Tag: fantasy

It’s about a girl named Nina who battles a hideous monster

On By Keith ParkerIn Science Fiction1 Comment

Madness Rising – What’s it about? It’s about a girl, named Nina, on a forbidden planet who battles a hideous and dangerous monster.

She also battles her fiancé, who’s become a drunk; her childhood mentor, who’s hearing voices; her own body, which is turning against her; and her robot parents, who’ve been body-snatched by that malign monster.

The small colony where Nina lives looks like a prep school or a small idyllic college. Up until the madness Nina’s life has been ideal. It’s been warm and sunny, full of flirtations and curiosity.  But when the monster attacks her world is suddenly full of terror, violence and nanotechnological diseases.

This is a character-driven young-adult science fiction/horror novel with androids, alcoholics, teasers and tentacles.

Madness Rising, Chapter 1

Madness Rising, Chapter 2

Madness Rising, Chapter 3

Madness Rising, Chapter 4

Madness Rising, Chapter 5

Madness Rising, Chapter 6

Madness Rising, Chapter 7

Madness Rising, Chapter 8

Madness Rising, Chapter 9

Madness Rising, Chapter 10

Madness Rising, Chapter 11
Peace and hair grease,

Keith Parker

This blog is © 2015 Alan Keith Parker. All rights reserved. The chapters in the links above, titled Madness Rising, Chapter XX, where XX is the chapter number, are © 2015 by Alan Keith Parker and Rev. Jack Edward Parker. All rights reserved. 

Expansion

On By Keith ParkerIn Science Fiction10 Comments

“Pardon my progess!”

“Here we grow again!”

Meh.  Platitudes.  Point being: The blog’s expanding.  To get fresh meat into cyberspace (especially in this odd interlude between Doctors) I’m going to draw on SFFH (science fiction, fantasy, and horror)  more heavily.   The theme of the blog stays the same, though: I’ll take a snippet from a favorite book or show, and contort it to the point that it’s both unrecognizable and fairly confusing.  I’ll also continue to give my thoughts about everything, the universe, life (42).  If you’re curious (which I doubt) here is a (long) list of material I’ll draw from —

  • Star Trek: The Original Series
  • Doctor Who
  • The Hyperion Cantos by Dan Simmons
  • The weird fiction of Lovecraft, REH, Derleth, Bloch, et al
  • Stephen King
  • The short fiction of Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman, Ray Bradbury, Harlan Ellison
  • The Foundation Series by Asimov
  • Back to the Future
  • Planet of the Apes
  • LOST
  • Neal Stephenson
  • Firefly and Serenity
  • The reimagined Battlestar Galactica
  • Babylon 5
  • Aliens
  • Forbidden Planet
  • Primer
  • Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure
  • Groundhog Day
  • Peggy Sue Got Married
  • Pleasantville
  • Star Trek IV: The One about the Whales
  • Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
  • Slaughterhouse Five.

It’s a weirdly eclectic mix.  But what’d’ya expect from a button-down science fiction fan?

If it has a contemporary setting putting ordinary characters in extraordinary situations, then I’ll love it.  If it has time travel I’ll probably love it, too.  But if it’s dystopian (or has zombies) I’ll hate it.  If it’s too damn weird (or has zombies) I’ll hate it.  If it’s set in outer space with plastic aliens (or zombies) I’ll hate it … unless the characters are freakin’ amazing.  If it has zombies I’ll hate it.

But, I’m not abandoning Doctor Who at all, and just to prove it to you, here are some quotes I’ve collected for my not-famous #DoctorWho QOTD, @keith0363

  • “There’s no point being a grown up if you can’t act childish sometimes.”
  • “You’ve been watching too much television.”
  • “We’re all stories in the end.”
  • “I’m clever, and I’m listening. Now don’t patronise me, ’cause people have died and I’m not happy.”
  • “Always bring a banana to a party, Rose.”
  • “I love humans. Always looking for patterns in things that aren’t there.”

My plan’s to post on Fridays.  Whether I do so weekly or biweekly is up in the air depending on how things go with my novel.

So, until next Friday, peace (but not hair grease) from Keith.

Copyright © 2013

Yabe

On By Keith ParkerIn Creative Writing, Doctor Who, Emotion, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV4 Comments

Screen Shot 2013-09-04 at 7.40.13 PMWelcome to Yabe Auctions!

Ending times are nonnegotiable; condition assumes caveat emptor; quantity to be verified by purchaser, also caveat emptor; Just Buy The Damn Thing prices listed when available.  Current bid is given by the Yabe Auction username.

The following items, culled by the noisome scholars at The Parker Institute of Time Travel Studies (The PITTS), and submitted for distribution through the publishing arm known as Fish and #TARDIS Sauce, have been made available through Yabe Auctions, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Corporation of Redundancy Corporation.

Did we mention caveat emptor?

PSYCHIC PAPER

  • Ending: Anytime you want it to.
  • Condition: Vintage, as used by Second Doctor
  • Quantity: 15 in stock
  • Just Buy the Damn Thing: £ 42
  • Current Bid: Don’t you already know?

TRIBBLE

  • Ending: Aboard Klingon warship
  • Condition: Trilling
  • Quantity: Geometrically increasing
  • Just Buy the Damn Thing: For a Drink
  • Current Bid: <SOLD: Cyrano Jones>

STRANGE WINE

  • Ending: Auction is over
  • Condition: In the sewers
  • Quantity: Overstocked
  • Just Buy the Damn Thing: You already did
  • Current Bid: <SOLD: Hitler, Selling Roses>

1961 FERRARI 250 GT CALIFORNIA

  • Condition: Wiped with diaper
  • Ending: Never
  • Buy It Now: N/A
  • Quantity: <100
  • Current Bid: <Mr. Fry>

K-9, Mark II

  • Condition: Robotic
  • Ending: In e-space
  • Just Buy the Damn Thing: N/A
  • Quantity: One
  • Current Bid: <Romana>

CUSTARD

  • Condition: Spoiled
  • Ending: In the ER
  • Just Buy the Damn Thing: Payment due when services rendered.
  • Quantity: Too much of a good thing.
  • Current Bid: <No bidders>

ISHER WEAPON

  • Condition: A Fine Weapon
  • Ending: When you think you are free
  • Just Buy the Damn Thing: Negotiable, auction only
  • Quantity: Based on market forces, of course
  • Current Bid: <Robert Hedrock, but he has plenty of time to wait>

All sales final

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker

Christmas

On By Keith ParkerIn Christmas, Creative Writing, Doctor Who, Fantasy, Fiction, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV2 Comments

globeI love the Doctor Who Christmas specials.  In fact, those episodes tipped the scales when I was deciding whether to invest my time in a program that’s about to be 50-years-old.  But there was simply no way I could shun a program that devotes an hour every December at Christmastime.  I don’t review Doctor Who episodes on my blog; there are plenty of other resources for that on the Internet.  But, for whatever it is worth, my favorite Christmas Special is “The Next Doctor”, which aired in December 2008.  It’s not the most popular of the specials, but it resonates with me.  My favorite Doctor Who episodes are the ones where The Doctor and his Companion stay right here on little ol’ Earth, traveling back to some romantic era of our own past.  And while I’ve never been a fan of the Cybermen, the character of Miss Mercy Hartigan has to be one of the best villains the show has come up with.  She is such a … femme fatale.  You can’t help but to love her and hate her.

Ah, Christmas.  The snow, the icicles, the reindeer.  The gifts!

The Christmas holiday creates its own form of time travel for me.  It takes me back to my childhood days on “The Mountain” here in Huntsville.  If you’ve been there you know what I mean.  We lived in a Federal-style, red-brick house with huge, multi-paned picture windows adorning the front.  Mom and Dad and my brother would get a real tree with real sap, decorate it right after Thanksgiving with colored lights (I prefer white lights now, but I was only a preschooler then), and position it so the folks at the Methodist Church at the end of the block could enjoy it.  And enjoy it they did.  We’d have people dropping by at all hours, wrapped in coats and scarves, bringing us finger foods, homemade breads and (no kidding) fruit cakes.

And while this was during the turbulent late 60s there was an Eisenhower-esque 1950s’ feel to our culture up there then.  I know we were sheltered and naÏve, but isn’t that what home is for?  Life is a complex and painful dance set to music that is often off-key.  Sometimes your feet ache simply from dancing too much.  I look back on those days in wonder: Is there anything wrong with having a comfort zone?  I don’t think there is.

Did the child that I was then — sitting under the tree, chin propped on his hands, eyes bright and glistening from the glow of the Christmas globe hanging from the lowest branch of that stately pine — know there was a TV program in the UK about a time-traveling lunatic who’d still be entertaining us half-a-century later?  Of course not.  That little boy didn’t think he’d even make it till Christmas Eve without bursting.  It was perfect.  It was ideal.  But did it last?  Actually, it did.  Christmastime at the Parkers’ was idyllic, restful and fun, just as a holiday should be.  Christmas has never lost an ounce of its charm, even now, as my beard goes a little gray and I look at life through a jaded prism, because the light through that prism, no matter how attenuated, still glows red and green.  At least it does for me.

Until next time,

Peace, from Keith

Copyright © 2013, Keith Parker

Humour

On By Keith ParkerIn Doctor Who, Emotion, Fantasy, Fiction, Humor, Science Fiction, Suffering, Television, Time Travel, TV, World War IILeave a comment

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EDIT: The BBC announced today that Peter Capaldi will play the twelfth Doctor.  We, of course, knew this beforehand and after-hand and simultaneous-hand.  It’s really hard to surprise time travelers.  Now, on with the post …

This week’s Fish and TARDIS Sauce newsletter will look at the use of humor in Doctor Who, and ways that you might be able to apply this technique in your everyday life.

In “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe” (s06e24), Doctor Who travels back to 1940s London, where he meets Madge Ardwell, her son Cyril, and daughter Lily.   Madge comes home to tell the kids that she is going to help The Doctor return to his time machine, as if this happened every day (who knows, maybe it does).  While there at home, Madge asks Cyril what he’s is doing up so late looking through his telescope.  When Lily makes a snide comment it begins this brief but quite funny exchange among the characters.

  • Cyril — It’s astronomy.
  • Lily — Don’t make up words.  He’s always making up things … and breathing.
  • Madge — Where’s your father?
  • Cyril — In the garden.
  • Madge — What’s he doing in the garden?
  • Cyril — Agriculture.
  • Lily [off-camera] — You’re not fooling anyone.

And you see?  Like that.  Or three scenes later, which is also three years later, the family is standing in front of an ancient house somewhere in the English countryside, and the kids say —

  • Cyril — Is it haunted?
  • Lily — Is it drafty?

Another sharp, understated exchange.

But if you’ve seen this episode you know this episode is not all fun and games. The kids’ father is killed when his bomber goes down over the English Channel (although that’s not quite the whole story), leading to nightmarish grief and stress for Madge.   This leads to a poignant scene where Madge admits this to The Doctor and reflects on her short temper around her children.

  • Madge — I don’t know why I keep shouting at them.
  • The Doctor — Because every time you see them happy you remember how sad they’re going to be.  And it breaks your heart.

What we see here is a dramatic turn, where the dry wit of British comedy gives way to the realities of life during World War II (or anytime for that matter).  And once again, Doctor Who, the show, and Doctor Who, the character, offer us a glimpse into the human condition.  After all, why do we love a rose?  Because it’s blooming but will not do so forever.  Why does it smell so divine?  Because its thorns are so sharp.

It’s always been my opinion that humor for the sake of humor gets stale after a while.  Even the best comedians — the Steve Martins and  Richard Pryors and George Carlins — cannot sustain me for long unless I have a break.  It doesn’t have to be something morbid or maudlin, but it does have to be balanced.   And I love humor.   In fact, I was once asked why I don’t watch Comedy Central all the time.  The answer is simple, really.  I don’t watch Comedy Central, or any other 24/7 source of laughter, because I don’t usually turn to comedians for jokes.  The best humor grows out of drama, to relieve the tension, or out of horror, to dispel the terror.  That’s why, in that famous line from Steel Magnolias, the characters reflect on the wonder of laughter through tears.

Which brings us back to “The Doctor, The Widow and the Wardrobe.”  Doctor Who, the character, looks at Madge thoughtfully in this episode, and finally offers his advice.  And this is one of the many reasons I love this show.  The characters get to the heart of the matter so damn well.  In the scene I’ve described above, Madge is momentarily distracted by the distant sounds of the children’s glee, leading Doctor Who to say this:

  • The Doctor — What’s the point of them being happy now if they’re going to be sad later?  The answer is, of course, because they are going to be sad later.

Pretty good stuff for science fiction, eh?

Until next time, remember: Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can procrastinate about today.

Years truly,

Keith Parker, CEO, COO, CTO, CCO, CAC, COCOA of The PITTS*

Please visit my hometown bloggers at our Rocket City Bloggers website!

* The Parker Institute for Time Travel Studies.

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker

Doctor Who is copyright © 2013 BBC

Confessions

On By Keith ParkerIn Confessions, Doctor Who, Emotion, Romance, Satire, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV12 Comments

Red TARDISAs a redheaded, red-bearded man in Huntsville I’d be remiss if I didn’t post my own confessions list so Shea Allen doesn’t feel lonely in her pursuit of freedom of expression.

Now, you might rightly ask yourself what any of this has to do with Doctor Who.  And if you were to ask this question you’d be in fine company, because I seem to asking myself the same thing.  But, sometimes stories just write themselves, with a little help from my brain and fingers.

So, without further ado, here are the Top 10 things I have never told any of you before, except, of course, for that crazy guy who stands under the Parkway Bridge screaming, “The end is nigh!  The end is nigh!”

  1. I have gone braless and no one was ever the wiser because, well, I’m a guy …
  2. My best sources are Netflix streaming and Netflix DVDs.  I once spoke to one of their customer-service representatives; I do not know whether she has a crush on me.
  3. I am at my best when collecting a paycheck.
  4. I’ve mastered the ability to sit in a recliner.
  5. I hate the right side of the BBCAmerica/Doctor-Who website. The margin is too narrow.
  6. I hope to be old one day.
  7. Sad, grating, thunderstorm stories about bad things make me depressed.
  8. I have taken naps in my recliner (see # 4).
  9. If you ramble and I deem you unnecessary to furthering my writing career I will seriously question my personal value system, and even if the feeling were genuine I’d never admit it because sometimes honesty is  a thinly-veiled disguise for cruelty and arrogant self-indulgence.
  10. I have never stood under a Parkway Bridge screaming, “The end is nigh!  The end is nigh!”, but if Shea Allen gets rich I may start.

Until next time, keep confessing, keep time-traveling, and don’t panic.  42.

Years truly,

Keith

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker

One

On By Keith ParkerIn Character, Doctor Who, Emotion, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV1 Comment

200px-Tenth_DoctorToday, The Parker Institute of Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) addresses one of the pressing issues of our age.  This topic is bigger than the global economy, cheaper than a Kardashian wedding, and happier than a college kid with a keg.  It is the question of The One … the question of whether there is only one Doctor Who.

My sister-in-law, who’s never cared much for science fiction, is now hooked on the show.  She said you have all these ridiculous episodes chock-full of plastic-headed aliens, and yet you can’t look away.  Nope, you sure can’t.

Commenting on a scene with Matt Smith, she said, “I don’t know who that man is, but he’s not the Doctor.  He’s an impostor.”

“Who is?” I said.

In a word — or a name — she replied, “David Tennant.”

And so there were have it.  David Tennant, a.k.a. the 10th Doctor, is her Doctor.  I’ve heard many similar sentiments about Tom Baker, especially among my friends who were sentient in the 70s.  So, I asked her to tell me — off the top of her head — what she likes about Tennant.  She said,  “He’s passionate, caring, intelligent and soulful.”

And he is! He’s all these things.  And yet, none of my sister-in-law’s impressions were the same as mine.  It’s not that I disagree with her; I agree he has all the characteristics that she mentioned.  But if you asked my impression I’d tell you that he’s fun-loving and funny, yet distant and lonely.  What does this say about us?  Does it say that my SIL and I see the world differently?  Actually, we don’t.  We have very similar opinions and tastes.  And we’re from the exact same demographic; how much different would our reaction have been if we came from cultures on opposite sides of the planet?  Maybe the difference would be stark; maybe not.  What this says to me is that character loyalty is a deeply personal attachment.  The development and emergence of characters from novels, short stories, films and TV have a profoundly different affect on us all, providing a lens into our own personality.  Like eyes being the lens to the soul, the characters we love are like mirrors on our selves.  Or they’re people who we think are mighty fine (like Clara Oswald).  Either way, it’s fun to sit back and explore the possibilities.

During this long holiday weekend here in America the good people (read: me) at Fish and #TARDIS Sauce ask you to remember that time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana.  Until next time, peace and hair grease.

Years truly,

Keith

Copyright © 2013 Fish and #TARDIS Sauce publications, a paleolithic branch of The PITTS.

Bootstrap

On By Keith ParkerIn Creative Writing, Doctor Who, Emotion, Fantasy, Fiction, Horror, Humor, Science Fiction, Short Story, Star Trek, Television, The Twilight Zone, Time Travel, TV8 Comments

Sally SparrowThis week, The Parker Institute of Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) — in conjunction with State and Local Officials — has devised this warning for all time travelers and others involved in temporal excursions: Do not employ bootstrap time travel.

  • Bootstrap Time Travel (Encyclopedia Galactica*) — The bootstrap paradox is a paradox of time travel in which information or objects can exist without having been created. After information or an object is sent back in time, it is recovered in the present and becomes the very object/information that was initially brought back in time in the first place.

A recent examination by investigators — hired by the autonomous Fish and #TARDIS Sauce Group — indicate that there is an alarming rise of bootstrapped articles appearing throughout the timeline. The genesis of this “fad” seems to have been the airing of the Doctor Who episode, “Blink.” The PITTS, therefore, has been forced to implement emergency and draconian measures to staunch the flow of now-uncreated objects and information. Recent examples of bootstrap incursions include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • A man from Nantucket took a freeze-dried lizard back to his childhood, gave the lizard to himself, which he (the younger) then kept until he was a grown man with a chance to travel back in time … the situation was frustrated by teaching his younger self a limirick.
  • A husky Russian émigré, intent on playing football for Vince Lombardi, recently overshot his mark and took his time vehicle to 1947 New Mexico instead of 1967 Wisconsin, ruining our research and playoff hopes in one selfish move.
  • An English woman, home from the laundry mat and feeling adventuresome, took the family Wellsian for a spin to Victorian England with a basket full of extra footwear, creating an impossible temporal vortex of missing socks that will confound 20th– and 21st-century men for eternity.
  • An Alabama man took an egg (cage-free, organic, with Omega-3s) to China, circa 6000 BC, to the very day that the first chicken became domesticated and, as a result of self-indulgent selfish motives, removed the chicken-egg paradox from modern thought.
  • A Jaffa woman recently returned The Holy Grail to its shelf at The Cenacle, thereby eliminating any possibility we could determine the origin of said graal.
  • And in 2007/1969 Doctor Who told Sally Sparrow, “Blink and you’re dead. They are fast. Faster than you can believe. Don’t turn your back. Don’t look away. And don’t blink. Good luck.” The Doctor has been unavailable for comment.

These are but a few examples of what has become a worldwide epidemic. At this rate, all material objects, articles, matter, data, information, and salmon will not have a place of origin. The effects of this activity on the eco-military-industrial-climatic-god complex cannot not be overstated without embellishment. Please stay tuned to this channel for further updates.

The past is prologue; so is the future.

Years truly,

Keith

* All entries from Encyclopedia Galactica are, in fact, plagiarized liberated from Wikipedia.org (English version).

Copyright © 2013 Keith Parker

Change

On By Keith ParkerIn A Game of Thrones, Buddha, Doctor Who, Fantasy, Fiction, HBO, Jack Vance, Science Fiction, Television, Time Travel, TV2 Comments

Smith_2578796bThis week The Parker Institute for Time Travel Studies (The PITTS) takes a hard look at three major changes that rocked the science fiction and fantasy world this past week.  And when we say “hard look” we’d like to make sure you understand that this is serious.  And by “serious” we mean sober.  Except that it’s not really healthy to be too sober, so maybe we’ll have a cocktail to cut through the pressure.  And if we’re going to have a cocktail, then we might as well have a glass of wine with our dinner, and if we’re going to have a glass of wine with dinner then there’s really no reason we can’t have an after-dinner cognac.  And that’ll pretty much mean that we aren’t taking a “hard look” at anything at all.  Instead, these are simply post-buzz ramblings devoid of emotional or intellectual depth …

So, without further ado, what happened?  Well, primary to this blog is that Matt Smith is leaving Doctor Who, creating a vacuum in the incredibly rich story that’s developed over the past four years, with an intense, mysterious chemistry between The Doctor and Clara Oswald, and a parallel mystery about the doctor’s name and (eventual) demise.  agotAnother occurrence in speculative fiction circles was the passing (read: violent, bloody death) of certain character(s) in A Game of Thrones.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that we lost one of the true giants of fantasy literature recently.  One of the last of the Golden Age Science Fiction writers, Jack Vance, died on May 26th.  If you’ve never read Vance, you need to run — not walk — to your nearest e-book reader and devour his writing.  You can find his catalog here: http://www.jackvance.com/ebooks/shop/?q22_category_filter=dying

Bad things come, they say, in threes.

Is that the case here?  It seems like it.  Which makes me wonder about one of the main reasons I write this blog: time travel.  What would happen if I went back in time to May 25th?  If I were to do this, what could I possibly do to change these three events?  Nothing.  I desperately wish Matt Smith were not leaving Doctor Who, but even if I were to go back prior to his announcement, and if I cashed out my retirement and bought a plane ticket to the UK, and if I were to successfully track him down, what good would it do?  Odds are, he made his decision weeks, if not months, ago.  Or what if I went a different direction and landed my steam-punk Wellsian on the set of HBO?  Could I actually do anything about the second season finale of AGOT?  And then what about Mr. Vance?  I do not know the circumstances surrounding Mr. Vance’s death, but he was 96-years-old, and had achieved status as one of the greatest science fiction and fantasy authors of the 20th Century.  What exactly needs to be changed?

If you’re wondering who, as it were, I think the new Doctor should be, the thought that keeps circling back to me is that we need another Tom Baker; we need an actor or actress who is, in essence, the embodiment of the Doctor the way that Baker was.  More than any other Doctor, the line between the character and the actor was very fine in those days.  Beyond that, I don’t have a strong opinion on the matter.  And I’m not sure it’d matter if I did …

And that is a segue into my closing thoughts: I’ve often said time travel is a form of wish fulfillment, but in this case the wishes don’t come true, do they?  And maybe that’s a good thing, because I’ve developed a quasi-Buddhist attitude toward life in recent years and putting myself in a state of angst really does no good.  The reason we suffer is because we try to control those things that are out of our control.  I do not know if this is truly “Buddhist” but it was the best that my Western mind could come up with as I studied that beautiful philosophy.  As the author of Elephant Journal put it:

And, of course, if you’re looking for a more “Western” approach, there was a Galilean who said something similar:

  • 25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”
    • The Gospel According to Saint Matthew, Chapter 6, Verses 25:34

happy buddhaMy goal is not to preach.  My goal is to espouse optimism, to let you know it’ll all be okay.  And to let you know that I think we all need to laugh more.  Along those lines, let me redirect you to one of the funniest authors in the blogosphere.  He goes by the pseudonym Mirkin Firkin, and writes some of the most outrageous and hilarious blog posts I’ve ever read.  You can find his blog here: http://justjigglethehandle.wordpress.com.

Until next time, “Don’t Panic!”

Years truly,

Keith Parker

Owner, Fish and #TARDIS Sauce

Copyright © 2013

Custard

On By Keith ParkerIn Doctor Who, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Star Trek, Time Travel, TV2 Comments

keep“Haven’t got a hotdog in there, have you?  I’m starving.  I know, it’s the Cyberman of food, but it’s tasty.” ~ The Doctor

I knew I’d found a show to call home when I googled “Doctor Who food” and came up with 351,000,000 damn hits.  That’s more hits than there are people in these United States of America plus Nebraska.  By contrast, the same search with Star Trek gave me 145,000,000.  In fact, it was Star Trek that gave me the idea for this post.  In “The Trouble with Tribbles,” Jim Kirk pulls a tray chock-full of tribbles out of the ship’s replicator.

“My chicken sandwich and coffee,” he says.  “This is my chicken sandwich and coffee.”

We were watching this episode at home during the run-up to Star Trek Into Darkness.  When I spoke these lines in perfect harmony with William Shatner, not only did I garner a sideways look from my wife (I wonder if she’s sitting in a lawyer’s office right now?) but I realized we SF fans tend to go a bit off the deep end when it comes to knowing our shows.

Since Doctor Who has a rather unorthodox (weird?) set of characters and plots, I wondered if fans had taken the time to compile lists of the more nutritious elements of the program.  Well, ask a stupid question …

So, just for fun, here are some of the more colorful concoctions from our favorite time-travelling creatures.  All puns intended, which is a bit like All Saints Day, but without the soul food …

  • Custard with fish fingers … (The Doctor ate that horror when he first met Amy)
  • Soufflés that Oswin/Clara made … (Gotta do something while trapped inside the insane asylum of the Daleks, I guess)
  • Romana gave K-9 a sponge cake that went sentient … (Never thought about conscious dessert; it’s usually conscience.)
  • Barbara Wright ate grapes sometime in … (Well, when in time.)
  • Kronkburgers … (How many billion of those have been sold?)
  • Lenta … (Kinda like your mom making you eat your English peas, only those didn’t double as mother’s little pill, did they?)
  • Mammoth casserole … (Wonder how that’d go over at a good ole Southern funeral?)
  • Protein bars … (Who said this show wasn’t ahead of its time?)
  • … (Nothing to see here, folks.  Move along.)
  • Yogurt … (Caution: Spoiler … the 11th Doctor’s favorite food.)
  • Brainy Crisps … (They’re not just for breakfast anymore.)
  • The aroma of Karamine pudding … (Like Paris in Spring, only different.)
  • And, lo, there are the ubiquitous Jelly Babies, made famous by Tom Baker, offered whenever stressful situations deemed it necessary  … (But first consumed by the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, for those trivia-minded among you.)

But take all this with a grain of salt (ba ha).  Because like the warning on the Ice Gun (“Do not use to cool drinks, freeze food, win arguments, or create Christmas grotto decorations”) my blog should not be taken at anything deeper than surface level.

Until next time, remember that it is the lack of food that keeps us hungry.  Keep eating!

Years truly,
Keith