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Day: October 30, 2013

Befriending Strangers Isn’t Weird, Is It?

Review of Adventures with the Wife in Space: Living with Doctor Who
Author: Neil Perryman (with interruptions by Sue Perryman)
Release Date: 07 Nov 2013
Paperback List Price: £12.99 or $16.99

Neil Perryman is partially responsible for the existence of this blog. It was the blog “Behind the Sofa” that he and several of his friends ran that gave me the idea that perhaps I could write about Doctor Who myself. When they decided to mothball the site instead of answering my request to become a contributor (I swear that wasn’t my fault!), I decided I’d just start my own blog.

So you can just imagine what it meant to me to receive a review copy of Neil’s new book, based on his wildly successful blog by the same name—the one that took up his time after “Behind the Sofa.” It felt like I’d arrived, somehow.

Then I started to read.

Now anyone familiar with “Adventures with the Wife in Space” from its two-and-a-half-year run online will probably know already that this book is not simply a collection of the blog’s content; Neil told us that at the blog several times. Even so, I was not prepared for the kind of content the book actually provides.

I don’t know what I was expecting, in retrospect. But I think it’s safe to say that I didn’t expect to get such an intimate portrait of Neil. Although I felt like I sort of knew him and Sue both via the blog—enough that I figured I could sit down with them for a drink at a con, if the opportunity ever arose, and have a not-terribly-awkward conversation—after reading the book, it was obvious I’d only scratched the surface before. Nothing can substitute for personal give and take, but one can hardly read what Neil has chosen to share without coming away feeling like you’ve been let in on something only a friend would divulge.