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The Occasional Diary of a Transtemporal Adventuress
With one story from each of the first four Obverse Books' Iris Wildthyme collections, this is the perfect low price sampler for any reader who thinks they may fancy catching up on the adventures of the transtemporal adventuress!
Iris Wildthyme y Señor Cientocinco contra Los Monstruos del Fiesta - Cody Schell (from 'Iris Wildthyme and The Celestial Omnibus')
The Delightful Bag - Paul Magrs (from 'The Panda Book of Horror')
The Shape of Things - Stuart Douglas (from 'Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate')
Annabel Regina - George Mann (from ' Abroad')
Iris Wildthyme y Señor Cientocinco contra Los Monstruos del Fiesta - Cody Schell (from 'Iris Wildthyme and The Celestial Omnibus')
The Delightful Bag - Paul Magrs (from 'The Panda Book of Horror')
The Shape of Things - Stuart Douglas (from 'Miss Wildthyme and Friends Investigate')
Annabel Regina - George Mann (from ' Abroad')
156 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 23, 2012
18 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 19, 2015
So a spin-off of a literary spin off of a TV programme. Truly we are through the looking glass here, people. Iris Wildthyme is a fellow Time Lord who appears in some Doctor Who novels. Created by Paul Magrs, she here embarks on her own set of adventures. Although this being your spin off rather than your official licensed product, it seems that her Tardis, a red London bus which is slightly smaller on the inside than the outside, is now an unnamed time machine. Curse those damned copyright lawyers for removing the fun from everything!
As usual, I’ll review each tale as I get to it.
Iris Wildthyme y Señor Cientocinco contra Los Monstruos del Fiesta by Cody Quijano-Schell
A tale involved Iris Wildthyme and her sentient stuffed panda companion getting involved with a masked Mexican wrestler (and scientist), an ancient South American mummy and a plot to take over the world with the 1968 Olympics in the background should be fun piled high on top of fun. Who just doesn’t love the masked Mexican wrestlers? Particularly a Mexican wrestler who’s basically Batman. It’s a shame then that the resulting story is so poorly written and flat. Without a doubt this is a missed opportunity to make one grind one’s teeth with frustration.
The Delightful Bag by Paul Magrs
That’s more like it.
Of course Paul Magrs is going to have a better handle on how to write an Iris Wildthyme tale than virtually any other human being (or transtemporal type), so what we have here is a treat. Iris and Panda find themselves involved with menacing puppets, mysterious policeman, a super villain vacationing from Limehouse to a small English town hotel and a charming, young widow. Perhaps it’s the time of year and the fact that the whole thing is set at Christmas, but I felt my cockles well and truly warm. I laughed at the jokes, clutched the Kindle with nervous excitement at the tense bits, and found myself suffused with a warm feeling of delight.
Fine, it’s never going to rival Charles Dickens, but this was a perfect Yuletide story for me.
The Shape of Things by Stewart Douglas
Iris Wildthyme’s spiritual parent often works best when The Doctor and his companion are dropped into some pre-existing genre, for example a Second World War tale, or a Hammer Horror, on an Agatha Christie whodunit. So the fact that ‘The Shapes of Things’ opens with Iris dropped into a particularly recognisable pre-existing type was highly intriguing. For here Iris and Panda find themselves in an episode of ‘Taggart’, with a brutal murder in Scotland and a gruff, no nonsense Detective Inspector staring them down. (I don’t know if our American readers would actually know ‘Taggart’, so think of a version of ‘Columbo’ where it’s always rainy and grey, and there’s a humourless cop intent on grinding the suspect down. Then you have one of our most enduringly popular shows.) The brutal, British police procedural is, in my opinion, too seldom done with flighty, comic time travellers in the middle, and so it’s a shame that the conceit is forgotten by about a quarter of the way through. It’s by far the most intriguing and best part of this story and to lose it is such a lost opportunity.
From there Iris is off on her travels in an adventure which includes a mysterious bottle of perfume, Sherlock Holmes and returning Mexican wrestler, 105. It’s a diverting tale in its own sweet ramshackle way, but I guess that this being Iris Wildthyme, ramshackle is the point.
Annabel Regina by George Mann
The ‘we’re stuck in a little girl’s dreamscape’ type of story is one frequently wheeled out in this type of genre fiction. Indeed ‘Doctor Who’ managed one of its most underwhelming entries of the modern age with it in ‘Fear Her’. As such it doesn’t set the pulse racing in the same way as the previous police procedural entry did. Still it does what it says on the tin quite well, even if there are no great surprises. And really, it feels the right way to end up an entertaining, if slightly underwhelming, collection.
As usual, I’ll review each tale as I get to it.
Iris Wildthyme y Señor Cientocinco contra Los Monstruos del Fiesta by Cody Quijano-Schell
A tale involved Iris Wildthyme and her sentient stuffed panda companion getting involved with a masked Mexican wrestler (and scientist), an ancient South American mummy and a plot to take over the world with the 1968 Olympics in the background should be fun piled high on top of fun. Who just doesn’t love the masked Mexican wrestlers? Particularly a Mexican wrestler who’s basically Batman. It’s a shame then that the resulting story is so poorly written and flat. Without a doubt this is a missed opportunity to make one grind one’s teeth with frustration.
The Delightful Bag by Paul Magrs
That’s more like it.
Of course Paul Magrs is going to have a better handle on how to write an Iris Wildthyme tale than virtually any other human being (or transtemporal type), so what we have here is a treat. Iris and Panda find themselves involved with menacing puppets, mysterious policeman, a super villain vacationing from Limehouse to a small English town hotel and a charming, young widow. Perhaps it’s the time of year and the fact that the whole thing is set at Christmas, but I felt my cockles well and truly warm. I laughed at the jokes, clutched the Kindle with nervous excitement at the tense bits, and found myself suffused with a warm feeling of delight.
Fine, it’s never going to rival Charles Dickens, but this was a perfect Yuletide story for me.
The Shape of Things by Stewart Douglas
Iris Wildthyme’s spiritual parent often works best when The Doctor and his companion are dropped into some pre-existing genre, for example a Second World War tale, or a Hammer Horror, on an Agatha Christie whodunit. So the fact that ‘The Shapes of Things’ opens with Iris dropped into a particularly recognisable pre-existing type was highly intriguing. For here Iris and Panda find themselves in an episode of ‘Taggart’, with a brutal murder in Scotland and a gruff, no nonsense Detective Inspector staring them down. (I don’t know if our American readers would actually know ‘Taggart’, so think of a version of ‘Columbo’ where it’s always rainy and grey, and there’s a humourless cop intent on grinding the suspect down. Then you have one of our most enduringly popular shows.) The brutal, British police procedural is, in my opinion, too seldom done with flighty, comic time travellers in the middle, and so it’s a shame that the conceit is forgotten by about a quarter of the way through. It’s by far the most intriguing and best part of this story and to lose it is such a lost opportunity.
From there Iris is off on her travels in an adventure which includes a mysterious bottle of perfume, Sherlock Holmes and returning Mexican wrestler, 105. It’s a diverting tale in its own sweet ramshackle way, but I guess that this being Iris Wildthyme, ramshackle is the point.
Annabel Regina by George Mann
The ‘we’re stuck in a little girl’s dreamscape’ type of story is one frequently wheeled out in this type of genre fiction. Indeed ‘Doctor Who’ managed one of its most underwhelming entries of the modern age with it in ‘Fear Her’. As such it doesn’t set the pulse racing in the same way as the previous police procedural entry did. Still it does what it says on the tin quite well, even if there are no great surprises. And really, it feels the right way to end up an entertaining, if slightly underwhelming, collection.
May 21, 2015
This was quite a good short collection of Iris stories. The first featured her and the dishy Mexican wrestler whose masks were based on different elements. It was a fun story, particularly as you don't get many adventures set in Mexico.
The next was a crossover between Fu Manchu and the Box of Delights, which was equally mad and wonderful.
The third story was part police drama, with random bottles, and things growing bigger, and genies, and Holmes. I found it the weakest of the three but I kept reading it with breaks and it seemed to just be dragging on and on.
The fourth was lovely, a young girl trapped in a terrifying universe of monsters, reminded me a bit of silent hill, but with Iris and Panda thrown in on a quest of booze while exploring it.
If you want to read some Iris Wildthyme and don't know where to start this is definitely a really good introduction to the transtemporal adventuress.
The next was a crossover between Fu Manchu and the Box of Delights, which was equally mad and wonderful.
The third story was part police drama, with random bottles, and things growing bigger, and genies, and Holmes. I found it the weakest of the three but I kept reading it with breaks and it seemed to just be dragging on and on.
The fourth was lovely, a young girl trapped in a terrifying universe of monsters, reminded me a bit of silent hill, but with Iris and Panda thrown in on a quest of booze while exploring it.
If you want to read some Iris Wildthyme and don't know where to start this is definitely a really good introduction to the transtemporal adventuress.
May 3, 2019
Rating between 3 and 4 (depending on the novella)
A nice collection of short stories/novellas about the doctor who-ish spin-off Iris and her travelling companion Panda.
The stories were all enjoyable to read and for me they were just the right length.
despite the voice talents of katy manning being employed by big finish for their iris audios, i still find her character annoying most of the time. especially in prose longer than these were.
so overall i found this collection passed the time and did not overstay its welcome.
A nice collection of short stories/novellas about the doctor who-ish spin-off Iris and her travelling companion Panda.
The stories were all enjoyable to read and for me they were just the right length.
despite the voice talents of katy manning being employed by big finish for their iris audios, i still find her character annoying most of the time. especially in prose longer than these were.
so overall i found this collection passed the time and did not overstay its welcome.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews