A review by towards_morning
Adventures With the Wife in Space: Living With Doctor Who by Neil Perryman, Sue Perryman
1.0
I'm starting this review before I even quite finish- nearly there!- because this book has left a bit baffled so that even though it's the book I am least likely to even recall having read in 2014 by next year, I absolutely have to get some of my confusion out. Bear with me here.
Doctor Who, like a lot of 'cult' series, tends to get a lot of unofficial memoir-style non-fiction written about it by fans. I actually do like a good book in this tiny genre. I enjoy reading about people enjoying things, and especially when they combine it with an interesting take on the thing in question. It's one of those oddly insular fandom things that I'm actually willing to jump on board with, given a book that looks well done.
So. This book. It's very much in the style of the early blogs that began to spring up quite some years ago now surrounding watch-a-thons. It's weirdly formatted. It seems to try to be a blog half the time and a book the rest, with no consideration for pacing (who reads a blog all in one or two goes vs. reading a short book?). The script-format stuff is kind of... awful. It's just a mediocrely-written book, to be frank. Mostly it's the author just talking. What he's saying isn't all that interesting or funny. It's full of weird tangents, and odd asides, and again, none of them are all that engaging to me. It needs three or four heavy goings over by an editor or two, at the absolute least.
And... ugh.
Here's the thing that gets me- you know how things can be more than the sum of their parts? This is a book that manages to be less than the sum of its parts. Everything about it banal and mediocre, but I just walked away from it feeling distinctly unpleasant. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's that the way the author talks about his experiences as a fan mirrors so many encounters with arseholes in fandom over the years. I don't know if it's that he's simultaneously self-deprecating about this thing I'm reading him talk about to the point I can't find it fun, deprecating of those geekier than him AND at times kind of deprecating of those LESS geekier than him. I don't know if it's the fact he doesn't seem to be able to pick any real target audience for the book. (It's not "proper geeks", whatever those are- he distances himself from those. It's not non-fans or '"casuals", because why would they pick up this niche book? It's not people who like analysis of pop culture; he couldn't analyse how to escape a wet paper bag.)
The book's just basically nothing. It's a load of air where there ought to be words! And sentences! And actual, real thoughts! It's some anecdotes about the life of a guy I have never met that he tries and fails to connect to Doctor Who while seeming unerringly embarrassed about, I dunno, liking a sci-fi show, I guess. He talks about watching episodes of the series with his wife. (His wife, admittedly, seems pretty funny, and if there's a book here, surely it's in the idea of putting pop cultural icons to the test by showing them to someone with no real close familiarity.) Nothing of note is really discussed. And then I got that weird, unpleasant vibe that just put me off it altogether.
There's shedloads of books like these around if you know where to look; people who have noticed the 'trend' of giving book deals to people for their watching of shows, or reading of books, whatever it is, entertainingly. Trouble is, the best of sites tend to include people who look deceptively casual about their consumption, but are actually a) much better writing than most can manage and b) usually try to focus on at least some actual analysis of the show.
I guess it's just- I can see wanting to read a book that details something a person loves in a joyful (and perhaps critical) light, using their own experiences to personalize it. What I don't get is how that turns into 'someone by their own admission feeling kinda bad about liking the show, passive aggressively whining about other fans and mostly trying to justify talking about their life like I really care that much'.
So please, can we stop giving blogs books when they're probably just fine as blogs?
Doctor Who, like a lot of 'cult' series, tends to get a lot of unofficial memoir-style non-fiction written about it by fans. I actually do like a good book in this tiny genre. I enjoy reading about people enjoying things, and especially when they combine it with an interesting take on the thing in question. It's one of those oddly insular fandom things that I'm actually willing to jump on board with, given a book that looks well done.
So. This book. It's very much in the style of the early blogs that began to spring up quite some years ago now surrounding watch-a-thons. It's weirdly formatted. It seems to try to be a blog half the time and a book the rest, with no consideration for pacing (who reads a blog all in one or two goes vs. reading a short book?). The script-format stuff is kind of... awful. It's just a mediocrely-written book, to be frank. Mostly it's the author just talking. What he's saying isn't all that interesting or funny. It's full of weird tangents, and odd asides, and again, none of them are all that engaging to me. It needs three or four heavy goings over by an editor or two, at the absolute least.
And... ugh.
Here's the thing that gets me- you know how things can be more than the sum of their parts? This is a book that manages to be less than the sum of its parts. Everything about it banal and mediocre, but I just walked away from it feeling distinctly unpleasant. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's that the way the author talks about his experiences as a fan mirrors so many encounters with arseholes in fandom over the years. I don't know if it's that he's simultaneously self-deprecating about this thing I'm reading him talk about to the point I can't find it fun, deprecating of those geekier than him AND at times kind of deprecating of those LESS geekier than him. I don't know if it's the fact he doesn't seem to be able to pick any real target audience for the book. (It's not "proper geeks", whatever those are- he distances himself from those. It's not non-fans or '"casuals", because why would they pick up this niche book? It's not people who like analysis of pop culture; he couldn't analyse how to escape a wet paper bag.)
The book's just basically nothing. It's a load of air where there ought to be words! And sentences! And actual, real thoughts! It's some anecdotes about the life of a guy I have never met that he tries and fails to connect to Doctor Who while seeming unerringly embarrassed about, I dunno, liking a sci-fi show, I guess. He talks about watching episodes of the series with his wife. (His wife, admittedly, seems pretty funny, and if there's a book here, surely it's in the idea of putting pop cultural icons to the test by showing them to someone with no real close familiarity.) Nothing of note is really discussed. And then I got that weird, unpleasant vibe that just put me off it altogether.
There's shedloads of books like these around if you know where to look; people who have noticed the 'trend' of giving book deals to people for their watching of shows, or reading of books, whatever it is, entertainingly. Trouble is, the best of sites tend to include people who look deceptively casual about their consumption, but are actually a) much better writing than most can manage and b) usually try to focus on at least some actual analysis of the show.
I guess it's just- I can see wanting to read a book that details something a person loves in a joyful (and perhaps critical) light, using their own experiences to personalize it. What I don't get is how that turns into 'someone by their own admission feeling kinda bad about liking the show, passive aggressively whining about other fans and mostly trying to justify talking about their life like I really care that much'.
So please, can we stop giving blogs books when they're probably just fine as blogs?