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Stephen was born and raised in the Lancashire town of Wigan. He grew up there and was educated in the local schools and colleges. He has spent most of his working life in the snowsports industry and is now one of Europe's top snowsports professionals.
He has appeared in TV programs such as the BBC’s Holiday program, improving the skiing of celebrities and is featured in many press articles. When he is not on the slopes in the Alps, he lives with his family in Oslo, Norway where he spends his time writing. His well-traveled and exciting lifestyle provides him with locations and material for his stories. I asked him some questions about himself.
Q. What motivated you to come down off the mountains and write your first novel?
A. Well I’m not really down off the mountain, but I have more time on my hands in the summer. I had a bad crash at the end of last winter, breaking my neck and back. I had to spend a lot of time in bed and that gave me the time I needed to prepare the novel. The book project started as one of those things you had to do before you die, but it soon developed into a passion.
Q. You say the places in Exodus are inspired by the real places you have been too.
Can you tell us something about those places?
A. I have traveled and worked all over the world. The mountain landscapes have been fantastic in places like New Zealand, Argentina and Europe. I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time off the beaten path and in the backcountry. I’ve stood on the top of mountains and climbed through valleys and passes, where no one else has been for years. In Norway I get the chance to spend time in the middle of Telemark, it’s remote and stunning landscape where you are more likely to meet reindeer than other people.
Q. You said that Exodus was your Everest; can you elaborate on that for us?
A. Don’t get me wrong, I am fully aware of the implications of summating Everest, but still I was less daunted by the thought of making that climb than writing a book. As a dyslexic, the task just seemed beyond my abilities, but that just made it a challenge I could not turn away from. I had always found it impossible to express myself in the written word, thoughts would just not transfer to paper and they took too long to put down. I thought attempting a book project would at least improve my typing skill and spelling and if I could eventually complete about three hundred pages, I would publish the work to prove I could do it. I am more than pleased now, with a completed novel of more than twice the volume I originally intended. The point that the first hundred pages took me years to write and the last hundred pages took only weeks, is how I am measuring my successes.
Q. Whose books do you read?
A. I love good historical fiction. If I am reading a book set in a particular time, I enjoy reading non-fiction from the same period on the side and that helps me gain an over view of the time. I always enjoy the well-researched novels of Bernard Cornwell, Wilbur Smith, Conn Iggulden and Simon Scarrow.
Q. You did not set Exodus in any particular time in history, why was that?
A. That’s not completely true. I originally wanted to stage the book around twenty thousand years ago and base it on a divers culture living on an ice-free Antarctica. A shift in the earth’s axis would then force them to abandon that continent and spread out around the world. This would then pay lip service to Graham Hancock’s book ‘Fingerprints of the gods’, which suggests that different civilizations have many similarities, and could have come from one source. Traces of that idea can still be found in the pages of Exodus.
Q. You have a passion for history, is that reflected in your stories?
A. Very much so. Almost all of the aspects of the story are based in history, the people, cultures, their warriors and battles. I had great fun combining strategies and warriors from different times. I dared to use the winning strategies of some of the greatest generals of our time, like Hannibal, Julius Cesar, Napoleon, Alexander, Genghis khan, Wellington. I mixed and matched the warriors and weapons from different ages and then pitted them against tactics that were untested against their skills. The combination was such that I could not predict what was going to happen in a battle until I had written it. The glue I used to try and hold this thinking together was General Sun Tzu 500 BC and his Art of War philosophy, that all warfare is based on deception. A rule well used by the generals above.
‘All is based on deception. Hence when we are able to attack, we must seem unable. When using our forces, we must appear inactive. When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away. When far away, we must make him believe we are near.’
Q. Who are the people that inspire you?
A. I find the authors and generals above inspiring along with explorers like Nanson, but the true inspiration in my life is my two young boys. They see the world as it is and keep me focused on the things that really matter.
