Biography
N.B. -- this autobiographical sketch was written in the third person in an attempt to remain objective. What is the result? Ecclesiastes had a word for it.
Stephen E. Andrews was born in a tiny 18th century cottage on the 10th May 1963 at Groeswen Halt, Eglwysilan, a mountain near Pontypridd, Glamorgan. After his mother Margaret taught him to read as a toddler, he attended local schools. Despite a noticeable flair for English, Steve - which is what everyone calls him - was distracted sufficiently by science fiction and horror (both literary and cinematic), natural history, silver age Marvel comics and music that he consistently neglected much of his schoolwork once he reached adolescence, apart from the creative writing aspects of English classes.
Childhood interests in H.G. Wells and John Wyndham led to Steve's teenage discovery of Philip K. Dick, Alfred Bester (The Dark Side of the Earth was bought for him serendipitously by his father David) and Harlan Ellison, while most of his late 1970s peers were content with J.R.R. Tolkien and photo-chromic sunglasses. Already a natural outsider due to the relatively isolated location of his home, Steve embraced the intelligent rebellion initially offered by Punk Rock. Disillusioned by the Stalinism that soon crept into Punk yet still obsessed by the music of The Stranglers, Japan, David Bowie, Japan, Roxy Music and The Tubes (amongst many others), he became increasingly interested in Glam, Psychedelia and Electronic music. His early interest in writing prose gave way to attempts at writing song lyrics. Academic underachievement was the consequence of these enthusiasms, but Steve remains unrepentant nonetheless.
From 1979 to 1984 he marked time in lower sixth, two years of business studies courses and unemployment, before taking an assembly-line position at a large auto engine plant. Steve has since described his experience of 1984 as his Orwellian period: he worked in a mechanistic environment, on alternating weekly day and night shifts for thirteen months wearing blue overalls like Winston Smith, while the social background of Thatcher’s Britain and the last great miner’s strikes completed this dystopian milieu. During this period he also read numerous Penguin Modern Classics at his workstation, punctuated by definitive counterculture texts by the likes of William S. Burroughs and John Rechy, autobiographical works by louche types such as Salvador Dali, Andy Warhol and George Melly and New Wave SF by J.G. Ballard, Michael Moorcock, Brian Aldiss and Christopher Priest. Despite semi-ironic claims that he was emulating Orwell’s technique of temporarily living the lifestyles would later write about, Steve realised that in declining industrial South Wales, blue-collar jobs or the dole were the inevitable destinies for his generation rather than choices.
Throughout these years Steve was intermittently involved with music, singing and playing analogue synthesizers. Although his interest in rock has continued and diversified over the years, his own musical output has been limited and intermittent due to consistent failure to find enough collaborators with a similar aural vision to his own, a lack of willingness to work on technique and the distracting allure of literature. Recognising that making a living in the arts was going to be difficult and eager for financial independence, Steve landed a job in a bookshop in Cardiff in October 1984. The factory job had allowed him to purchase a VCR and indulge his passion for Kubrick, Cronenberg, Roeg, Argento and Leone but what he desperately needed was staff discount on books.
As he was by now widely read for his years and extremely enthusiastic about books, Steve soon became adept at his new vocation. In 1985 he moved to Bath, took on his first management position in bookselling and shortly afterward met his partner. His enthusiasm for reading ensured that he rapidly became one of the most respected booksellers in the South-West of England and today he remains a well-known figure in the profession. In 1986, he was offered an editorial assistant’s position by a major London-based publisher looking to improve their SF line, but Steve elected (foolishly) to remain in Bath rather than relocate. He worked exclusively in bookshop management positions from 1988. He has been involved with the running of ten book businesses in five cities for four companies, both corporate and independent. Despite the flattering offer to join Fopp as their national book buyer in 2004, he continues to work full time as a bookshop manager. Since 1999 he has also appeared as a guest lecturer at four University campuses in the South West, speaking on science fiction, H.G. Wells, reading in relation to the mass media, bookselling and retailing in general.
In the late eighties, Steve started writing reviews and articles for book trade publications. Dissatisfied with his efforts to write fiction at this time, unwilling to compromise on the quality he aspired to and highly aware (due to the wide knowledge of publishing he had acquired as a bookseller) of the difficulties involved in breaking into professional writing, he concentrated on his day job instead for several years, moving to Swansea temporarily in 1995. Nevertheless, he had realised he possessed some talent as a non-fiction writer, co-author and editor. In 1997 he returned to Bath and recommenced writing and editing bookseller’s guides for readers and the like as well as commissioning articles from established authors (see Select Bibliography). In 2000 he started researching and writing a substantial book about rock music, only occasionally publishing book reviews (which he felt had been diverting his attention from what he really wanted to create). After some consultancy work on The Bloomsbury Good Reading Guide (5th Edition, 2001), Steve was commissioned by Jenny Ridout of A & C Black in April 2005 to co-write 100 Must-Read Science Fiction Novels with Nick Rennison, with whom he has collaborated on a number of occasions. Steve has recently written items for Record Collector and he is a regular contributor to Books Quarterly.
Steve is currently busy speaking on SF at libraries and lecture theatres around the U.K. while preparing two further collaborative non-fiction books to be published in 2008 and working on a number of short story concepts. He plans to write a novel or three in the future and complete his rock and roll book. He continues to be an unrepentant book, DVD and music collector who should know better. Unmarried, child-free and cat owning, Steve and his partner Pat still live in Bath.