Femme Fatale

"Who would want to write a book about us?"

Writer: Paul Magrs

Format: Short Story

Released: March 1999

Printed in: More Short Trips 18

Featuring: Eighth Doctor, Sam, Iris

Synopsis

Here on Earth or out in the depths of the cosmos, the Doctor and his companions are never far from adventure.

Discover things on Earth you were never meant to know. Get around the universe. Get short tripping.

Verdict

Femme Fatale was not the greatest of short stories to conclude what has otherwise been a really strong More Short Trips book! This collection has been far reaching and wide ranging with the Doctors, companions and enemies we’ve encountered, but I must admit I have no idea what was going on during this adventure. It was clunky. It was confusing. It just didn’t make sense for the most part. There didn’t seem to be any kind of resolution. The point of view was jumping from traditional storytelling to first person with Iris as the narrator. It was so inconsistent. On numerous occasions I felt like I was reading words without actually piecing together what they meant in terms of storytelling. There was too much going on without explaining what was really happening which made this a rather frustrating reading experience. Maybe it’s just me? I’m not sure. I read this at 8.30am on a commute into work and I was pretty well rested but I couldn’t work out if Mother was meant to be the Brigadier and if the Doctor alongside them was the real article. It appeared not, but I couldn’t be sure. I did like the interaction between Sam and Iris as there’s definitely some strong potential there. It’s fun for Sam to learn about regeneration from Iris and here she was in her sixth incarnation now and she thought she looked the part. Respectfully, the description provided definitely seemed to put her more on the Doctor’s level than the version we see on the cover art for Big Finish. But this is some time prior to them picking up her own spinoff so it’s fun to explore the early interactions for the character. The story definitely had some good ideas within it and that’s especially evident with Sam wanting to change history. That should have been the entire focus. I liked that we were in 1968 and having her wanting to protect Andy and prevent him from being shot was admirable, but of course not something the Doctor would agree with. So naturally she came to Iris. That showed some maturity on her behalf and I liked that she was taking things into her own hands. The ambiguity regarding Valerie was weird and it never felt like we got a proper resolution or answer regarding the clones. I assume it was meant to be Mother and Doctor that were responsible given the gas infusion at the end, but that lack of clarity was frustrating. It would have been good to explore the 1968 setting a bit more than we did because there’s a lot of potential there. I was also annoyed by the format as the paragraphs just kept coming and we were jumping from scene to scene very frantically. There was no time to stop and take in what was happening. We got needlessly repeated text and too many descriptions of the Doctor’s green velvet coat, when we could have just had more of the Eighth Doctor himself. He felt a little absent from the story when he should have been more involved than just scoffing at Iris! Overall, not my most favourite of stories for sure. Sadly they saved the worst until last with this collection, but it was still a great book! Just a shame to end a downer. But onto the next one!

Rating: 4/10