Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Verdigris by Doctor Who: Verdigris by Paul Magrs. STORIES "THE TIME. RECOMMENDED. OFFICIAL BBC 'PAST. DOCTOR' PAPERBACK. (ISBN 0-563-55592-0) RELEASED IN APRIL. had no. inkling of the ship. that revolved in. orbit like a discreet, in the mind of someone. serene but bonkers. High above London. and its crust of smog, stretched tall above. the soapy atmosphere. of the Earth, is a ship. the size and exact. shape of St Pancras. On board, the Doctor. and that mysterious. lady adventurer, Iris. bargaining for their. lives with creatures. infiltrate the 1970s in. Without the help of. UNIT, the Doctor and. his friends face the. daunting task of. sheep, the mysterious. Children of Destiny. and. the being who. Verdigris. �Verdigris� is a vivacious, rollicking novel that flies past in a heartbeat. It is also one of the most staggeringly imaginative past Doctor adventures that I have ever had the fortune to read. This one sees author Paul Magrs truly in his metafictional element. For starters, the pairing of the and Iris is absolutely inspired; the brazen �Trans-temporal Adventuress� the perfect foil for the most straight-laced of Doctors. It is nice to see Iris share an adventure with a Doctor other than the eighth too; after all, her. appearances to date have made it unequivocally clear that she knew the lot of them intimately. �Will it end?� What really makes �Verdigris� so interesting though is that it is essentially told from Iris� perspective, which is one of hindsight. Never one for adhering to those pesky laws of time, here Iris has quite intentionally encountered the Doctor out of sequence (relative to her in. this novel, I think the Doctor is in his seventh or eighth incarnation). This forced retrospection gives the novel a unique feel as for the first time, it really feels like we are experiencing an adventure that is brand new � �live�, even - yet still retro . �Verdigris� was not there in the Doctor�s timeline before, but cue Iris and hey presto; a new-old adventure is bludgeoned in. This distorted perspective also allows us to learn more about the Earthbound Time Lord; things that by their very nature did not come to the fore on television, but things that are of evidently of some importance to Iris and are thus included here. For example, �Verdigris� introduces us to the Doctor�s house; his village; and the lady that runs the corner shop, who lusts after the Doctor to such an extent that her friends call him her �fancy man�. Oh, and his whopping United Nations paycheck. He kept that one quiet� �Verdigris� also lifts Iris� veil a little higher, suggesting that she spent considerable time as part of the Sisterhood on Karn and, in an astonishing twist, that she was a member of the order during the events of �The Brain of Morbius�! This revelation naturally dovetails into the most thorough retelling yet of Iris� blockbuster battle with Morbius in the Death Zone. It is woefully referential stuff, of course, but I find that it really does make Iris all the more alluring. The story itself is, as I have come to expert from Magrs, a post-modern fairytale sated with his own characteristic style. Reading the book, I could practically see the fun that he must have had in writing about aliens masquerading as great literary characters, not to mention in turning convention on its head at every possible turn. Iris� homosexual companion Tom is only the tip of the iceberg � here we have a villain who masquerades as ! Talk about wrong side up� "Do you really think that there would be an organisation like UNIT here, in the 1970s?" It also find it fascinating how Magrs deals with UNIT in this novel. Not only did he take the decision not to feature them heavily in this story, he took the decision to write them out of the proceedings in a way that I can only describe as Magrtian . Reading this one, at times Magrs even had me questioning whether UNIT was real or not, never mind poor old Jo Grant! Indeed, the passages that see Jo wander through an empty, dreamlike UNIT Headquarters are told in the most innovative and (to Doctor Who fans at least) suggestive of ways � telesnaps and low quality audio recordings! Absolutely inspired. Furthermore, certain deft touches - such as turning into a two-dimensional cardboard cut out, for example � are positively dripping with the author�s ineffaceable perspective. Whilst I do not agree with what I can only imagine is a thinly-concealed scoff at the UNIT Captain � who was, in my view, one of the most three-dimensional UNIT characters � you have to admire the author�s brazen and wholly inimitable style. "Here the timelines are intact, causality is unimpeached. and one historical event follows another in strict chronological order." On a final note, Magrs� apparent insensitivity to continuity in �Verdigris� has been lambasted by many, but to be fair there was nothing in the book that had me tearing my hair out beyond the age-old UNIT dating inconsistencies. If anything, the story feels like it has been woven into the tapestry of the third Doctor�s era effortlessly, the novel�s finale bleeding seamlessly into �The Three Doctors� (and do you not just love the idea that it was Iris� meddling in this story that ultimately led to the events of �The Three Doctors� and the lifting of the Doctor's exile!) and �Frontier in Space� for the Doctor and the Master respectively. Fair dues, the Doctor does make one incongruous comment to Iris about certain events on Peladon not having happened to him yet, but even this can be explained away relatively easily by those that wish to do so. And so all told, despite having gained a reputation as a something of an opinion-divider, I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed �Verdigris�. In fact, I much preferred this hushed classic to even �The Scarlet Empress.� Copyright � E.G. Wolverson 2006. E.G. Wolverson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. This novel appears to lead into the television story The Three Doctors. Unless otherwise stated, all images on this site are copyrighted to the BBC and are used solely for promotional purposes. Verdigris. High above London and its crust of smog, stretched tall above the soapy atmosphere of the Earth, is a ship the size and exact shape of St Pancra railway station. On board, the Doctor and that mysterious lady adventurer, , are bargaining for their lives with creatures determined to infiltrate the 1970s in the guise of characters from nineteenth-century novels. Without the help of UNIT, the Doctor and his friends face the daunting task of defeating aliens, marauding robot sheep, the mysterious Children of Destiny and. the being who calls himself Verdigris. Jacob Licklider: Reviews. 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 . 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. Writers similar to or like Paul Magrs. English television, radio, stage play and short story writer. Known for his World Fantasy Award-winning short stories, as well as his work for Doctor Who, and his association with Jarvis & Ayres Productions which has resulted in six plays for BBC Radio 4, broadcast in the station's regular weekday Afternoon Play slot, and one classic serial. Wikipedia. English writer. Prolific in many genres, he wrote dozens of novels, short stories, and works of social commentary, history, satire, biography and autobiography. Wikipedia. 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Over four decades and in more than thirty books, he has created what has been called a "body of work that stands among the most admired and influential in modern science fiction and fantasy literature." Wikipedia. Verdigris (novel) Verdigris was the thirtieth BBC Past Doctor Adventures novel. It featured the Third Doctor, Jo Grant and Iris Wildthyme. This was the first full length past Doctor novel to feature Iris Wildthyme. She had previously appeared in the full length Eighth Doctor novels PROSE: The Scarlet Empress and The Blue Angel . Contents. Publisher's summary [ edit | edit source ] Jo Grant had no inkling of the ship that revolved in orbit like a discreet, preposterous thought in the mind of someone serene but bonkers. High above London and its crust of smog, stretched tall above the soapy atmosphere of the Earth, is a ship the size and exact shape of St Pancras railway station. On board, the Doctor and that mysterious lady adventurer, Iris Wildthyme, are bargaining for their lives with creatures determined to infiltrate the 1970s in the guise of characters from nineteenth-century novels. Without the help of UNIT, the Doctor and his friends face the daunting task of defeating aliens, marauding robot sheep, the mysterious Children of Destiny and. the being who calls himself Verdigris.