Hidekisohma's Reviews > Doctor Who: Verdigris

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