Doctor How and the Illegal Aliens by Mark Speed: Interview and Giveaway!

Please welcome Mark Speed here on Living As We for the Doctor How and the Illegal Aliens book tour! Mark will be giving away a $50 Amazon Gift Card to one lucky commenter, so be sure to follow along the rest of the tour stops for more chances to win!

Doctor How and the Illegal Aliens

by Mark Speed 

BLURB 

Doctor How’s famous megalomaniac brother Doctor Who sold his fictional life story to the BBC half a century ago, painting himself as a lone hero. Disillusioned, their four cousins dropped out. For fifty years, Doctor How has held the line against the forces of darkness and stupidity. And he’s not that happy, since you ask.

Illegal aliens try to hack How’s Spectrel (TARDIS is a very rude word where he comes from), just as he suspects his estranged cousin Where has been compromised. When reports come in of mysterious attacks by alien creatures, Doctor How has to rely on his new companion Kevin, a petty criminal from south London, and Trinity, a morphing super-predator, as he counters this threat to humanity’s existence. Bungling agents from MI16, long desperate to capture the Time Keeper’s technology, hamper How’s efforts to combat the alien menace. Can Doctor How keep ahead of MI16, save Where and combat the alien threat?

Check out this fun interview and learn a little about what makes Mark tick. Then, read through the excerpt for a peek into the book

Interview with Mark Speed

1. What is the sweetest thing someone has done for you? 

A surprise dawn hot air balloon flight was stunning.

2. What kind of music you like?

I was into heavy rock when I was younger. Oddly, I used to play classical guitar, and not electric. I like music that moves me, and beautiful voices. There’s evidence that we sang before we could talk – singing is incredibly powerful, which is why it’s either co-opted by dictators, or banned by religious extremists.

3. Do you like to dance? 

I seldom get a chance, but love to strut my stuff. I used to have set routine with a friend when Jump by Van Halen came on.

4. Can you describe your dream home? 

I think I might be living in it. It’s a terraced (row) house in inner London. It’s quiet and roomy, and I managed to preserve the original features. I’ve grown a ten-foot palm tree in the back garden. It even flowers in late spring. Sadly it has no other palm trees to pollinate with, or insects that are attracted to its flowers. I might track down one of the same species one year and do it myself with a feather.

5. If you could be any character, from any literary work, who would you choose to be? Why?

Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison. A criminal mastermind with a dazzling range of skills, but a strong moral code and some great one-liners. He just has such a wild life, unencumbered by twin demons of responsibility and routine.

Excerpt

“So is that your –”

“No it’s not my TARDIS, Kevin!” hissed Doctor How. “That’s a misnomer.”

“A?”

“A misnomer.” Kevin looked at him blankly. “It means wrong name. It’s a misnomer put out by the BBC. TARDIS is actually a very rude word in my native language and nearly one in yours if you changed the ‘a’ for a ‘u’. A certain someone who will remain nameless thought it would be terribly amusing. According to the BBC, TARDIS is supposed to mean Time And Relative Dimension In Space.” The Doctor was now ranting wildly. “Can you believe the sheer gall of these people? Like they actually know, like they understand how the physics works?” The Doctor glared at Kevin, who shook his head.

“Let me tell you what it’s like. It’s like a troop of monkeys – and I mean monkeys, like baboons; not chimpanzees, not even apes – coming up to your very sophisticated saloon car with individual climate-control for each passenger, and a hi-fi system that would fool a bat. As you drive your state-of-the-art car through a safari park this troop of purple-bottomed baboons comes up to your car and calls it “Oog”. And then – and then – then they have the cheek to first of all capitalise the entire thing, so it’s not Tardis, it’s T-A-R-D-I-S, just to spell out the first letters of exactly what these monkeys think the physics is that they can’t even begin to comprehend. And after that they march down to another baboon who calls himself a lawyer and they register it as a trademark. So if I wanted to write my own biography, my autobiography, and I wanted the boneheaded human reader to understand the concept by way of using the word TARDIS, some baboon with a Technicolor™ bottom specialising in intellectual property law could demand money with menaces through the good courts of baboon society. And this,” spluttered the Doctor, “And all this after I saved your – forgive my crude colloquialism here – after I have saved your sorry collective Technicolor™ asses on more occasions than I can care to remember.”

Silence hung in the air. The Doctor was breathing deeply.

“You has got issues, innit?” said Kevin.

Meet the Author

Mark Speed has been writing novels since he was fifteen. His comedy writing has appeared in newspapers as diverse as the London Evening Standard and The Sun, and been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 Extra. He performed his solo comedy, The End of the World Show, at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2011 and 2012. He is currently working on the five-volume Doctor How series.

Amongst other postgraduate and professional qualifications, he has a Master’s degree in Creative Writing from City University, London. In 1995 a chiropractor told him he’d never run again. Sensibly, he gave up chiropractors, runs every day and has completed several marathons and a couple of Olympic-length triathlons.

NLP founder Dr.Richard Bandler called him a ‘polarity responder’.

Connect with Mark: 

Website  *  Facebook  *  Goodreads  *  Twitter

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