The Scarlet Empress is the 15th novel in the BBC's Eighth Doctor Adventures and the first full length novel to feature Iris Wildthyme.
Publisher’s Summary
Arriving on the almost impossibly ancient planet of Hyspero, a world where magic and danger walk hand in hand, the Doctor and Sam are caught up in a bizarre struggle for survival.
Hyspero has been ruled for thousands of years by the Scarlet Empresses, creatures of dangerous powers -- powers that a member of the Doctor’s own race is keen to possess herself: the eccentric time traveller and philanderer known only as Iris Wildthyme.
As the real reasons for Iris’s obsession become clear, the Doctor and Sam must embark on a perilous journey across deserts, mountains, forests and oceans. Both friends and foes are found among spirits, djinns, alligator men and golden bears -- but in a land where the magical is possible, is anything really as it seems?
Characters
- Recalls having Christmas dinner with Iris, Tegan and Turlough.
- Can pilot Iris's TARDIS.
- Describes himself as a ethnomethodologist.
- Is 'an inveterate underliner (of books), a scribbler in margins, a very unpassive reader'. Despite this, in BFA: Zagreus, the Doctor claims he 'hates people who write in books'.
- Romana once dragged him to opera in Milan.
- Recalls "'Jumping off an Ice Warrior ship over Central London. Scuba diving with Zygons. Causing havoc once again on Skaro.'"
- Describes his job as being keeping everyone out of the trap of genre-death.
- Describes travelling through the vortex as "vworp vworp".
- Suggests to the Doctor the TARDIS should have a white and luminous control room and look a bit more futuristic, than the gothicness that it currently looks like.
- Sings ABBA songs with Iris on their road trip.
- Iris is in her 'old lady' body.
- Has a house in every world, time zone and planet for visited (the Doctor comments, to himself that she collects homes as he does companions).
- Once proposed to the Doctor in Venice.
- Once travelled with an "obtuse shape-shifter who loved loved nothing better than to spend much of his time as a lippy garrulous penguin."
- Iris's mother left her when she was quite young, with an older man, an off worlder.
- Iris is sick because she took high tea with a Draconian prince and ate a live Kaled mutant from the shell.
- Kroton the Cyberman once travelled with Iris.
- Astral projects herself around Hyspero while everyone sleeps in Major Angela's house with the bears.
- The Scarlet Empress
- Also known as: The Glass Sultan, The Queen of Jam
- Has a trio of black dogs that kept Iris in a deep hole in the ground.
- Known as 'The Alligator Man'
- Turns back into an alligator when time does a circle.
- Only her heart is flesh.
- Joins with the giant spider to become a symbiotic creature.
- Known as The Bearded Lady
- Was/Is a Major
- Rules over hairless bears.
- Has a long luxurious beard.
- The Mock Turtle
- Was locked in stasis in ice on a plynth over looking the ocean.
- Is mildly telepathic.
- His hind legs are hooves.
- The Giant Spider
- Guards the door to the lift between the levels of Hypsero
- The first Scarlet Empress
References
- The Doctor, Iris and the Mock Turtle catch a ride inside a giant fish that (probably) keeps them outside time.
Books
- Aja'ib is a book of fantastic stories, tales and adventures.
Foods and Beverages
- Iris consumes a variety of alcohol, mostly gin.
- Sam drinks too much of the crystallised wine.
- Gila buys some fish, they all come with names.
- The Doctor offers the Mock Turtle a jelly baby prior to travelling through the vortex in Iris' bus.
Gallifrey
- Iris was mentions that she's met some of her other selves via time scoop; "'Seven of me were taken to the Death Zone on Gallifrey. Someone had reactivated the Games they used to play there. Each of my selves, present, past and future, was given a relevant companion and playmate, and we were forced to battle our separate, and then collective ways, past Ice Warriors, Ogrons, Sea Devils, Zarbi, Mechanoids and Quarks, to get to the Dark Tower." ... "'It was that devil Morbius behind it all. The rogue was after Rassilon's gift of immortality.'"
- The Doctor and Iris both know that the Death Zone is no larger than North Wales.
- On Gallifrey regeneration is treated the same way sex is treated on Earth.
Individuals
- Iris mentions the Doctor has collaborated with Davros, Napoleon Bonaparte, Al Capone, the Rani, Adolf Hitler.
- The Doctor and Iris met Oscar Wilde in Paris just after Wilde's imprisonment.
- The Doctor and Jo Grant met with Iris and they met Gertrude Stein and Pablo Picasso, just after the Doctor and Jo had left Spiridon.
Iris Wildthyme & The Doctor
- Iris claims to have survived; "Giant Spiders on Metebelis Three, the Cybermen tombs of Telos, the Drashigs in feeding frenzy on their fetid swamp world."
- Iris has also recently escaped Xeriphas.
- The Doctor thinks back over his past adventures; Skaro, London, San Francisco, House of Lungbarrow.
- Sam has a dream, which is probably not a telepathic trance where she and the Doctor had just left Victorian London with several slumbering Skarasen. She notices the Doctor's Volkswagen Beetle. The Doctor (in the dream) shows her his 'Citizens Advice Bureau' which are seven heads on spikes.
- "'Really, Doctor, this is hardly -'" (Third Doctor)
- "'You see, my dear, it's very simple...'" (First Doctor)
- "'I'm not exactly breaking the Laws of Time, but -'" (Second Doctor)
- "'There were once three sisters and they lived at the bottom of a treacle well...'" (Fourth Doctor)
- "'Only in the direst of emergencies can you -'" (Fifth Doctor)
- "'Nice? Nice?'" (Sixth Doctor)
- "'I saw this coming.'" (Seventh Doctor)
- Iris claims the Doctor's previous self was a pretentious old thing calling himself 'Guardian of Forever' and 'Time's Champion'.
- Iris refers to the Master as a "'phallocentric dope.'" (Most likely a reference to his Tissue Compression Eliminator)
- The Doctor challenges Iris' claims stating; "'You didn't foil the Dalek invasion of Earth in the twenty-second century. I did! It was me Susan and Ian and Barbara! And the Cyber tombs on Telos...You weren't there Iris. You weren't to be seen!'"
- Whilst in a river with patriarchal psychic river jellyfish like creatures Sam is telepathically contacted by said patriarchal creatures who tell her that the Doctor was woven on a loom and only thinks he has a Human mother.
Locations
- In it bears live that shave their golden fur.
Races and species
- Sam sees Draconian princes, Spiridons in purple furs and Martians in armour on the streets of Hyspero.
- The Doctor mentions vampires to Sam while discussing the borders between magic and science.
- According to the Doctor the Chelonian version of Cinderella had to be seen to be believed.
TARDISes
- Iris Wildthyme's TARDIS responds to Iris' voice commands.
- Its dimensional stabilisers are fixed with a pair of laddered tights. Follows the Doctor, Iris and the Mock Turtle under the sea to where they're regurgitated by the giant fish on a desert island.
- Has some cassettes in her TARDIS of Motown, ABBA, Shirley Bassey.
- In Iris's bus the Time winds come in through the windows when it's in flight.
- The console of Iris' TARDIS is made of teak, brass and Formica.
Technology
- Sam and Gila trade a dismantled and useless etheric beam locator for some bread.
- The Scarlet Guards have T-Mat-like devices on their belts.
- The Doctor pulls a crystal from his pocket that he claims is "'No ordinary jewel. It is from Metebelis Three, in the Acteon galaxy.'" but is actually something he picked up in Portabello Road.
Notes
- This novel is often narrated in first person by Iris Wildthyme, Gila, Sam Jones and the Doctor.
- There are numerous references to past stories.
Continuity
- This is Iris Wildthyme’s first full novel appearance, she first appeared in ST: Old Flames.
- Iris regenerates into the blonde version next seen in EDA: The Blue Angel.
- There are bronze and verdigris towers in Hypero, Sam also bathes in a verdigris tub (there are a few other references) PDA: Verdigris is another novel Paul Magrs wrote after this novel which also features Iris Wildthyme.
- The Doctor things back over his most recent adventures; Skaro (EDA: War of the Daleks), London (EDA: The Bodysnatchers), San Francisco (EDA: Vampire Science or DW: Doctor Who), Lungbarrow (NA: Lungbarrow).
- The Doctor mentions having been put on ..."trial (DW: The Trial of a Time Lord), exiled (DW: Spearhead from Space), summoned to carry out ridiculous tasks (DW: Genesis of the Daleks, The Brain of Morbius), dragged back to your ancestral home to atone for sins that weren't even yours"'(NA: Lungbarrow)
- Sam has a dream sequence which occurs just after EDA: The Bodysnatchers.
- The Doctor recalls the events of NA: The Dying Days (jumping off an Ice Warrior over central London), scuba diving with Zygons (EDA: The Bodysnatchers) and causing havoc (again) on Skaro (EDA: War of the Daleks)
- The Doctor and Iris do the mind sharing thing as the Doctors do in DW: The Three Doctors.
Timeline
- This story takes place after EDA: Vanderdeken's Children
- This story takes place before EDA: The Janus Conjunction