The Wife in Space by Neil and Sue Perryman, Volumes 1-8

The Miserable Git: The Wife in Space, Volume 1
The Scruffy Drunk: The Wife in Space, Volume 2
The Pompous Tory: The Wife in Space, Volume 3
The Mad One: The Wife in Space, Volume 4
The (Still) Mad One: The Wife in Space, Volume 5
The Fit One: The Wife in Space, Volume 6
The Court Jester: The Wife in Space, Volume 7
The Crafty Sod: The Wife in Space, Volume 8
by Neil and Sue Perryman

After the book from Faber & Faber, which chronicled Neil and Sue's lives with excerpts from the Wife in Space blog, Neil collected its complete contents plus extras in a series of limited-run volumes via Kickstarter. Alas, I couldn't afford the shipping costs as an American, but I did contribute enough to receive the ebook editions. Upon finally reading the Faber & Faber book, I then went on to read the ebooks.

Like I said, this collects the complete run of the blog, which I had all read before, though each volume usually contains two or more relevant bonus entries, such as Adventures in Space and Time for the Hartnell volume or The Stranger fanfilms for the Colin Baker one. The blog isn't available online anymore, so I was happy to have this convenient way to reread it, and happy to spend a month in the company of Neil and Sue, working my way through one of the best television shows ever made. The blog was often hilarious, always insightful, and never not infectiously enthusiastic; it made me realize what an awful long time it has been since I watched some classic Who, and though I have no enthusiasm for doing it all from the beginning in order, there's so much good stuff that I am keen to see again.

One of the delightful things is that Sue recognizes quality when she sees it, and is not held back by fan shibboleths. As a partisan of the Sylvester McCoy years, I was particularly pleased by her appreciation for stories like Rememberance of the Daleks and Curse of Fenric... but she also knows that Silver Nemesis is rubbish! Probably the most magical part of the books is when they watch City of Death along with Sue's daughter Nicol, and all of them become completely entranced by it.

The ebooks can still be purchased from Amazon or Smashwords; they also contain forewords by various Who luminaries. I particularly enjoyed Jenny Colgan's in volume six.

Adventures with the Wife in Space by Neil & Sue Perryman

Adventures With the Wife in Space: Living with Doctor Who
by Neil Perryman
with constant interruptions from Sue Perryman
from an idea that seemed like a good one at the time by Neil Perryman

My wife and I were big fans of the blog Adventures with the Wife in Space, where Doctor Who fan Neil Perryman got his "not-we" wife Sue to watch every episode of classic Doctor Who, from 1963 to 1989. Sue wasn't a fan, but she does teach television production, so she can appreciate it and comment on it interestingly... plus she's quite funny. A book of the blog came out for Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary, which my wife got me for Christmas that year. In classic Steve Mollmann fashion, I finally got around to reading it just after the sixtieth anniversary (though thankfully before the new edition of the book came out).

Published: 2013
Acquired: December 2013
Read: December 2023

The first half of the book chronicles Neil's life as a fan from childhood and his adult life with Sue, up until the invention of the blog. I can see how if you were not previously invested in Neil and Sue, this might not be super-interesting, but I really enjoyed getting to hear their relationship history spelled out in detail—mostly it had been something you just had to infer from their blog posts before. Neil's name upon meeting Sue was hilarious, and it was great to get the whole living-in-a-caravan story explained. The second half details the blog, how it came about, and how it carried on. Both halves are filled with small excerpts from blog entries.

The whole thing is quite funny, of course, but also somewhat moving. The back cover spells out the book's premise somewhat flippantly: "Neil loves Sue. He also loves Doctor Who. But can he bring his two great loves together?" It's a part of the fan experience that will resonate with any fan, I suspect. One way a fan shows their love is by sharing something they love. But of course other people don't always love what their loved ones love. Longtime readers of my blog know that I introduced my older son to Oz, one of my childhood loves, and over two years later, we're still reading them together. Sometimes it works, and it's magical. But as I write this, I've been thinking about introducing him to Doctor Who... but will he love it? I am honestly a little trepidatious! Neil captures this quite well. He and Sue were married for years before he dared to share what he loved with her... but for them it paid off, and as he tells it, even made their relationship stronger!

Highly recommended if you're a certain type of Doctor Who fan, or even if you just know one. Though you may benefit from reading the blog first. As for me, I'm using the book as a launching-off point for a reread of the blog, in the form of the ebook collections of it I've bought over the years but have never gotten around to reading.