Verdigris

The Doctor and Jo receive a visit from an old friend of the Doctor's: another Time Lord, one who has fashioned her TARDIS into a red London bus and has crossed paths with the Doctor more times than he cares to remember - Iris Wildthyme. And as Iris and her companion Tom arrive, so does a train carriage load of characters from literary works of fiction in the middle of a field where there are no train tracks. The Doctor is immediately intrigued but he finds that his normal support mechanism - the Brigadier and UNIT - are gone. And in the face of what appears to be a bizarre alien invasion he finds that there are forces working against him to paint him as a fraud, so when he tries to alert the world of the invasion no one will listen, and no one will help.

It's a bit of a comedy this one, or at least it reads like one. Paul Magrs has a thing for the surreal with a slight touch of real horror underneath, but the absurdity of some of the situations he creates take the really scary edge off. He's written a few novels for the series and a few audios as well, some with Iris and some without, and I'm still not exactly sold on her as a concept. She's a Time Lady, yes, so the Doctor has himself a contemporary that for once is not trying to kill him, but her flirty ways where he is concerned are a bit tiresome after a while. Iris is also a big one on spoilers (this was written before people were doing the whole "Shhh - spoilers!" thing by the by) and keeps dropping things about the Doctor's future that she shouldn't - for his sake and certainly for the sake of anyone who might be taking the series on like this in sequence.

Sequence gets a bit thrown off, though; Iris at one point refers to the time when the TARDIS fell off a cliff on Peladon and the Doctor tells her that hasn't happened yet, but this story is set decidedly after the Master has escaped from Earth post Sea Devils but the BBC Novels themselves have the Master still in prison parallel to The Curse of Peladon. Editors might have been napping somewhere when that slipped through. But there's no mistaking when this takes place; the Doctor's TARDIS is still grounded and when the prospect of getting his hands on Iris' comes along he gets a bit taken away with the notion for a few moments. It's not surprising, really; he's been on Earth for a few years now without the option to escape so when he sees it he's going to get a bit crazy. And Iris is willing to take him with her but he's not that crazy as to agree to shack up to escape.

Iris does have the big crush on the Doctor, though; she fawns over him incessantly and constantly implies that he is the one with the crush on her. She's modelled a lot of her own lifestyle on him though with the eccentric TARDIS exterior (another stolen machine, older but more reliable than the Doctor's) and travelling with companions although the one she is with here, Tom, has more or less been kidnapped and really wants to go home. Iris even laments somewhat enviously that the Doctor's companions enjoy being with him and all hers want to do is leave. It's not surprising though; Iris and the Doctor are both lonely people but her loneliness is out of desperation not to be alone, which is really unattractive. I found I went back and forth about Iris; liked her mostly but other times she was just a nuisance.

The last chapter of the book manages to blow a few future events

NEXT EPISODES: LANDBOUND and DAMASCUS