Welcome Back to the Monkey House

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It's not easy juggling career changes, job hunting, lurking about on Facebook, writing novels, neglecting a website and maintaining a blog. This probably is not the first time I've used the excuse that I am currently preparing one novel for publication while writing two more, but these are actually different novels. Serving Murphy has moved from being written, to the preparation for publication stage, Eaters II is now at 40,000 words and growing every day, and Terry's Rise, the sequel to Jordan's Fall, is in the early stages of note taking and research. If I don't find a full time job in the next few weeks, I will probably be blogging from a homeless shelter, but whatever. Life is good.

In the wonderful world of television, if you have BBC America you must be fully engaged in the new season of Doctor Who by now. If you don't have BBC, you'll have to wait for this season to come to PBS next year, but you're likely watching previous seasons. If you aren't a Doctor Who fan, why aren't you? I demand an explanation. Great. Now you've upset me.

Doctor Who has been one of the most popular and most beloved television programs in the United Kingdom, almost continuously, since 1963. It has been my all-time favorite television programme (see how I did that with the British spelling?) since 1983. When I'm not watching Doctor Who, I'm likely talking about it. The clerk at my neighborhood convenience store is an avid Who fan and we can irritate other customers for hours discussing the finer points of the show. My son and his friends are all, um, why isn't there some clever name for Who fans the way there is for Star Trek fans. Who-kies? No, won't do. I know. Patients. I am a Patient and I need the Doctor.

Doctor Who started out as a low-budget science fiction TV series and has evolved into something close to a religion. It is certainly a franchise, with action figures and toy replicas of the Doctor's toys. I've lost count of how many sonic screwdrivers I have, and I'm not even a collector. Heck, I'm not even a fanatic. I haven't read any of the novels or graphic novels based on the series. I don't have any of the technical manuals and such that have been based on the series. I don't even have any of the guides to the series. I do, however, look forward to every episode and I do have little watch parties for special events such as the season premier, the second episode of the new season, the third episode of the new season, reruns of past seasons--I think you get the picture.

If you have no idea what I'm talking about, or only a passing idea of what I'm talking about and you would like to know more, I suggest you read the Wikipedia entry on Doctor Who. If you have an important Who-related event coming up (such as one of my watch parties) and you'd like to fit in, let me suggest you pick up and memorize the Doctor Who for Dummies book.

AnyWho, that's all the time I can spare right now. I actually have a couple of fans, seriously, two of them, clamoring for my next novel, so I'd better get back to work.

--Stephen P.

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