Scarlet Empress 2: Electric Boogaloo, AKA The Blue Angel, is miles better than its predecessor. I feel like I have to read this book at least one more time to be able to write a proper review (I re-read many parts to write this, actually); it keeps teasing you with connections between things, but never commits to them. It asks to hold on to 100 different threads, but most of them go nowhere. A lot of it is just plain fun, though. I'm gonna try to review it anyways.

Basically: Deadalus, green elephant man with so many superpowers I'm not even gonna go there, wants to start a war between our universe and the Obverse. The bridge between these two places is the Enclave. Iris Wildthyme (she's back and it's about time) knows this guy of old. She is playing 3D chess here, maybe with Deadalus, maybe against him, but her main goal is to keep the Doctor away from this mess, to stop him from stopping this war.

The setup is great. You can always count on Paul Margs for delivering pretty interesting alien races and settings, and so he does for the Enclave. There are some parallels between the races of the Enclave and some races in the normal Universe. The Glass Men are explicitly said to be like the Daleks, and the Ghillighast (who look like bats) could mirror to the Time Lords. Maybe the Sahmbekarts for the Sontarans, the Steingertrudes for the Ice Warriors? I'm reaching, but oh well. The Star Trek TOS/TNG pastiche with the crew of Federation ship Nepotist was hilarious. I'm a big, big fan of ST, and this felt like some good-natured fun poking. Thank you for the dollar store Spirk, Paul Magrs and Jeremy Hoad! I laughed out loud with Fitz thinking this 'hollow deck' thing sounded awful. If there's anyone that would adore the holodeck, it's Fitz.

The absolute best part of this book is the Obverse, hands down. It's intriguing and it's so melancholic, I've been thinking about it non stop for days now. The Obverse!Eight Doctor is this incredibly sweet, quiet gay man plagued by dreams of our Doctor's life. 'Funny spells', he calls the psychotic episodes he has when he can't tell the two realities apart. His memory is full of holes and contradictions. He remembers kissing Grace is San Francisco, but has he ever been to San Francisco? Fitz and Compassion, or versions of them, are his lodgers in his big blue house. His private doctor (who is the Third Doctor -- don't ask me how) tells him not to worry, ever, and keeps him heavily medicated. So what's going on? Is he insane? Is the Obverse!Doctor our Doctor being drugged/tricked into believing he's mad, being kept there against his will? Is he chameleon arched? He still has two hearts, but he feels cold in a way Time Lords don't. Is he an alternative universe version of him, fully (or more) human? Is he a completely other person that just happens to be played by Paul McGann? The Obverse!Doctor scenes are written in his POV, and it's heartbreaking, he's so lost and confused. If he is our Doctor, we desperately want to save him. If he's an AU version, we also desperately want to help him, to explain, somehow, that the world he dreams of is real.

For my money, I think he is our Doctor. Jane Fonda!Iris, in the normal Universe, says she has 'shunt him along into safety with a harmless little nudge'. He hates being tampered with, but she can't help it; he's safe, she says, confused but safe. Then we get the POV of an undisclosed character, who says in their narration that they know the Doctor has started to want to be more human, to experience things as a human, exhausted after Seven's whole 'Time's Champion' act; was this one of the Irises? In the Obverse, neither Compassion nor Fitz remember how they met, for how long they've known each other, or how any of them 'came here' (do they mean the house? Or the universe?). The Obverse!Doctor has an old friend called Sally (who is Sarah Jane -- don't ask me how), who he's known for years. Her Jack Russell, that he gave her, is called Canine. She's written a scifi book that seems to be the Scarlet Empress and the Blue Angel, minus the Obverse bits. Sally's neighbor is a version of Iris in her last incarnation, and she knows a lot more of what the Obverse is than any of the others. She says the book is dangerous because it contains too much information, and it'll lead the Glass Men to them. The Obverse!Doctor has this same fear in his funny spells, and recognizes Sally's book from his dreams. So I'd say our Jane Fonda!Iris put the real Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Compassion in that universe to protect them from the Enclave war (a war she's playing a big role in starting... maybe mirroring how the Doctor is starting the war with the Enemy?). I assume she somehow made the TARDIS take them there at the end of the book (maybe controlling Compassion?), and created the other people there from the Doctor's memory; that's why Three is his psychiatrist, why he sees Two when he goes to church, why Sally is Sarah but not exactly, why his mum is a eastern European mermaid (do not ask me), why no one objects to calling him 'the Doctor', but his mother calls him Jonny. That other version of Iris is there to keep an eye on things. I guess Jane Fonda!Iris takes them out when the war is over, and I guess we'll never know how long they were there for. The big but is how could Iris do all this. I have absolutely no idea. But it's Iris, so maybe she can. Or I'm dead wrong and it was just a fun little AU.

It was a bold choice to release this book right after 'Interference'. Fitz was remade from scratch at the end of that, but we don't get to see how that's affecting him, apart from a couple of throwaway lines. What he does get is a bi awakening! He's horseback riding down a mountain chased by giant owls, but the question going on in his head is if he should try to leave the Doctor to travel with Iris. He discards the notion quickly, thinking that he 'couldn't imagine not seeing the Doctor again', and that he gets now why Sam had a crush on him. In his own words, he's probably about to die but there he is, considering 'his chances of getting laid by Iris... or even of getting laid by the Doctor'. Nice. I do like it when they fall for him, okay? At least Fitz is a full grown man, not a 17yo like Sam was.

Then we have Compassion, who's only just joined the TARDIS. We know next to nothing about her, especially away from the Media and the Remote. There's something off with her that's not explained: she can drive Iris's TARDIS. I'm thinking it was Iris herself that sent her the signals (or maybe even controlled her?) to do so, as both times this happens were in according to what Iris would have want. The Doctor is sus. He says he's going to get her a sort of signal filter. I wonder if this is gonna be brought up in the future. Compassion was also feeling out of place in the Obverse, probably because she could see a bit through the 'illusion' of it all. She doesn't have a single funny bone in her body, has a strange moral code, seems allergic to fun, and does not trust (nor likes) the Doctor and Fitz yet. I'm loving the potential for Drama.

I'm talking too much already. Let me wrap it up: my problem with this book is that I wanted to know more. I'm not used to this Murakami style magical realism weirdness in my Doctor Who books. But the more I think about this book, the more I like it. It was a fascinating read, that's for sure. Did I mention the Doctor gets pregnant, in the leg? If I had a penny every time this happened I'd have two pennies, which is not a lot, but it's weird that's happened twice.

One of my all-time favourite Who stories. Everything set in the Obverse is like catnip to me – I absolutely adore it (and if you want more of that part of the story, I recommend you check out Philip Purser-Hallard's A Cabinet of Changes, which is also a joy!)

I love the way Paul Magrs weaves stories and narrative strands together, and his creatures, worlds and characters are inventive, colourful and joyous. And the ending is absolutely, riotously perfect.

Showstopping!

it's literally EVERYTHING, confusing as hell, nothing gets explained, there's spirk (the Star Trek slash ship, yes), it's a domestic au wherein the Doctor is a mental patient and dreaming up the entirety of Doccy Who The Show and their mum's a mermaid, Fitzie takes care of them<3 Compassion is there!!! Romana too, lol :3 Cameos from other regenerations too, if you can find them ;)

Oh, did I mention IRIS WILDTHYME?????? TRYING TO FETCH EIGHT AND GET TO THE PROPER UNIVERSE, HELL YES!

I love post-modern literature