt things too acutely and couldn’t cope. They married, had two kids, and as it fell apart she went through hell, she was committed to a mental hospital for her own safety at once point, and one Christmas, alone, with her kids at their dads, she hung herself. She’s the one I’d want to see. Just to know she was finally safe.