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chicafrom3This took a while because of things, but I promise I'm still working on this readthrough.
The Fourth Doctor and the First Romana, mid-Key To Time arc, are diverted to deal with a Lovecraftian/eldritch abominations/Elder Gods-type cultist horror story in deep space.
I really enjoyed the concept of this one, I think it's excellent: an ancient being from a higher dimension who may or may not be dead, possibly resurrected via the use of psychic powers or possibly we're just seeing the effects of higher dimensions leeching into our universe and people going mad from exposure and what they're doing themselves. The conceit of Pelham telling this interactive story is a good one, too.
Unfortunately it all falls apart in the execution. The pacing is awful. It drags interminably and it's all just incredibly dull. It's like reading actual Lovecraft, it's so boring. (I doubt anyone reading this post -- if anyone is reading this post, lol -- remembers, but I put myself through reading the Collected Works Of Lovecraft several years and regretted it immensely. There's a handful of very good short stories! But mostly it's *so boring*, in addition to the racism he's just not a writer I vibe with.) Trapping Romana with Huvan for the bulk of the plot is an awful decision; he's horrible, he sexually harasses her (continuing an unpleasant trend in the PDAs!) while she has to pretend to go along with it, and at a certain point she gets basically-hypnotized into finding him sympathetic which is just. depressing.
None of the other supporting characters are much better.
All in all, not a big fan.
It does have a few nice moments, though:
The Third Doctor and Jo in AN ADVENTURE with Iris Wildthyme and Tom. I'm...not sure there's a better way to blurb this book than that. For the Doctor and Jo, it's set just before the Three Doctors.
More of an Iris book than a Third Doctor book, to be fair! My exposure to Iris to this point has been limited (I'm working my way through the Whoniverse and Iris is on my list but...alas, I am not a Time Lord, and time is a finite resource), so I've mainly run into her in anthologies and the occasional Big Finish story. I've always loved her when I've met her, and this is no exception; she's a Good Time. The anti-Doctor in many ways, a renegade Time Lord -- here the Doctor suggests that she's not a proper Time Lord at all --
Iris weaves erratically through time on her double-decker-bus TARDIS (which, to Jo's surprise, is the same size on the inside as the outside) with no cares about causality, she smokes and drinks and is generally kind of a trainwreck of a person and I love her.
The plot is impossible to summarize: the Big Bad of the book is the title character Verdigris, who, it turns out, was summoned with "green magic" by Iris while she was blackout drunk in order to free the Doctor from his exile on Earth; in order to do so, he disguises himself as the Master and organizes a group of teenagers in London to believe themselves to be the Children of Destiny, who are the next step in evolution and ready to lead humanity to the stars and in contact with the Galactic Federation; he also organizes the so-called Galactic Federation by sticking a bunch of aliens in a hollowed-out mountain in Wales and convincing them they're in deep space; there's an alien invasion by a species disguising themselves as characters from fiction; there are killer robot sheet; UNIT are brainwashed into believing they run a rural supermarket and UNIT headquarters emptied out to be made to look fake; when Mike Yates breaks through the brainwashing he turns into a two-dimensional cardboard cutout. I'm leaving things out.
It's a surrealist acid trip. It only works because it's an Iris book, not a Third Doctor book.
(I would, however, be remiss if I didn't point out that Verdigris, disguised as the Master, kisses Jo against her will. For no reason. Just because it's a PDA and we have to have some sexual harassment of the companion, I guess?)
Overall, it's a fun, frothy, weird book. Tom gets to punch the guy he spends most of the novel crushing on, which is delightful because the guy does not deserve his crush. Jo gets to be proactive and do things, even if she gets gaslit by Verdigris. Iris is all over the place. The Doctor gets run over by everyone else. It's fun.
The Fourth Doctor and the First Romana, mid-Key To Time arc, are diverted to deal with a Lovecraftian/eldritch abominations/Elder Gods-type cultist horror story in deep space.
I really enjoyed the concept of this one, I think it's excellent: an ancient being from a higher dimension who may or may not be dead, possibly resurrected via the use of psychic powers or possibly we're just seeing the effects of higher dimensions leeching into our universe and people going mad from exposure and what they're doing themselves. The conceit of Pelham telling this interactive story is a good one, too.
"What do you find so impossible? That this could have happened? Impossible is just another word for 'I don't understand'."
Unfortunately it all falls apart in the execution. The pacing is awful. It drags interminably and it's all just incredibly dull. It's like reading actual Lovecraft, it's so boring. (I doubt anyone reading this post -- if anyone is reading this post, lol -- remembers, but I put myself through reading the Collected Works Of Lovecraft several years and regretted it immensely. There's a handful of very good short stories! But mostly it's *so boring*, in addition to the racism he's just not a writer I vibe with.) Trapping Romana with Huvan for the bulk of the plot is an awful decision; he's horrible, he sexually harasses her (continuing an unpleasant trend in the PDAs!) while she has to pretend to go along with it, and at a certain point she gets basically-hypnotized into finding him sympathetic which is just. depressing.
None of the other supporting characters are much better.
All in all, not a big fan.
It does have a few nice moments, though:
It is the Doctor, alive. He sits and plays with a yo-yo, staring intently at it as he tries to master a trick. As if he has only just become aware of his audience, he looks up and smiles. "Oh please," he says smoothly, "don't let me interrupt. It all looks ever so interesting and you were having such a nice time."
The Third Doctor and Jo in AN ADVENTURE with Iris Wildthyme and Tom. I'm...not sure there's a better way to blurb this book than that. For the Doctor and Jo, it's set just before the Three Doctors.
More of an Iris book than a Third Doctor book, to be fair! My exposure to Iris to this point has been limited (I'm working my way through the Whoniverse and Iris is on my list but...alas, I am not a Time Lord, and time is a finite resource), so I've mainly run into her in anthologies and the occasional Big Finish story. I've always loved her when I've met her, and this is no exception; she's a Good Time. The anti-Doctor in many ways, a renegade Time Lord -- here the Doctor suggests that she's not a proper Time Lord at all --
'Face it, Iris,' he said, not unkindly. 'You aren't even a proper Time Lady. They don't even know who you are. Where did you come from? The New Towns under the Capitol. The slums, as far as the High Council is concerned. If they found out about you, they'd do the same to you as they did to me. Worse, perhaps. You should never have been allowed to even get a whiff of a TARDIS, let alone borrow one. They'd wipe you out of history. You'd be an abomination to them.'
Iris weaves erratically through time on her double-decker-bus TARDIS (which, to Jo's surprise, is the same size on the inside as the outside) with no cares about causality, she smokes and drinks and is generally kind of a trainwreck of a person and I love her.
The plot is impossible to summarize: the Big Bad of the book is the title character Verdigris, who, it turns out, was summoned with "green magic" by Iris while she was blackout drunk in order to free the Doctor from his exile on Earth; in order to do so, he disguises himself as the Master and organizes a group of teenagers in London to believe themselves to be the Children of Destiny, who are the next step in evolution and ready to lead humanity to the stars and in contact with the Galactic Federation; he also organizes the so-called Galactic Federation by sticking a bunch of aliens in a hollowed-out mountain in Wales and convincing them they're in deep space; there's an alien invasion by a species disguising themselves as characters from fiction; there are killer robot sheet; UNIT are brainwashed into believing they run a rural supermarket and UNIT headquarters emptied out to be made to look fake; when Mike Yates breaks through the brainwashing he turns into a two-dimensional cardboard cutout. I'm leaving things out.
It's a surrealist acid trip. It only works because it's an Iris book, not a Third Doctor book.
(I would, however, be remiss if I didn't point out that Verdigris, disguised as the Master, kisses Jo against her will. For no reason. Just because it's a PDA and we have to have some sexual harassment of the companion, I guess?)
Overall, it's a fun, frothy, weird book. Tom gets to punch the guy he spends most of the novel crushing on, which is delightful because the guy does not deserve his crush. Jo gets to be proactive and do things, even if she gets gaslit by Verdigris. Iris is all over the place. The Doctor gets run over by everyone else. It's fun.
Hullooo space chums!
It’s your Aunty Iris again, twice as large as life again!.
Three times as beautiful as social realism again!
Four times as stupendous as magic realism again!
Five times as marvellous as science fiction again!
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