Marked for Life (in-universe)

Marked for Life
Type:	Book
Made by:	Paul Magrs
First mentioned in:	Dog Days of Summer
Appearance:	Dark Side

Marked for Life was the first novel that Paul Magrs had published.

History

It was first published in 1995, and was sold in branches of the book chain Waterstones. After six months of it being on sale, the chain reduced the novel and it was relagated to the "bargain bins". In one branch of Waterstones in Edinburgh, Jeremy, a security guard from the local university, purchased a copy. Coincidentally, Jeremy met Paul when their friend Duncan introduced the pair one night. Later, when telling this story to his cat, Fester, Paul was still a little sore over the short lifespan of the book in Waterstones. (PROSE: The Story of Fester Cat)

In 1998, after Iris Wildthyme told him that her life was a series of stories, Andrew mused that the story they could've been in at that moment may have been Marked for Life. (PROSE: Dog Days of Summer)

Iris also kept a copy in the library of Pink Gables. Edwin Turner noticed the book after he was left alone in the library. (AUDIO: Dark Side)

Behind the scenes

Marked for Life was the first published novel to feature Iris Wildthyme, as well as being the first novel in the Phoenix Court series. It was also Paul Magrs' debut novel. There are several connections between Marked for Life and Magrs' later work.

In Marked for Life, Iris Margaret Wildthyme is a lesbian novelist who claims to have lived on Earth for 474 years and changed sex five times, "like Orlando". Iris says that she spent some time with Marlene Dietrich in 1920s Berlin; Magrs' first two Doctor Who novels were named after films starring Dietrich, and Iris is shown to be familiar with Dietrich in several stories in the Iris Wildthyme series, most prominently The Scarlet Shadow. Iris shows a love for Ride of the Valkyries in Marked for Life, which is echoed in Scream in Blue.

At the end of Marked for Life, Iris transforms into a baby; baby Iris reappeared in Magrs' next two novels - Does it Show? and Could it be Magic? - which formed a trilogy with Marked for Life.

Darlington features in Marked for Life; the town would later become a prominent recurring location in the Iris Wildthyme series.

The Blue Angel shows "equally valid" Obverse versions of the Eighth Doctor, Fitz Kreiner, and Compassion who live in Newton Aycliffe, the setting of the trilogy. Just like Marked for Life, the Newton Aycliffe segments of The Blue Angel are set around Christmas. These segments also feature an Iris who is similar to the one in Marked for Life, but also has a broken double-decker bus that she keeps in the communal garden of her terrace. The final chapter of The Blue Angel has the Doctor and Iris walk nude through Newton Aycliffe in the middle of the night, just as Iris does with the characters Mark Kelly and Peggy in the twelfth and thirteenth chapters of Marked for Life.

The Marked for Life incarnation of Iris reappeared in the short story Hospitality in the 2010 anthology Iris: Abroad.