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Past Doctor Adventures #30
Doctor Who: Verdigris
Iris Wildthyme and her new friend Tom visit the Doctor at home in 1973. While out on a day trip, a single carriage materializes out of nowhere, full of comatose bodies in eighteenth century dress. As they arrange for these people to be taken to the hospital, they are watched by an oddly-dressed boy and gift, who quickly vanish. Meanwhile the train passengers die and crumble into a green powder -- Verdigris.
244 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 3, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
March 14, 2019
Re-read along with ‘The All-New DW Book Club Podcast’ for March 2019 selection.
I’ve been a fan of the show since the 90’s, but it wasn’t until the return of the series back in 2005 where I turned from casual fan to complete hooked.
Wanting to get all the DVDs and read all the books, I binged through the PDAs and rekindled my love of reading at the same time (it also helped that I was now working, so could afford them!).
I had an absolute blast re-reading this adventure as their was so much of the Pertwee era references that I would have missed first time around, owning to have not seen all the episodes at that point.
They’re nice fun playful gags about some of the special effects being slightly poor that I quite enjoyed, adding the scatterbrain Iris Wildthyme to the story helped make the jokes work for me.
The time traveling Iris reminded me of an opposite to River Song, constantly dropping in future adventures that the Doctor will have was hilariously funny.
It’s certainly a book for fans that are knowledgeable to the Classic series will appreciate.
Magrs comedic style shone through, it’s a slight shame that he hasn’t written for other Past Doctors.
Having enjoyed this so much, it’s made me want to revisit more from the range!
I’ve been a fan of the show since the 90’s, but it wasn’t until the return of the series back in 2005 where I turned from casual fan to complete hooked.
Wanting to get all the DVDs and read all the books, I binged through the PDAs and rekindled my love of reading at the same time (it also helped that I was now working, so could afford them!).
I had an absolute blast re-reading this adventure as their was so much of the Pertwee era references that I would have missed first time around, owning to have not seen all the episodes at that point.
They’re nice fun playful gags about some of the special effects being slightly poor that I quite enjoyed, adding the scatterbrain Iris Wildthyme to the story helped make the jokes work for me.
The time traveling Iris reminded me of an opposite to River Song, constantly dropping in future adventures that the Doctor will have was hilariously funny.
It’s certainly a book for fans that are knowledgeable to the Classic series will appreciate.
Magrs comedic style shone through, it’s a slight shame that he hasn’t written for other Past Doctors.
Having enjoyed this so much, it’s made me want to revisit more from the range!
December 17, 2015
Hooray! It’s Doctor Who facing his most dangerous enemy yet:
Literary post-modernism!
We’re in the reign of The Third Doctor and so there’s a lot of willingly suspended disbelief to be challenged – which means there’s a great deal of fun to be poked. So we have it pointed out to Jo Grant that all the aliens she meets have blue lines around them and look like crap special effects, a Dalek is opened up to reveal the space for an actor inside, the Silurians and The Sea Devils are mocked for their shoddy, unconvincing appearance and we have a villain who grandly states his name, but doesn’t bother to elaborate further.
The plot involves a bunch of aliens disguising themselves as famous fictional characters and trying to blend in when they arrive in old railway carriages. That’s post-modern in itself. But this is Doctor Who fiction that acknowledges Doctor Who is a TV show, and that this version is a TV show of the early 1970s. There’s the mocking of the effects and there’s a character who pointedly exists as the Doctor Who equivalent of a Shakespearian mechanical, there to be a bit yokel before being killed by the villain to move the plot along. But gleefully more than that there’s the fact that Jo Grant is an old friend of Tara King from ‘The Avengers’ (she’s the one who replaced Emma Peel), there’s a group of kids who bear more than a passing resemblance to ‘The Tomorrow People’, and
And of course this being a Paul Magrs novel, we have Iris Wildthyme in tow – a vibrant post-modern challenge to ‘Doctor Who’. A time travelling adventuress who zooms about the universe in a London bus which is slightly smaller on the inside than the outside, and who seems to have had many of the same adventures as The Doctor, but in a different order and in much more of an alcohol fuelled haze. Putting her with The Third Doctor is a genius move. Of all the old Doctors he is the most establishment, the most authoritarian, the most sanctimonious – and so Iris pricks at that from start to finish in a way that is the most delightful fun. It’s the relationship of the screwball comedy, with the jibes covering over a true affection – it’s clear that The Doctor quite likes Iris, and it’s more than clear that in his current incarnation, she fancies the old rake.
There are some who apparently see this is as an attack on the Pertwee era. They see the jokes about the special effects and the digs at The Third Doctor’s character, and think it all comes from hate. It is possible though to adore that particular era, but still recognise that the effects are crummy (they’re frequently off the far end of crummy, leaning more towards the absolutely bloody atrocious) and Pertwee’s portrayal does err a little too much on the pompous side. However I think the affection here is unmistakeable. This is a love letter, a love letter with a well-developed sense of humour, but a love letter nonetheless.
Literary post-modernism!
We’re in the reign of The Third Doctor and so there’s a lot of willingly suspended disbelief to be challenged – which means there’s a great deal of fun to be poked. So we have it pointed out to Jo Grant that all the aliens she meets have blue lines around them and look like crap special effects, a Dalek is opened up to reveal the space for an actor inside, the Silurians and The Sea Devils are mocked for their shoddy, unconvincing appearance and we have a villain who grandly states his name, but doesn’t bother to elaborate further.
The plot involves a bunch of aliens disguising themselves as famous fictional characters and trying to blend in when they arrive in old railway carriages. That’s post-modern in itself. But this is Doctor Who fiction that acknowledges Doctor Who is a TV show, and that this version is a TV show of the early 1970s. There’s the mocking of the effects and there’s a character who pointedly exists as the Doctor Who equivalent of a Shakespearian mechanical, there to be a bit yokel before being killed by the villain to move the plot along. But gleefully more than that there’s the fact that Jo Grant is an old friend of Tara King from ‘The Avengers’ (she’s the one who replaced Emma Peel), there’s a group of kids who bear more than a passing resemblance to ‘The Tomorrow People’, and
And of course this being a Paul Magrs novel, we have Iris Wildthyme in tow – a vibrant post-modern challenge to ‘Doctor Who’. A time travelling adventuress who zooms about the universe in a London bus which is slightly smaller on the inside than the outside, and who seems to have had many of the same adventures as The Doctor, but in a different order and in much more of an alcohol fuelled haze. Putting her with The Third Doctor is a genius move. Of all the old Doctors he is the most establishment, the most authoritarian, the most sanctimonious – and so Iris pricks at that from start to finish in a way that is the most delightful fun. It’s the relationship of the screwball comedy, with the jibes covering over a true affection – it’s clear that The Doctor quite likes Iris, and it’s more than clear that in his current incarnation, she fancies the old rake.
There are some who apparently see this is as an attack on the Pertwee era. They see the jokes about the special effects and the digs at The Third Doctor’s character, and think it all comes from hate. It is possible though to adore that particular era, but still recognise that the effects are crummy (they’re frequently off the far end of crummy, leaning more towards the absolutely bloody atrocious) and Pertwee’s portrayal does err a little too much on the pompous side. However I think the affection here is unmistakeable. This is a love letter, a love letter with a well-developed sense of humour, but a love letter nonetheless.
March 3, 2021
When you read a Paul Magrs Doctor Who novel, you know what you’re getting going in: something high energy, farcical, and insane, while still lovingly crafted as an examination of the show and some of its more interesting decisions. Verdigris in theory is similar to another Past Doctor Adventures novel, Last of the Gaderene: they’re both Third Doctor stories examining the era and how the exile on Earth has affected the Third Doctor, the UNIT family, and the show in general, but Last of the Gaderene is a traditional Third Doctor adventure reveling in its simplicity. Verdigris is simple, but not traditional as anything that includes Iris Wildthyme is likely to be. It’s a story where the Doctor and Jo intend to take a vacation and by no means are to mention the Brigadier or UNIT after The Time Monster. Iris Wildthyme and her companion Tom, a gay man from 2000 who waltzed into her celestial omnibus one day, only come into the plot to annoy the Doctor by dropping in unannounced. The first third of the novel or so is spent on building up the insane character dynamic between the Doctor, Iris, Jo, and Tom while keeping the actual plot simmering in the background. Verdigris is all about this alien called Verdigris infiltrating the Galactic Federation to punish the Doctor as he stops all these alien invasions from the peaceful aliens and insisting that the Daleks, Cybermen, and Ogrons are all myths. This insanity also involves bringing nineteenth century literary figures to life and putting the rest of the UNIT family into a brainwashed supermarket.
This is a book where our main characters are paralleled with one another. Iris Wildthyme was pitched as an anti-Doctor, being a Time Lord exile that does help out in bad situations, but she smokes, drinks, and is incredibly crass. While the Third Doctor is always the gentlemen, Iris spends most of her time in the book flirting with the Doctor and coming upon the solutions to problems in the most weird things. Iris is a parody of the Doctor, kidnapping her companions and spending a lot of the novel through violent mood swings, starting the book angry at Tom and never actually appreciating his presence. She has no qualms on travelling through time to help find a solution. While she would be a character most recognized for her portrayal by Katy Manning in Big Finish Productions audio series, in the Eighth Doctor Adventures and Past Doctor Adventures she goes through several regenerations and lifetimes, and Verdigris is the first that feels the closest to Manning’s portrayal of the character. This is the one where “Auntie Iris” is first used, as this is the first book where Iris has her own perspective character and the one where her own version of The Five Doctors and The Brain of Morbius are mentioned to have happened. Magrs also clearly has a great respect for the Third Doctor who is portrayed here at the peak of his annoyance at life, as this is meant to lead in, at least partially, to The Three Doctors (there is an implication that Omega is notified of the Doctor at the end of this book) and seeing Iris as free to travel time and space while he is exiled is great.
Magrs also seems to be tackling the criticism of the Doctor and Jo’s relationship being adversarial, a popular interpretation which has only recently been reevaluated. As Tom is a foil for Jo, his relationship to Iris is analogous to the Doctor and Jo’s relationship. Iris really doesn’t care about Tom, doing little to calm him when he meets his mother as a young woman and she flirts with him, making him fear becoming his own father, or dealing with Verdigris as an antagonist. Jo and the Doctor are the ones to actually do that, with Tom as a character not actually enjoying himself travelling. That’s kind of the point, Tom is a gay man from a time where progress towards equality had been made and going back to the 1970s does nothing but make him nervous. He also ends up being a damsel in distress and unable to save himself, as a way to go against the criticisms of Jo Grant not being an intelligent character. He and Jo have an interesting relationship develop, especially as Jo’s highlight is overcoming brainwashing and a lengthy section in the middle where Magrs calls out the bad special effects of the Pertwee era as diegetic. Jo is nearly brainwashed which is fascinating as the brainwashing doesn’t start by making her think UNIT itself is false, but all the people around her including the Doctor and everything since Terror of the Autons is.
Overall, Verdigris is a novel that really flies by as a tight character piece examining the Third Doctor’s era and the fan opinion of the era in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Paul Magrs is incredibly readable as the 244 page story grabs you and doesn’t let you go, giving the Doctor, Iris, Jo, and Tom all something fun and examining the UNIT family without actually including the UNIT family as major characters. It’s a perfect bridge between Season 9 and Season 10. 10/10.
This is a book where our main characters are paralleled with one another. Iris Wildthyme was pitched as an anti-Doctor, being a Time Lord exile that does help out in bad situations, but she smokes, drinks, and is incredibly crass. While the Third Doctor is always the gentlemen, Iris spends most of her time in the book flirting with the Doctor and coming upon the solutions to problems in the most weird things. Iris is a parody of the Doctor, kidnapping her companions and spending a lot of the novel through violent mood swings, starting the book angry at Tom and never actually appreciating his presence. She has no qualms on travelling through time to help find a solution. While she would be a character most recognized for her portrayal by Katy Manning in Big Finish Productions audio series, in the Eighth Doctor Adventures and Past Doctor Adventures she goes through several regenerations and lifetimes, and Verdigris is the first that feels the closest to Manning’s portrayal of the character. This is the one where “Auntie Iris” is first used, as this is the first book where Iris has her own perspective character and the one where her own version of The Five Doctors and The Brain of Morbius are mentioned to have happened. Magrs also clearly has a great respect for the Third Doctor who is portrayed here at the peak of his annoyance at life, as this is meant to lead in, at least partially, to The Three Doctors (there is an implication that Omega is notified of the Doctor at the end of this book) and seeing Iris as free to travel time and space while he is exiled is great.
Magrs also seems to be tackling the criticism of the Doctor and Jo’s relationship being adversarial, a popular interpretation which has only recently been reevaluated. As Tom is a foil for Jo, his relationship to Iris is analogous to the Doctor and Jo’s relationship. Iris really doesn’t care about Tom, doing little to calm him when he meets his mother as a young woman and she flirts with him, making him fear becoming his own father, or dealing with Verdigris as an antagonist. Jo and the Doctor are the ones to actually do that, with Tom as a character not actually enjoying himself travelling. That’s kind of the point, Tom is a gay man from a time where progress towards equality had been made and going back to the 1970s does nothing but make him nervous. He also ends up being a damsel in distress and unable to save himself, as a way to go against the criticisms of Jo Grant not being an intelligent character. He and Jo have an interesting relationship develop, especially as Jo’s highlight is overcoming brainwashing and a lengthy section in the middle where Magrs calls out the bad special effects of the Pertwee era as diegetic. Jo is nearly brainwashed which is fascinating as the brainwashing doesn’t start by making her think UNIT itself is false, but all the people around her including the Doctor and everything since Terror of the Autons is.
Overall, Verdigris is a novel that really flies by as a tight character piece examining the Third Doctor’s era and the fan opinion of the era in the late 1990s/early 2000s. Paul Magrs is incredibly readable as the 244 page story grabs you and doesn’t let you go, giving the Doctor, Iris, Jo, and Tom all something fun and examining the UNIT family without actually including the UNIT family as major characters. It’s a perfect bridge between Season 9 and Season 10. 10/10.
July 25, 2025
Paul Magrs returns (with Iris Wildthyme in tow) for a Third Doctor story set during his exile on Earth.
It’s a typically Magrs adventure, funny, silly, self-aware and interested in storytelling as a concept. Iris is essentially the protagonist which adds a different flavour; her longing for acceptance from the Doctor is both funny and poignant.
I found it easier to digest than The Blue Angel, but the constant starburst of ideas left quite a few things feeling unexplored or not convincingly connected. It’s an excitable page-turner but it didn’t leave a huge impression on me. Anyone more receptive to Magrs’s style (which by all accounts is most readers) should have a blast.
It’s a typically Magrs adventure, funny, silly, self-aware and interested in storytelling as a concept. Iris is essentially the protagonist which adds a different flavour; her longing for acceptance from the Doctor is both funny and poignant.
I found it easier to digest than The Blue Angel, but the constant starburst of ideas left quite a few things feeling unexplored or not convincingly connected. It’s an excitable page-turner but it didn’t leave a huge impression on me. Anyone more receptive to Magrs’s style (which by all accounts is most readers) should have a blast.
August 3, 2022
This book seems to be an attempted parody of The Tomorrow People, here called The Children of Destiny. Instead, it just rambles along without rhyme or reason from one stupid incident to the next. It shifts point of view for no clear reason, and the author indulges far too many throw-away ideas as though they were inspired acts of genius. The basic idea is that a low-rent Time Lord, the loudly drunk Iris Wyldthyme, has concocted a plot to rescue Doctor 3 from his exile on Earth, but has for a long time completely forgotten all about it. This rescue involved magic, of all things, but Green magic, whatever that is, and not Black or White magic. This Green magic is the strange being Verdigris, who takes Iris's instructions and then concocts a preposterous plan involving duping an alien race into transporting themselves dressed as characters from historical fiction onto Earth, creating robotic killer sheep, duping a bunch of teenagers into believing they have super powers and are working for the galactic federation, and brainwashing UNIT members into believing they are running a convenience store. Throughout the book, the Doctor is pretty much useless. In addition, somehow this Verdigris creature has come to be employed by the Master, though where or when they met and what hold the Master has over the creature is never spelled out. None of it gets explained to any degree of credibility and little of it gets explained at all. Magrs should know, and probably does, that "magic" explains nothing and is simply his get out of jail free card so he can dodge his obligation of making sense.
March 28, 2022
So after having read Scarlet Empress, I saw that Paul Magrs had also written a third doctor novel. I thought it might be fun to give this book a try as I was very surprised to find that i REALLY enjoyed my first 3rd doctor novel "Last of the Gaderenes". (Over time i have found myself liking the 3rd doctor more as time goes on).
Was this as good as my previous third doctor outing? Nah. Sadly not. There's a few reasons for that, so let me explain.
First of all, the character Iris. Iris is Paul Magrs' baby and, with the exception of "Sick House" (which i have also read) is in every single Doctor Who book he's written. and let me tell you...she gets annoying fast.
Iris is one of those characters you can take in SMALL doses, but pretty much reading 2 of her back to back gets a little tiring. The biggest issue is that, while she was kind of refreshing and a tad more subdued in Scarlet Empress, she dialed the annoyance to ELEVEN in this one. (I chalk that up to her being sick throughout that whole book and having less energy).
She had this weird air of indignation about her as well as a cornucopia of retroactive self inserts. (one example was of her saying that "oh yeah. i was there for brains of morbius and if the doctor didn't save himself i totally would have saved him").
Iris also has the INSANE hots for the doctor. like, not subtle or anything just straight up "get in my pants" which gets weird FAST.
Another problem with the novel is the plot threads. there's at least 4 separate plot threads. 1. the psychic teenagers who are trying to recruit iris' companion tom, 2. the evil robot sheep that fire lasers. 3. the aliens that are dressed up as fictional characters that come to earth and then mysteriously die. 4. unit's basically disappeared and mike yates becomes 2D and folded up and put in a pocketbook (yes you read that right). 5. What is the veridigris?
So there's a lot going on and you wonder how in the world they all meet up and connect to each other. Well i'm not going to tell you and let you guess, because i'm certain that whatever you come up with will be better than the actual answer. Because honestly, the revelation is...actually pretty terrible. like how all these plot points connect really don't make any sense and the villain's reasoning is....weird at best.
For the first...halfish of the book i had the book at a 3.5 and unsure whether it was a 4 or a 3. then once i got further into the 2nd half, it became apparent that yeah...this was hard 3 territory. There was a lot going on, but the stakes never felt high at the same time. Iris was INCREDIBLY insufferable and if i were pertwee i would have a very hard time not smacking her across the face.
Jo was fine as was Third, but the villain and Iris really brought this story down. Not to mention its' incredibly nonsensical convoluted ending.
The book read extremely fast as i read it in 3 days, but that's par for the course as Paul Magrs writing style is very fast and punchy, not leaving a lot of time for descriptions or prose. Which i like about his style.
It's just sad that this book was not nearly as good as "Gaderene" or even "Scarlett Empress". A little bit of Iris is fine, but when you crank up her annoyance it really detracts from the book. it's not quirky, it's not funny, it's actually very irritating and i'd imagine an audioplay or audiobook version of this would just hurt my ears.
I have a high tolerance for annoying, but she definitely got a bit much at times.
This is a book that, while i enjoyed some parts, it's definitely not a book i'm going to keep or re-read again. It was an okay one time read, it told a story (albeit clunkily) and it starred 3rd which is always a plus in my book.
If i had to give it a review it would be a simple shrug. fine, not great or really good, but serviceable. But yeah I could DEFINITELY see some people hating this book because of Iris.
Final score 3 out of 5
Was this as good as my previous third doctor outing? Nah. Sadly not. There's a few reasons for that, so let me explain.
First of all, the character Iris. Iris is Paul Magrs' baby and, with the exception of "Sick House" (which i have also read) is in every single Doctor Who book he's written. and let me tell you...she gets annoying fast.
Iris is one of those characters you can take in SMALL doses, but pretty much reading 2 of her back to back gets a little tiring. The biggest issue is that, while she was kind of refreshing and a tad more subdued in Scarlet Empress, she dialed the annoyance to ELEVEN in this one. (I chalk that up to her being sick throughout that whole book and having less energy).
She had this weird air of indignation about her as well as a cornucopia of retroactive self inserts. (one example was of her saying that "oh yeah. i was there for brains of morbius and if the doctor didn't save himself i totally would have saved him").
Iris also has the INSANE hots for the doctor. like, not subtle or anything just straight up "get in my pants" which gets weird FAST.
Another problem with the novel is the plot threads. there's at least 4 separate plot threads. 1. the psychic teenagers who are trying to recruit iris' companion tom, 2. the evil robot sheep that fire lasers. 3. the aliens that are dressed up as fictional characters that come to earth and then mysteriously die. 4. unit's basically disappeared and mike yates becomes 2D and folded up and put in a pocketbook (yes you read that right). 5. What is the veridigris?
So there's a lot going on and you wonder how in the world they all meet up and connect to each other. Well i'm not going to tell you and let you guess, because i'm certain that whatever you come up with will be better than the actual answer. Because honestly, the revelation is...actually pretty terrible. like how all these plot points connect really don't make any sense and the villain's reasoning is....weird at best.
For the first...halfish of the book i had the book at a 3.5 and unsure whether it was a 4 or a 3. then once i got further into the 2nd half, it became apparent that yeah...this was hard 3 territory. There was a lot going on, but the stakes never felt high at the same time. Iris was INCREDIBLY insufferable and if i were pertwee i would have a very hard time not smacking her across the face.
Jo was fine as was Third, but the villain and Iris really brought this story down. Not to mention its' incredibly nonsensical convoluted ending.
The book read extremely fast as i read it in 3 days, but that's par for the course as Paul Magrs writing style is very fast and punchy, not leaving a lot of time for descriptions or prose. Which i like about his style.
It's just sad that this book was not nearly as good as "Gaderene" or even "Scarlett Empress". A little bit of Iris is fine, but when you crank up her annoyance it really detracts from the book. it's not quirky, it's not funny, it's actually very irritating and i'd imagine an audioplay or audiobook version of this would just hurt my ears.
I have a high tolerance for annoying, but she definitely got a bit much at times.
This is a book that, while i enjoyed some parts, it's definitely not a book i'm going to keep or re-read again. It was an okay one time read, it told a story (albeit clunkily) and it starred 3rd which is always a plus in my book.
If i had to give it a review it would be a simple shrug. fine, not great or really good, but serviceable. But yeah I could DEFINITELY see some people hating this book because of Iris.
Final score 3 out of 5
November 28, 2021
A Past Doctor Adventure featuring the Third Doctor (Jon Pertwee), his companion Jo Grant and the time-travelling adventurer Iris Wildthyme.
Iris and her own companion, Tom, arrive in the 1970s to visit the Doctor in his exile on Earth. Strange events soon overtake them, however, as they encounter alien beings disguised as fictional characters and a mysterious force seems out to frame the Doctor and UNIT as nothing more than a hoax.
This book represents where Doctor Who meets post-modernism, which is to say that it's somewhat smug, self-referential and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.
Magrs has aimed for, admittedly affectionate, metatextual humour at the expense of the style of the Pertwee era of Who but, for my money, totally misplays his hand and produces what is really just a silly mess. It reads like a university student's unsuccessful attempt at aping the style of Douglas Adams and I found it mostly irritating.
Also, Iris Wildthyme needs to be addressed. She was created by Magrs as an unlicensed pastiche of the Doctor, what with her London-landmark time-machine, human companion and desire to galivant about the universe, so having her turn up in a licensed Doctor Who story just feels really weird and out of place. Here it's made explicit that she's also from Gallifrey and that her time-travelling London bus is, in fact, a TARDIS but all of that doesn't prevent her from feeling like she doesn't fit in the Doctor's world at all.
Honestly, her presence here feels more like Magrs did it for his own amusement and self-congratulation than for any actual narrative motivation.
I will give Magrs credit that the way he writes is easy to read and well-paced, so that although I didn't like any of the actual elements of this story, I didn't actually find it too much of a chore getting through the book overall.
* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.com *
Iris and her own companion, Tom, arrive in the 1970s to visit the Doctor in his exile on Earth. Strange events soon overtake them, however, as they encounter alien beings disguised as fictional characters and a mysterious force seems out to frame the Doctor and UNIT as nothing more than a hoax.
This book represents where Doctor Who meets post-modernism, which is to say that it's somewhat smug, self-referential and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is.
Magrs has aimed for, admittedly affectionate, metatextual humour at the expense of the style of the Pertwee era of Who but, for my money, totally misplays his hand and produces what is really just a silly mess. It reads like a university student's unsuccessful attempt at aping the style of Douglas Adams and I found it mostly irritating.
Also, Iris Wildthyme needs to be addressed. She was created by Magrs as an unlicensed pastiche of the Doctor, what with her London-landmark time-machine, human companion and desire to galivant about the universe, so having her turn up in a licensed Doctor Who story just feels really weird and out of place. Here it's made explicit that she's also from Gallifrey and that her time-travelling London bus is, in fact, a TARDIS but all of that doesn't prevent her from feeling like she doesn't fit in the Doctor's world at all.
Honestly, her presence here feels more like Magrs did it for his own amusement and self-congratulation than for any actual narrative motivation.
I will give Magrs credit that the way he writes is easy to read and well-paced, so that although I didn't like any of the actual elements of this story, I didn't actually find it too much of a chore getting through the book overall.
* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.com *
October 6, 2018
Paul Magrs can be an acquired taste, but up to this point, I've found most of his unique, outrageous, bonkers novels utterly charming (hell, any many who can make a vending machine & a tanning bed sympathetic characters has my approval). However, as superbly written and planned out as this book is, it almost feels like he's trying too hard to be (1) clever and (2) dipped in 1970s nostalgia. It all feels to me like an overdose of Paul Magrs' interesting view of the Whoniverse, and he's making his points with too much of a sign flashing overhead, saying "this is all a knowing wink" at many tropes. On top of all this, Iris is a bit more annoying here than in her previous appearances. Overall, I admire greatly what this novel is communicating...I'm just not quite enamored with how it goes about this communication.
October 10, 2022
I don’t know a lot about Classic Who but I was able to read this in Jon Pertwee’s voice and visualise his mannerisms and clothing. I enjoyed the whole adventure, lots of fun strands and scary moments.
December 1, 2020
I thought this was pretentious rubbish and a bit all over the place. Read something else. Magrs has done much much better
October 8, 2021
A fun ridiculous Doctor Who adventure, playing with a lot of the tropes of the show and not afraid to make fun of itself.
January 19, 2022
I can't hate any book that had Iris in it, or the not!Forever People, but it just seems to run out of energy about 2/3 rds of the way through and just seems to stop.
August 30, 2015
Highly entertaining, if weird, Verdigris may be the best Third Doctor novel I've read. (The only close competitors might be The Face of the Enemy and Who Killed Kennedy, neither of which are proper Third Doctor tales.)
The novel is set during the latter days of the Third Doctor's exile, and features recurring maybe-Time Lord Iris Wildthyme and her companion Tom crossing paths with the Doctor and Jo. Ostensibly, the plot involves a campaign to discredit the Doctor and UNIT, alongside an invasion of Earth by simulated fictional characters. All of this is eventually connected to a mysterious entity known as Verdigris. However, as is typical for a Paul Magrs Doctor Who novel, there are several weird asides and tangents as well, sometimes metafictional in nature.
What makes this novel great is that it simultaneously honors and parodies the Third Doctor's era, mashing together many of its recurring plot elements into one story. If you're a fan of that period, as I am, you'll doubtless appreciate this book for that alone. It also sneaks in references to other British SF of the period - the Children of Destiny are an obvious homage to The Tomorrow People, and the surreal sequence inside the abandoned UNIT HQ felt like something out of The Prisoner. Via Iris, there are also nods to past and future adventures of the Doctor as well, particularly those of the Fourth.
Magrs' Third Doctor is spot on - I could practically hear Jon Pertwee's voice with every line. His Jo is excellent, too, and she occasionally makes a better showing here than I recall from the actual series. Iris is a fun character, even outdoing the Doctor in eccentricity and unreliability at times... which makes her a particularly effective foil for the fairly straight-laced Third Doctor. Tom is OK, although he seems rather passive for most of the novel. I was genuinely surprised when Verdigris first revealed himself, and at the later revelation of his true purpose; despite appearing only a few times in the novel, he made an impression.
Final verdict: A-. A fun novel generally, and especially recommended for Third Doctor fans... provided you don't mind some odd moments and some good-natured teasing.
Trivia note: Iris's dislike for Jo becomes funnier in retrospect, as Katy Manning - who played Jo - is now the voice of Iris Wildthyme in Big Finish audios.
The novel is set during the latter days of the Third Doctor's exile, and features recurring maybe-Time Lord Iris Wildthyme and her companion Tom crossing paths with the Doctor and Jo. Ostensibly, the plot involves a campaign to discredit the Doctor and UNIT, alongside an invasion of Earth by simulated fictional characters. All of this is eventually connected to a mysterious entity known as Verdigris. However, as is typical for a Paul Magrs Doctor Who novel, there are several weird asides and tangents as well, sometimes metafictional in nature.
What makes this novel great is that it simultaneously honors and parodies the Third Doctor's era, mashing together many of its recurring plot elements into one story. If you're a fan of that period, as I am, you'll doubtless appreciate this book for that alone. It also sneaks in references to other British SF of the period - the Children of Destiny are an obvious homage to The Tomorrow People, and the surreal sequence inside the abandoned UNIT HQ felt like something out of The Prisoner. Via Iris, there are also nods to past and future adventures of the Doctor as well, particularly those of the Fourth.
Magrs' Third Doctor is spot on - I could practically hear Jon Pertwee's voice with every line. His Jo is excellent, too, and she occasionally makes a better showing here than I recall from the actual series. Iris is a fun character, even outdoing the Doctor in eccentricity and unreliability at times... which makes her a particularly effective foil for the fairly straight-laced Third Doctor. Tom is OK, although he seems rather passive for most of the novel. I was genuinely surprised when Verdigris first revealed himself, and at the later revelation of his true purpose; despite appearing only a few times in the novel, he made an impression.
Final verdict: A-. A fun novel generally, and especially recommended for Third Doctor fans... provided you don't mind some odd moments and some good-natured teasing.
Trivia note: Iris's dislike for Jo becomes funnier in retrospect, as Katy Manning - who played Jo - is now the voice of Iris Wildthyme in Big Finish audios.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 10, 2020
The Doctor (the third incarnation) and Jo are joined by Iris Wildthyme and Tom, two characters created by author Paul Magrs who have turned out to be a highly respected duo, the first being a scatterbrained Time Lord, the other her companion. This pair has had several books focusing on them as well as several Big Finish audio productions. I would not want to read or listen to their adventures any further. I found this book adequate, except when this other pair was involved. I found Iris highly unlikable and Tom to be one note more so than Tegan ever was. I thought the idea behind the book was fine, a train car appears carrying unconconsious people dressed in Victorian garb interesting, but the solution and reveal of Verdigris was too much. When it was revealed...and, yes, this is a SPOILER...that Iris' handbag was actually an intergalactic kidnapped dignatary, my love of the book fell dramatically. This might be your cup of tea if you are a fan of whimsey and over the top humor, but for me this fell flat. I loved the Doctor and I loved Jo, but the rest was an absolute mess. I expect better.
July 12, 2016
This was a baffling one, but certainly fun and a great adventure for the third Doctor and Jo (and new character, the Time Lady Iris).
Magrs seems to have crammed as much as he could into this small volume, which is both its strength and its failing: I found myself losing track of all the different plot strands, which were tied together in a somewhat obscure manner that the reader could not find pleasure in piecing together by themselves until final details were revealed at the end. However, when the plot strands were tied up, I could look back on it and say “Oh yes! that was clever.”
Additionally, the self-reference was a nice touch that had me chuckling a little. At first I wondered if it was relevant enough, but fortunately I soon found that it was.
Another liberty Magrs has taken is the exploitation of his position in time, with twenty-five years of hindsight on the Pertwee era — he mainly uses Iris to make these references, although after a while this becomes rather forced and I would rather he got on with the story.
I rather enjoyed exploring the pre-reboot Who literature and spending some more time with the third doctor.
Magrs seems to have crammed as much as he could into this small volume, which is both its strength and its failing: I found myself losing track of all the different plot strands, which were tied together in a somewhat obscure manner that the reader could not find pleasure in piecing together by themselves until final details were revealed at the end. However, when the plot strands were tied up, I could look back on it and say “Oh yes! that was clever.”
Additionally, the self-reference was a nice touch that had me chuckling a little. At first I wondered if it was relevant enough, but fortunately I soon found that it was.
Another liberty Magrs has taken is the exploitation of his position in time, with twenty-five years of hindsight on the Pertwee era — he mainly uses Iris to make these references, although after a while this becomes rather forced and I would rather he got on with the story.
I rather enjoyed exploring the pre-reboot Who literature and spending some more time with the third doctor.
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December 23, 2009"http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1269669.html[return][return]A novel featuring the Third Doctor, Jo Grant, UNIT and Magrs' own invention, Iris Wildthyme, a renegade Time Lady whose Tardis is shaped like a double decker bus and who claims to be the Doctor's on-off girlfriend. Magrs recycled a lot of the jokes and some of the plot from this book for the Big Finish audio Excelis Dawn, with Iris (as per usual) played by Katy Manning. But Verdigris is an amusing sideways look at the Third Doctor era, with the bad guys in one scene trying to convince Jo that it is all a cruel hoax: ""Think about every alen artifact or creature you have ever seen. Weren't they always surrounded by a nimbus of blue light? Didn't they sometimes look a little ... unconvincing?"" And Mike Yates gets reduced to a two-dimensional cardboard cutout, so not much change there then. It's not terribly substantial, with some promising elements (eg Iris' companion, Tommy) left unexplored, but quite good fun."
March 17, 2025
Paul Magrs plays irreverently with the icons and tropes of one of Doctor Who's most beloved eras with this book. Entertainingly mad, this book doesn't so much lean on the fourth wall as chisel a hole in it and peek on out, and stops just short of having the characters acknowledge they're in a post-modernist novel on a few occasions. One of the most memorable sequences has one of the side characters rendered into flat cardboard cutouts in the literal sense and stuffed in someone's handbag.
All told, it's a bit of a mind-fuck, but undoubtedly a very fun one. The prose is hilarious, and the little references to both the continuity and to fan culture, gay culture, and literature were all much appreciated by me. Highly recommended for Who fans.
All told, it's a bit of a mind-fuck, but undoubtedly a very fun one. The prose is hilarious, and the little references to both the continuity and to fan culture, gay culture, and literature were all much appreciated by me. Highly recommended for Who fans.
May 17, 2008
Another one of those surreal Doctor Who books that were supposed to breathe life into the old show, but instead just seemed to me to get very quickly annoying and pointless.
Nice portrayals of the Doctor and Jo and Iris is a fun, odd character, but the big reveal was a bit dumb and don't get me started on the bad guys evil minions.
Nice character bits, shame it was set in a really dreary story.
Nice portrayals of the Doctor and Jo and Iris is a fun, odd character, but the big reveal was a bit dumb and don't get me started on the bad guys evil minions.
Nice character bits, shame it was set in a really dreary story.
January 15, 2015
The Doctor and Jo, with Iris and Tom. Do you need to know more? Some aliens are turning up in the form of fictional characters, and to top it all UNIT HQ has disappeared. This is a lot of fun, light hearted and I loved all the references. I particularly liked the inclusion of the Tomorrow People. A very good read.
April 22, 2014
The single most surreal and fantastical adventure the Doctor has every been on. And probably one of the top 5 for Iris Wildthyme. Thoroughly humorous with several laugh out loud and/or jaw dropping moments.
December 21, 2024
I've tried twice to read this book, and twice the author lost my faith when a well established character turns two dimensional and is folded up and put in a handbag. Rubbish. Life is too short and there are far better Doctor Who adventures out there.
October 10, 2010
Mad fun.
April 21, 2013
loved this defitenly 1 of my top 5 doctor who books brilliant thoroughly enjoyable then again paul magrs always writes good doctor stories
August 17, 2016
Review to follow (read this when I had no access to internet, and wrote my review down somewhere).
June 18, 2017
Iris what a character. You can just see the 3rd Doctor really struggling to deal with this force of nature
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