Doctor Who: Earthworld by Jacqueline Rayner

Doctor Who: Earthworld Reviews

• 
  Branwen Sedai *of the Brown Ajah*

  The 8th Doctor is my third favorite Doctor (being beaten by the 3rd and the 10th, of course). Even though many Whovians would probably not agree with me, I adored the movie he was in. I am also a huge fan of the Big Finish audio drama cds starring the 8th Doctor. And since this was my first novel I was reading featuring him so I was very excited.
  
  Unfortunately, I think maybe my expectations were a little too high, because I ended up being not as impressed with it as I was expecting. :(
  
  And don't get me wrong, I loved the book and the story and the writing. I thought the story involving a planet of entertainment based on ancient Earth history was just absolutely fascinating! I thought the portrayal of the Doctor was accurate and just about perfect. One of the reasons why I love the 8th Doctor so much is because of his whimsical nature and that came across very well, I think.
  
  The problem I struggled with was actually with the companions, Fitz and Anji. Since this was my first book experience with this Doctor, I was basically staring with a blank slate when it came to them, and it felt like I was dropped into the middle of a series and had no idea who these two were. It was a little confusing and disconcerting and sort of threw me out of the story for a bit as I struggled to learn who these two characters were and what they were like while also trying to enjoy the story. I chose to read this book because it was part of the 50th Anniversary book series. I just think they should have maybe picked a book that was a little bit easier to get into and didn't require a lot of pre-existing knowledge. I'm thinking about going back and starting this series from the beginning so I have a little bit of a more conclusive picture in my head. :)
  
  But other than that little quirk, I really enjoyed the story itself and also the writing! :)
• 
  F.R.

  Reading books from the wilderness years of ‘Doctor Who’ can be like catching a random episode of a soap opera. In the absence of any new TV episodes, there were books after books after books, with long and complex plots ongoing throughout them. So you can sometimes pick up these books and find that even though it’s an individual adventure, you’re high up on the cusp of an epic – and seemingly unfathomable – story arc. Of course you know The Doctor (although here he’s amnesiac here for some reason, so you probably know more about The Doctor than The Doctor does), but everything else is new and different and in progress. For instance this is the second adventure for new companion Anji Kapoor, who in her first book seems to have witnessed the death of her boyfriend. Rayner is good at catching the new readers up to where we are, doing it with little fuss, but for those of us who haven’t read the previous yarn, it’s a curious place to come into Anji’s story. Travelling in the Tardis as a way of getting over your grief is an interesting idea. Of course all the adrenalin-pumping adventure would take your mind off the hurt, but then the quiet moments will be more painful as all the memories rushed back unremittingly at you. So that throughout, Anji is holding it together, her thoughts drifting back to the boyfriend (sending occasional messages to what would now be a ghost email account), but unable to just collapse into grief with so much at stake around her. It’s only at the end – and I don’t think this is a proper spoiler, but feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you’re overly sensitive about such things – when the adventure is over that she lets the pain overwhelm her. It gives real emotionally punch, and a proper kick to finish a book which is to all purposes and intents a romp.
  
  Yes, it’s a romp. Any story where The Doctor and his companion have to dress up as Merlin and Genevieve in order to fool a robot Sir Lancelot can only be described as a romp. Much like the amusement park named Delos had a West World and a Medieval World and a Roman World; so the futuristic theme park of Earthworld (based on New Jupiter, if you’re looking to book your summer hols) has its own Medieval World, Roman World, as well as a Twentieth Century world and a Prehistoric World. Of course these fictional parks are no fun unless everything goes wrong. So here we have homicidal triplets, teenage revolutionaries and an intergalactic Elvis impersonator (who I think gets the rough end of the stick). I say it’s a romp as for the most part it’s fun and larkish, but even without the Anji stuff there’s a dark ending (which really smacks home in a passage where The Doctor’s other companion, Fitz, reflects that even though the day has been saved, so much has been destroyed irretrievably) and one realises just how dark a streak has been running through the whole book. It’s a mixture of the heady and bleak, an almost impossible concoction one would have thought, but Rayner almost gets it right. It’s true that the story suddenly gets blacker in the last chapter or so, which might seem a bit jarring after the medieval playacting, but it’s an ending that doesn’t raise the stakes, just yells as loud as it can how serious they were.
• 
  ArwendeLuhtiene

  I got this book because the Eighth Doctor is one of my favourite Doctors, but I ended up pretty disappointed with it, so I think this merits a lengthy review :S xD Here goes -
  
  ANJI
  +-1 Anji - A successful Indian stockbroker in her second adventure with the Eighth Doctor - is pretty proactive in this adventure, even though she has to deal with constrictive high heels, the relentless sexism of companion Fitz (which ranges from patronizing attitudes to creepy leering), and teenaged Nice Guys (there's one who crushes on her big time, and because she doesn't reciprocate, Fitz of course thinks she's broken his heart, poor guy).
  
  -1 While Anji's pretty proactive, they also make her plot revolve around the fact that her boyfriend died the day before, so she's portrayed as 24/7 thinking about and writing emails to her dead boyfriend, dealing with the trauma with a fair amount of guilt complex going on. To experience trauma and mourning after something like this is of course understandable, but yeah, we have so many female characters whose story basically revolves about romance matters as their main plot points. Fitz also ponders about past relationships and has angst going on as well, but Anji's inner dialogue is ridden with emotional trauma, while Fitz is a textbook example of the flyboy who doesn't really care that much about all his past female conquests (at one point he wonders that he must have really loved one of them because he actually felt himself feeling things about it :S), and in his case the angst revolves more about other things.
  
  +-1 Anji wears uncomfortable heels throughout most of the adventure, walking and running in what seem to be either stiletto o pump heels (as part of her work outfit) until she develops blisters and a lot of feet pain. After complaining for several chapters about how uncomfortable her heels are and how sore her feet are, she vows to wear nothing but trainers/flats from now on for her TARDIS adventures, and thinks that at least she was lucky she was wearing slacks instead of a constrictive pencil skirt. Even though I find a lot of problematic faults in this book, I appreciated that the constrictive gendered clothing so many female companions wear as if it was totally a great adventure choice (from heels to mini skirts) was criticized here.
  
  +1 Anji repeatedly feels fed up with men such as Fitz and New Jupiter technician Hanstrum being patronizing to her, and is not a big fan of Fitz being a sexualizing creep to her either. She also mentions some of her sexist experiences in the workplace.
  
  --1 However, Anji's internal dialogue has some very problematic internalized sexism and misogyny from time to time as well, which is a shame, given that she's the only female character in the story who's not either a baddie or dead/in a coma, and also the only freaking non-white character. When her internal monologue plot is not talking about her heels or her boyfriend trauma, it's often comments about how expensive her clothes are, worrying whether she's wearing a decent bra when she has to take off her top in the presence of three teenage boys (and not "the kind you would wear when not seeing your boyfriend tonight") - kinda justifying that it's legitimate they might take a peek because teenage boys will be teenage boys :S -, referring to other women as 'bimbos' and having nelligible to no female bonding or Bechdel throughout the whole story :/,...
  
  At one point, she also comments on how one of the teenage dudes wouldn't deserve a "student-union talk" about how Earth in her time (early 21st Century) had primitive views on race and women (this is incredibly grating seeing as she's a non-white woman :S), and she has an extremely problematic final comment about women "being a step down officially" as compared to men ("What's a step up from a man? (XY chromosome that is, none of this 'mankind' stuff, women are definitely a step down officially.)"). It's pretty shocking and deplorable to see a female author giving this level of internalized misogyny to the sole female companion, to be honest :S Anji is described in the Doctor Who TARDIS Wiki as not considering herself to be a "hardcore feminist", whatever that's supposed to mean :S This is so randomly backward that I was actually not quite sure if she was saying these things in an actual internalized misogynistic way,or if she perhaps may have been saying this in some kind of sarcastic critical way (as she does mention that she criticizes some sexist attitudes from Fitz and other men too)...But it would seem it's unfortunately not critical at all, and more in the line of the not unheard-of behaviour of those (too many) women who identify as 'antifeminist' and think they're not oppressed at all because that kind of denial is easier to live with :S Anji's random internalized misogyny was another thing that soured the book experience for me a lot :/
  
  +-1 All the characters are white except for Anji, as she herself notes, even wondering whether the rest of ethnicities are extinct in the New Jupiter human colony she's in, or if she just was in a 'white-dominated area'. The Westworld-influenced Earth-themed park full of androids which appears in this book also only includes a very stereotyped Ancient Egypt and Japan for non-white places and periods of history. This is partly criticized by Anji, who also notes that her current time is not good about racial equality either, and that little has seemed to change. But at the same time, one wonders why the author felt the need to have a 99% set of white characters, something not at all needed for the plot.
  
  +1 Anji's dynamic with the Doctor is a pretty wholesome example of a male/female friendship. The Doctor treats Anji as an equal and is a refreshing contrast to Fitz's behaviour. He's also very kind and supportive about her trauma due to the death of her boyfriend. At one point (with no immediate danger xD) Anji starts getting panicked because she needs distractions to take her mind off what happened, and the Doctor simply rushes to a gift shop and starts juggling with random objects that he found xD He's also a refreshing change from Fitz's leering creepiness and the hormonal teenagers when Anji takes off her soaked clothes in front of him with 0% problems, and in the final (pretty touching) scene, where he shows her a room in the TARDIS that might cheer her up, and then hugs her when she starts crying. Anji's internal dialogue mentions that, while she considers him to be very handsome, she sees him as nothing more than a friend and someone she can feel comfortable with (once again, as opposed to Fitz's relentless sexualizing comments).
  -1 The only problematic point is that the author also chose to go back to the 'Eighth Doctor kisses people as an impulse when excited' at one point, and yeah, it's one of the things I don't really like about Eight's characterization in the movie/some of the books :S
  
  FITZ
  ---1 The post-WW2 40s male companion, Fitz is insufferably and very overtly sexist, patronizing and entitled, having an insecure ego bigger than a house, viewing all women as objects to have sex with, being a creep leering at underage teenagers, and calling women every nice name from 'madwoman' to 'bint', 'babe', 'darling/baby', 'crazy chick', 'girlie', 'b*tch' and 'cow'. He literally leers at and objectifies every single woman he sees (that he considers attractive, that is, if she's older he'll compare her to the 'unattractive teacher' cliché, as he does with the Curator). At one point, Anji realizes Fitz is not well because "he hasn't looked at my cleavage once", and ends up nearly crashing a bus with everyone inside because he was busy looking at a mini-skirted android. He also basically calls Anji "some Asian chick" (way to be both sexist and racist), and then a "b*tch queen from hell" because she's not "amenable" enough, aka head-over-heels obsessed with him, as all female companions of the Doctor should be, in his opinion. These are just some examples among many other things. Nice. Fitz definitely soured my experience of this book 100%.
  
  And a brief mention about how he might be bisexual because he also seems to find the Doctor attractive (but hey, he doesn't disrespect him in the way he does women) doesn't make all his dehumanization of all the women he sees any more acceptable, btw. If the way to have some inclusivity (LGBT+, in this case) is with such an overtly misogynistic character, then no thanks. Interesting (but not unknown of :S), how he does have some sort of actual bonding with the Doctor, both in a friendship and potentially romantic way, and doesn't plain see him as an object when thinking that he finds him attractive, but he sees women as basically meat and objects to f*ck (he actually says things like "if it looks female, try to shag it", so he's not subtle at all about it :/). Once again, I find it pretty deplorable that a female author wrote a book with such a misogynistic male character :S
  
  -1 Also, Fitz's sexist entitled creepiness is worryingly normalized and kinda played for laughs throughout the book :S Anji does express she's fed up with him more than once in her inner dialogue, but doesn't really say it out loud, and the Doctor never speaks out about it either, not even when he's straight-up harassing Anji :S Fitz's sexism is completely free of consequences and accountability and I find this incredibly problematic.
  
  +1 He does show some compassion for the triplet antagonists at the end of the story, in spite of what they did to him, showing a bit of that Whovian integrity and grey characters in what was a pretty 2D stereotypically sexist antagonist arc. Fitz also has a good relationship with the Doctor and it set to protect amnesiac Eight from harm, asking the TARDIS for her help in this at the end of the story.
  
  EIGHTH DOCTOR
  +1 Relationship with companions (as discussed above)
  
  +-1 Eight's characterization in this book is OK at times, but pretty vague more than once, with general Doctorish traits, but not that much in terms of defining Eight as an incarnation...The fact that he's amnesiac for the whole book doesn't help a lot.
  
  -1 He has a couple of extremely out of character moments. The biggest one happens when the Curator dies, and he goes 'whatever, she was a potential murderer anyway', to the extent Anji, who hasn't known him for long, feels shocked about his sudden callousness. Excuse me?? The Doctor wouldn't react like that, and the Eighth Doctor particularly would never react like that. He seems to lack too much empathy sometimes for one of the most open, heart-in-his-sleeves, sensitive incarnations :S
  
  +1 The Doctor has an important role in criticizing President Hoover's actions (more about that below), and is the main character who challenges the incredibly problematic stuff going on with Hoover and his family.
  
  TRIPLETS
  
  -1 The 13-year-old triplets - Asia, Africa and Antarctica - make the main antagonists for most of the book, and are portrayed as sadistic psychopaths who murder for kicks, and extremely problematic in their portrayal :S In fact, all the women in this book except for Anji (and the triplets' mother Elizabethan in some respects) are ranging from dodgy characters to straight up psycho villains depicted with all the possible misogynistic clichés, from secretly murderous middle-aged professional women (like the Curator), to the triplets, who can be described in the range of sadistic she-monsters, to evil androids, seductive femme fatales (extra creepiness given that the triplets are minors), and deranged fangirls. And they're overtly sexualized, in an extremely uncomfortable way (the most murderous of them is straight up described with very sexual imagery and it's cringy af :S), and creeped upon by men older than them (13-14 year old girls vs 20 sth leery Fitz, who acts pervy about them a lot).
  
  We've got dodgy guys as well, such as Hanstrum, who murdered the triplets' mother and blamed them, or Hoover, the father of the triplets, who keeps them locked up and treated their mother like a Handmaid's Tale incubator to get heirs. But the male antagonists - and Hanstrum's actually turns out to be the main antagonist of the book - are not demonized in the way the female characters are *at all*, and they actually get backstories and plot with more nuance and shades of grey. Also, interesting how the three teenage boys who appear are the good guys (we also have a selection from shy Nice Guy to Bad Boy who's actually Nice given the time), while the female adolescent triplets are, for the majority of the book, demonized in a very 2D way.
  
  +-1 As the book progresses, however, the triplets' backstory gives them a bit more nuance and makes their characters a bit more greyed. The Doctor especially adds these shades of grey into their very 2D characters by criticizing Hoover's actions, in a similar way to Eurus' portrayal in Sherlock BBC. He comments on how Hoover locked them up and neglected them, how they grew up isolated and brainwashed, and how the circumstances of their birth (being accidentally genetically spliced into three different persons) could have contributed to their unbalanced psychopathic tendencies. But even so, there's a lot of unnecessary sexism added into their characterization, and this doesn't make for it.
  
  -1 The triplets, like Eurus, also fall into the archetype of the sociopathic and unbalanced female geniuses. They're very intelligent and technologically savvy, working easily with complex technology and creating androids on their own. The Curator is also described as having ambitions in her career, and the triplets' mother Elizabethan is a brilliant scientist and geneticist. But because all these women are either absent/dead/in a coma or portrayed mostly as evil/amoral/irresponsible, yeah, poor representation :S
  
  ELIZABETHAN
  
  -1 Elizabethan, the triplets' mother, is treated in a very poor way, dehumanized as an android incubator with the main roles of wife and mother, even though she's also a brilliant scientist. But, same as her deranged daughters, she's 'irresponsible' in her science and accidentally creates her daughters via in vitro fertilization to be unstable and psychopathic.
  
  This plot is painfully similar to the Handmaid's Tale and many other real life examples of a patriarchal system, with Elizabethan being forced into child bearing at all costs (and risk to her health) because the president needs heirs (preferably male, of course) and it's her 'wifely duty' to provide them, or she will be cast aside for another. But somehow she still loves him a lot, puts herself in danger to get pregnant, rears her children alone and basically locked up, and still Hoover gets to be super benevolent because woah he didn't set her aside even though his wife-incubator didn't give him children. Ew. And meanwhile, technician Hanstrum, Elizabethan's secret lover and the only man she was allowed to see, acts also very entitled and controlling, and ends up basically murdering her because she stood in his way to power (and also ended up killing one of her daughters, years later).
  
  +-1 While Hoover's actions are criticized quite a lot by the Doctor, saying that Hoover is partly to blame for isolating her and her daughters, neglecting them and pressuring her wife into having children so much that Elizabethan accidentally created unbalanced children, it's not criticized to the extent it should be. We're also supposed to feel bad for Hoover, who actually gets his happy ending with a returned 2.0 wife with amnesia with hardly any consequences for him. Elizabethan goes back to being a wife and mother, and it is she who has the sole role of looking after her daughters to see if they can become a bit less murderous :S Not a very happy ending or portrayal for any of the women here.
  
  To finish, I'd say that parts of this book are potentially quite entertaining, and there's also some social criticism going on (Earth vs New Jupiter colony theme that I haven't really discussed here). But it's all so littered with Fitz's sexism and the problematic portrayal of most female characters that the effect is pretty tarnished :S
• 
  Elizabeth (Miss Eliza)

  *Special Content only on my blog,
  Strange and Random Happenstance during I ♥ ♥ The Doctor (October-December 2013)
  
  The Doctor is off on another adventure with Fitz. Anji, a survivor of their last adventure is looking for a lift home, little does she know that more "adventure" is in store. They appear to land on a prehistoric planet, but everything is off. Soon they realize it's a theme park designed to be like "ancient earth," ie, Anji and Fitz's lovely 20th century. Though anachronisms abound in absurd and disturbing ways. All they really want to do is get back to the TARDIS, but with The Doctor's memory problems... well... will they be able to get out? Separated from each other they soon hear of the deaths that have been plaguing the park. The security team seems to think that it links back to a teenage terrorist organization, oddly named ANJI, but once they all meet the president's three teenage daughters, everyone is pretty sure they're the homicidal maniacs playing their own game within the park. Can a foggy Doctor, one loyal companion, and one inadvertent companion save the day? Or will they become the triplet's newest victims?
  
  I've seriously thought this over and come to the conclusion that all Doctor Who books could only be read by fans of the show. Anyone who would pick up a random Doctor Who book would be at sea, unable to know what was going on. Even if you're just a fan of the current rebooted series, you know a bit about the history, about the past regenerations, you have some basis, some reason for going into a bookstore and picking up this book. I think reading about the eighth Doctor must be like the uninitiated reading just a general Doctor Who book. I had to actually do extensive research online just to figure out who these new companions were and what was going on with The Doctor. In an interesting inverse in proportions, The Doctor with only one appearance in film is the one that everyone writes about. Of course, this does make sense. He doesn't really have a fixed mythology, or character like those set in celluloid. Therefore it feels like a bit of a free for all for authors. Here's someone they can leave their stamp on. They could mold this Doctor into their Doctor.
  
  This lack of restraint has led to some very odd things. Lots of amnesiatic problems, latching onto a fact from the tv movie, weird companions that are simulacra of the real companions that are long gone, hundreds of years where The Doctor was doing nothing, something? Gallifrey is gone? I was just so out of my depth at references and asides that I couldn't really enjoy anything. A good author will help you to understand what exactly is going on, especially if that author was in charge of the eighth Doctor's range of books... but from this outing, I have to say, Jacqueline Rayner isn't a good author. I felt no connection to anyone in the book. How can I like The Doctor if I don't know who he is, I mean, HE doesn't even know who he is!?! As for the companions. Fitz... well, him and The Doctor have tons of past history, you'd think he'd be good to help us understand what was going on? But no, he'll just reference tons of adventures that you have no idea about and will therefore make you want to join the triplets in killing him. As for Anji... well, let's put a pin in that rant for a second why don't we. Yet I will say, Anji should have been our entry into this adventure, being the new kid of the block, but, well, it failed miserably.
  
  Getting to the actual story, well, I have to quote Patrick Stewart on Extras, "I've seen it all." There was so much unoriginality in this story it was mind boggling. I don't mean to always go, hey in this episode of Red Dwarf you're ripping off... but, well, she did rip off Red Dwarf a lot... and it was funny and fresh in Red Dwarf. A book should not make me want to go and watch Red Dwarf instead of reading it right? The way Fitz comes to terms with being "not the original" because he can play wicked guitar, because in the original Fitz's mind he could... well, that's the end of the Red Dwarf episode "Psirens!" As for Earthworld itself, yeah, not that original, and I know Red Dwarf didn't create the idea with the episode "Meltdown"... but all the Elvis stuff... Red Dwarf again. The medieval stuff I kind of liked, and in fact, that's what brought it up a full star, because in those instances there was a unique story with just The Doctor helping this "kingdom." It was contained, it was simple, it didn't rely on me having these vast pools of knowledge from other sources. If this little section had been the book, sigh, what a good book it would have been. But instead I will just be left quoting Patrick Stewart.
  
  Though all this pales to Anji and what she represents. Anji the new companion, having just gotten into the TARDIS to get a lift home after her boyfriend was killed in the previous adventure... an adventure that might have made a better selection for this fiftieth anniversary perhaps, I don't know. But also, you don't ever ask for a lift from The Doctor, you won't be home for awhile, but then, Anji has issues... Anji's internal monologue is just so misogynistic and sets women's lib back years I was SHOCKED that this book was written by a woman. All Anji does is think about herself in a couple with the dear dead Dave, think about her shoes (of course she's wearing high heels), think about how she was wanted by all the other men at her office, yet she was faithful to Dave, and then, in her final "email" to Dave she actually says: "What's a step up from a man? (XY chromosome that is, none of this 'mankind' stuff, women are definitely a step down officially.) " EXCUSE ME!?! If the previous hundred some pages hadn't been a slap in the face for any smart independent woman, you have to state it as clear as possible. We are less? Well, obviously you are. You have some issues. Also the fact that Fitz is having inappropriate thoughts about teenagers, really young teenagers... I think someone needs some therapy. Perhaps it's me for actually finishing this book.
• 
  Peter Davies

  A good book to read. I felt the ending was a bit weak but I still enjoyed it. The Doctor, Anji and Fitz arrive on a future world that has theme park called EarthWorld. However, because this is the future, the memories of the past are a bit incorrect to comic affect. The Doctor, however, makes a good point when Fitz complains that the details about King Arthur are all wrong. He says that Fitz's idea of King Arthur is just as distorted by time as the theme park's is. There are an assortment of interesting characters, homicidal triplet princesses, an Elvis impersonator, an academic seeking a prize, an advisor seeking power, a dead "queen" (possibly), and an alligator called Princess Leia.
• 
  Angela

  The Doctor with Fitz and Anji land on a world where they have recreated different Earth eras for a theme park. They are all historically wrong, and that brings amusing moments. People are wanting to stop the theme park, and others are using it as their own private murder world. This is a fun, adventure romp with some very disturbing moments. A very good read.
• 
  Favian

  Anji is the last companion of the Doctor in the classic series, the bridge between the old and the new. Each of the main characters left something behind from their previous adventure. The Doctor lost bits and pieces of his memory while Anji lost her boyfriend, Dave. Together with frustrated performer Fitz Fortune, the two land on New Jupiter, specifically the theme park called EarthWorld, serving as a lengthy distraction as they traveled through an inaccurate historical depiction of planet Earth. It is a place where dinosaurs roamed with cavemen and 20th century London and androids existed simultaneously. I enjoyed the author's attempts to be very candid, providing side commentary about the internal machinations going on in Anji and Fitz's minds. The struggle for power between President John F Hoover and his chief technician Hanstrum gave another layer of drama as the President's triplet daughters ran amok the theme park with unquenchable bloodlust. The e-mails that Anji periodically sent out to Dave provided a bird's eye view of the direction the story was taking in the big picture.
• 
  Robin

  This is the first Doctor Who book that I really struggled to finish. The idea of the plot was quite good - a theme park on an alien planet badly recreating scenes from Earth history (the ways in which they get it wrong are quite amusing, and begs the question of the extent to which we int he 21st century get our own ancient history laughably wrong). Unfortunately the writing just wasn't very good, and the none of the characters were likable. I simply cannot take to either Anji or Fitz as companions - not the fault of the author, but of the series overseers who dreamed them and their endless neuroses up. Subplots connected to the series arc just served as annoying distractions, and I found the sexualisation of the adolescent villains really quite dodgy. It would have been awkward in any book, but especially dubious to have an adult protagonist leering at 13-year olds in a serialisation with a large child readership.
• 
  Jacob Licklider

  The first Eighth Doctor Adventure I ever read was EarthWorld, it was chosen to represent the Eighth Doctor in the 2013 50th Anniversary reprint collection and you can see why. This is the Eighth Doctor’s first trip in the TARDIS after being trapped on Earth with no memory for a century, Fitz is back but he still isn’t the original Fitz, and new companion Anji Kapoor isn’t adjusting to the death of her boyfriend well. While there is quite a lot of continuity in this one, Jacqueline Rayner never really gets bogged down in letting it overwhelm the reader while someone who has been reading along will feel more enhanced, for the most part. There are a few mentions of Compassion and her story arc which feel necessary to continuing Fitz and the Doctor’s stories but not enough to make the range continue it’s jumping on point. When I first read this book I thought Rayner was using some abstract idea about a sentient TARDIS character and not a literal sentient TARDIS. Now, this is Rayner’s first novel, and you can kind of tell. The book has quite a few diversions and doesn’t really have that focused of a plot, but there is a genuinely fascinating idea especially as she was asked to follow up the ending of Escape Velocity which homages the ending of “An Unearthly Child” with the TARDIS materializing in a desert where the silhouette of a man looks on.
  
  The actual plot of EarthWorld is a science fiction style one and not the historical runaround that is An Unearthly Child. EarthWorld is an amusement park on the planet New Jupiter in the far future. The human race has long since abandoned the planet Earth while a confused version of Earth culture has become the culture of the day with a President who is more like a king with the divine right that comes along with it. EarthWorld is a tribute to the Earth with several of the details twisted due to poor records, the cultural warping of tales, and deliberate misinterpretation with Elvis literally being the king of the 1960s, phrases being written wrong, and the three daughters of the president (and their several android duplicates) taking up an almost fascistic rule of the amusement park. Now, Rayner almost does something interesting in paralleling the warping of late 20th century culture as a statement about how ancient cultures find themselves represented in the public consciousness due to the biases of the archeologists, but that isn’t explored nearly as much as it could have been. There are also three young terrorists of ANJI which is how Anji gets involved in the story in a way that just feels like several cliches, though the character writing of Anji is great. Rayner uses emails never sent to Dave as a representation of her grief which is where the novel really succeeds. The way she works through the grief is beautifully portrayed though the King Arthur plot that takes up the climax of the book goes on way too long.
  
  The three daughters, Asia, Africa, and Antarctica are fascinating but they end up making up most of the supporting characters through their several android duplicates who are immediately smitten with Fitz. So of course, they try to kill him and he only gets through it by pretending to be a pop star greater than Elvis himself which is a fun plot, especially when Fitz goes through a breakdown as it’s revealed there was a duplicate made that also struggles with its identity. Fitz’s plot is one where there are other characters who just kind of drop out of the narrative after a certain point. The curator of EarthWorld in particular just disappears after Fitz runs away from her and it doesn’t actually feel like anything is resolved. These dangling plot threads are the points of EarthWorld that don’t really work and bring the book down as well as the pace. There is some great musing about Fitz and the fact that he still remembers becoming Father Kreiner, something that is surprising since the range at this point seemed to be cutting ties from its past. The Doctor is also characterized really well, with his added aloofness permeating the page, but he’s sadly not in the book as much as he should be, especially since this is immediately after his second exile on Earth. He’s back in the TARDIS, he’s free to have adventures, and his memory is kind of restored, but there’s this sadness there that needs to be explored.
  
  Overall, EarthWorld is one of the few Eighth Doctor Adventures that you can read from a legendary Doctor Who author in their creative infancy. It’s a book with a lot of flaws that Rayner acknowledges in her introduction to the reprint, but manages still to be a fun time even if there’s a bit too much meandering in it with some threads getting dropped. 7/10.
  
• 
  Erin Curran

  I'm really conflicted with what to rate this book. Something felt....off the entire time I was reading it.
  
  It could be that there was evidently a lot of lore that came before it, and since this was the first Eighth Doctor era book I'd read there was a lot of context I was missing. Perhaps it may have been wise for the powers that be to have chosen a story that needed less knowledge of previous plot points for their 50th Anniversary story for the Eighth Doctor, instead of this one.
  
  This was the first book out of the entire collection that required the reader to know about what had happened before they landed in their current adventure and while some of it could be gleaned from clues, a lot of it is just dropped in like we should know what happened. Which would have been fine if you were picking this up to continue the series you had been reading, but as a one off for an anniversary collection? Not a good idea.
  
  Nothing felt right. The Eighth Doctor didn't feel right, neither did the progression of the plot, or the descriptions of how the government worked or even the androids. Everything just felt wrong and confused as I was reading it. I'm not sure how else to describe it.
• 
  Emily

  A fun book to read. I felt the ending was a bit weak but I still enjoyed it. The Doctor, Anji and Fitz arrive on a future world that has a "Westworld"-like theme park based on Earth. However, because this is the future, the memories of the past are a bit distorted to comic affect. The Doctor, however, makes a good point when Fitz complains that the details about King Arthur are all wrong. He says that Fitz's idea of King Arthur is just as distorted by time as the theme park's is. There are an assortment of interesting characters, homicidal triplet princesses, an Elvis impersonator, an academic seeking a prize, an advisor seeking power, a dead "queen" (possibly), and an alligator called Princess Leia. Mostly, it works but sometimes it gets to clever for its own good. The resolution is a bit flat but it is still worth reading.
• 
  K

  なにやらこの物語の前に途轍もなく大変な目にあったらしいドクターとコンパニオンのフィズとアンジー。アンジーはどうやら宇宙人の侵略かなにかで恋人が殺されていてしまっていて傷心中。ドクターにあってはその"大変な目"のトラウマで記憶を失ってしまっていて、ターディスの動かし方もスクリュードライバーの扱い方も忘れてしまっているというとんでもないコンディション。フィズはフィズでどうやら彼はもはやオリジナルのフィズではなく、ドクターが記憶を取り戻すと今度こそ精神が壊れてしまうのではないかと心配しているという。
  
  かつてないほどの不安定なドクター。
  一体なにがあったんだと気になりつつ。
  
  とはいえ、ドクターはやっぱりドクター。
  おしゃべり大好き、アナログ、ロボット大好き。方向音痴と相変わらず能天気。
  ターディスをコントロールしそこなって、未来の木星上にある地球のテーマパークに到着。
  恐竜から宇宙船まで、史実とフィクションが混ざりに混ざった不可思議な世界で、ドクターとアンジーはテロリストとして逮捕され、フィズは大統領の3人娘達に捕まりペットとして飼われることに。
  
  大統領夫人を殺したのは誰なのか。
  記憶を失ったドクターはどこまで頼りになるのか。
  ハラハラさせられつつ。
  ターディスもここにきてドクターの保護者ぶりを存分に発揮。
  最後までハラハラさせられ面白く読める一品。
  
  しかしなにがあったのか気になるー。
  8代目ドクターはテレビ映画として1作品放送されたのみにもかかわらず、もとい、1作品しか放送されなかったが故に他のメディアでの物語が歴代のドクターの中でも1番作成されたとか。
  この小説も8代目ドクター40数番目に出版された小説とかで。
  気になるけど、一生かかっても制覇できなさそうな気がする。
• 
  Rea Perrson

  The first novel by Jac Rayner, Earthworld is one of the best novels in the EDA range. Featuring a world comprised of badly-studdied history, Earthworld has a very similar tone to the later Mad Dogs and Englishmen by Paul Magrs - another book I enjoyed.
  The novel features plot points from Interference (Fitz/Kode), Escape Velocity (Dave's death), and the Earth arc (The Doctor's missing memories). Earthworld is also Anji's first foray into what its like to travel with the Doctor.
  Coming from an author I enjoy greatly, Earthworld is practically Rayner's magnum opus.
• 
  JD

  In the foreword, the author herself admits she's not proud of her writing here. Obviously not a good sign, and sure enough, it's not a good read.
  The book also makes no sense as a choice for the 50th Anniversary series. It doesn't stand on its own at all, making constant references to other events in the 8th Doctor novels, which I have no intention of reading.
• 
  James Haigh-Kenworthy

  It's just an utter utter mess!
  Started off really well and promising, I was actually excited to read on yet it slowly became so hard to actually read. The plot is all over the place and quite simply just stupid, there's too many characters and the doctor is barely even in it. It's the only 8th doctor book I've read and sadly, it makes me not want to read another.
• 
  Elisabeth

  I picked this up mostly because I wanted to read more Jac Rayner, a favorite from the New Adventures. In her introduction she acknowledges that this is an early work, but I was not bothered by any of its flaws. The story is good, and I enjoyed Anji's POV, though since I haven't read any others in the series I spent a lot of time not knowing what the heck anyone is talking about. Still, it's a good, gripping, well-paced Eighth Doctor adventure, and I enjoyed it.
  
  Also recommended:
  Doctor Who: The Stone Rose and
  Doctor Who: Winner Takes All
• 
  David

  Sadly this was the worst of the 50th anniversary set of Dr Who books so far. Annoying dialogue and narrative; unsympathetic characterisations and an underwhelming Doctor. Was really a struggle to get to the end of it.
• 
  M. Spencer

  Simply put, I didn’t enjoy this one bit. I felt a lot of the humour was misplaced and I wasn’t convinced by the characterisation.
• 
  Ruth

  3.5 Stars. When an amnesiac, recovering Eighth Doctor, long-time friend Fitz, and new -- and reluctant -- companion Anji land on a planet that looks an awful lot like the Earth they know, but isn't, they are of course forced to investigate the anomalies. Reeling from the recent death of her boyfriend and the knowledge that time travel exists, Anji has little tolerance for embracing the Doctor's penchant for investigating the strange and unusual, but even she cannot deny that this Earthworld wrong, with its random dinosaurs, Egyptian pyramids, and warped reality twist on Arthurian legend. For Earthworld is nothing but a theme park, an off-shoot of the New Jupiter that comes into existence far after Anji's own, safely familiar twenty-first century. But this park hides a dark secret -- it's little more than the glorified playground for three homicidal, technologically brilliant teenage girls for whom death is the ultimate game. And now Anji, Fitz, and a Doctor left reeling from an unfathomable loss are caught in their web and marked as their latest prey...
  
  Jacqueline Rayner became one of my favorite Who authors after I read two of her novels a few years ago -- Winner Takes All featuring Nine and The Stone Rose featuring Ten, both with Rose as the Doctor's companion. I was left impressed with her ability to bring the Doctors I know and love to life on the page, and couldn't resist the chance to explore her early Doctor Who fiction -- particularly since I've always liked the physical embodiment of the Eighth Doctor, actor Paul McGann. :)
  
  While Earthworld contains all of the elements I've come to expect in a Who novel -- colorful, exotic settings, deathly peril, and an enjoyable rapport between the Doctor and his companion(s) -- I found myself somewhat hampered by my lack of grounding in a pre-Nine world (I've yet to see the Eighth Doctor's sole filmed adventure in its entirety). Events and people are referenced, and without the rudimentary knowledge of the Eighth Doctor's history provided in the author's note, I would've been completely lost.
  
  As a result, the first half of the novel was a bit of a slow go for me, seeming a touch less polished than Rayner's subsequent Doctor Who fiction. While the story is an enjoyable enough "episode," I never really connected with the characters in same manner I'm able to do in Who fiction that features Doctors I know and love from the television show. That said, approximately halfway through the novel a slow readjustment occurs, and these characters -- especially the Doctor -- began to remind me of just why I love this show so much. And, wonder of wonders, this new-to-me incarnation of the Doctor began to remind me of the best aspects of Nine, Ten, and Eleven -- their energy, compassion, and boundless capacity for wonder. In what at first appears to be a rather run-of-the-mill, even generic Who tale, Rayner builds towards one of the most poignant conclusions I've read or seen when it comes to this universe, a beautiful illustration of the bond that develops between the Doctor and even the most (initially) recalcitrant of companions, and by extension the reader's bond with the Doctor and his many worlds -- life in the midst of heartbreak, and the power of new beginnings.
• 
  Damo

  EarthWorld was my first venture into the EDAs (Eighth Doctor Adventures) line of novels and was a really good jumping on point for new readers. It’s plot was on the same level as TV episodes like Smith and Jones and The Pilot. Whilst i can’t argue it’s the best Doctor Who book it was certainly very fun.
  My problems with this book are quite simple, the characters. While the 8th Doctor and Fitz are amazing Anji really lets the side down on this TARDIS team. I found her to be annoying for the majority of the time and her and the ANJI boys really weren’t a good pairing and I just wanted to go back to 8 or Fitz. I did end up liking her in the scene with the knights and the last lines but it felt like it took too much work to get there. The villains were a bit off as well but I ended up liking them at their last parts. I didn’t like the side characters and they all sort of fell out of my mind after finishing it.
  The setting was beautifully wrote and I really liked the ideas where human history is twisted. It made me wonder what else could be in this theme park and what parts of the 2020s will be remembered or forgotten.
  The Fitz subplot was easily my favourite and I wanted it to be the main plot, I mean he literally fights an Elvis impersonator in a boxing ring to the death meanwhile Fitz also discovers he’s probably a clone. Like I said this book is incredibly fun and when I read EDAs again I will be very excited to get to read it again.
  
• 
  Sarah

  In honor of the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, BBC Books has reissued/redesigned/reawesomed a series of eleven books -- one for, you guessed it, each Doctor. Earthworld focuses on the Eighth Doctor and his companions Fitz and Anji. What's just supposed to be a quick pop back to Earth -- real Earth -- turns into a trip to New Jupiter, where, of course, trouble ensues.
  
  Fitz and Anji, both new characters to me, were both ones I'd love to spend more time with. Fitz grew up during WWII and fancied himself to be a singer when he met up with the Doctor in the 60s. Anji meets the Doctor and Fitz in 2001 for what was supposed to just be one adventure. They've got pretty rounded-out personalities of their own, and can carry their own storylines well. You miss the Doctor when he's not on screen, so to speak, but Fitz and Anji are both pretty fun to read about anyway.
  
  The book reads just like an episode of the show, which, of course, is the point. The Doctor and his companions, predictably, get separated and all wind up with their own issues and puzzles to solve, and everyone has to rely on their own strengths and intelligence to make sure that they get a happy ending. Some of my favorite parts of the story revolved around the often humourous, close-but-no-cigar interpretations of Earth throughout history that the people of New Jupiter have made. These were responsible for lots of laugh out loud moments on my part.
  
  The book's downfall is really the same as the show: the Doctor often makes completely wacky leaps of logic, and you don't always know how things progressed from point A to point C. Things get very fast paced at times, and scenes switch rapidly between our three main characters. That all can make the plot hard to follow at tines, but it's also true to the source, so I can't really ding the book for that.
  
  This book, and I suspect all books in the series, work best if you have a functional knowledge of Doctor Who, though you certainly don't need to be an expert. I'm more familiar with New Who than the original eight Doctors, but a quick Wikipedia read filled me in more on what Eight got himself up to, and Fitz and Anji's backstories. (And even that was kind of unnecessary, I was just overly curious.) Like the show itself, the book is a fairly clean read, with some violence and sexual innuendo.
• 
  Steffi

  3.5
  
  Zum 50. Geburtstag von Doctor Who, wurde von jedem Doctor ein Buch neu veröffentlicht. Im Falle vom achten Doctor war es dieses – „Earthworld“. Ohne groß drüber nachzudenken oder mich näher über das Buch zu informieren, habe ich es gekauft, und tja… hätte ich mich doch mal lieber etwas besser informiert.
  
  Als ich das Buch anfing zu lesen kam es mir schon komisch vor es plötzlich hieß das Fitz einer der zwei Companions des Doctors ist. Aber hey, merkwürdigere Dinge passieren wenn der achte Doctor involviert ist. Doch als Dinge zwar erwähnt, aber nicht erklärt wurden, wurde ich dann auch endlich stutzig. Könnte es sein…? Aber wieso solle BBC sowas machen. Wer die Bücher sieht wird sich denken dass er diese ohne Vorkenntnisse lesen kann… Aber…
  
  Und ein Blick in mein EDA*-Bibliothek hat das Rätsel gelöst. Japp, es ist tatsächlich ein EDA-Buch. Um genau zu sein der 43. Teil der Reihe. Die sind einfach hingegangen und haben ein Buch, das 43ste von 70 genommen, anstatt, oh ich weiß ja auch nicht, vielleicht eines der ersten?! The Eight Doctors oder Vampire Science wäre z.B. eine super Alternative gewesen. Stattdessen hat man Teil 43 genommen, was einige Probleme mit sich bringt.
  *Eight Doctor Adventures
  
  Da wäre das Offensichtliche: Der Leser hat kein Ahnung wer Fitz und Anji ist und wieso sie mit dem Doctor reisen. Man bekommt zwei ‚fremde‘ Charaktere vor die Nase gesetzt, und weiß oftmals nicht wieso sie so reagieren bzw. was sie überhaupt meinen. Und dann wäre da der Doctor selber, der anscheinend unter einer Art Amnesie leidet (mal wieder… scheint ein Hobby vom achten Doctor zu sein). Wie es dazu kam? Tja, dazu muss man vorherige Teile gelesen haben.
  
  Aber gut, ich glaube ich habe meine Meinung und Enttäuschung dazu nun deutlich genug ausgedrückt. Wie ist also die Story selber?
  
  Es ist ein typischer EDA filler Roman. Eine ausgefallene Story, dessen Plot und Plot-Twists aber sehr vorhersehbar ist. Der Schwerpunkt des Romans liegt auf den Charakteren selber, wie sie mit der derzeitigen Situation umgehen und es sie formt. Aber da es mitten aus einer Reihe herausgerissen ist… Ihr wisst worauf ich hinaus will.
  
  Es fällt mir wirklich schwer ein Fazit geschweigenden eine Bewertung für das Buch abzugeben. Da ich noch am Anfang der EDAs bin, kann ich es nicht einmal als Teil der Reihe beurteilen.
• 
  Stacie (MagicOfBooks)

  I will also do a video review here at my channel:
  http://www.youtube.com/magicofbooks
  
  "EarthWorld" by Jacqueline Rayner follows the eighth Doctor and his companions Anji and Fitz to EarthWorld: a museum on the planet New Jupiter that displays artifacts and people from Earth's history. All is not right with the museum. Terrorists are trying to destroy it. Three princesses are on a murderous rampage. And history itself is distorted far from the truth.
  
  I have some mixed feelings on this book. There were elements of it that I enjoyed, but overall, I don't think certain aspects of it were well written (it didn't help matters that Jacqueline Rayner dismisses her own novel in the author introduction). The premise itself was really interesting and I think it had a lot of promise. It was going well for about the first 25% of the novel, but then things started to feel a bit sloppy and overly complicated. For starters, I feel like I was missing something, especially in regards to the Doctor, Anji, and Fitz. Is there a previous book (or books) that I should have read before this one? The Doctor apparently has lost some of his memory and he doesn't remember the destruction of his home planet. Anji apparently lost her boyfriend on a previous mission. And there's some weird things going on with Fitz that I won't spoil because I feel like they are important to this book. The thing with the eighth Doctor is that Paul McGann only did the one movie. But his "run" as the Doctor continued in novel format. Compared to all the other "Doctor Who" books I've read, "EarthWorld" doesn't read as a standalone. This book reads more like you have to read all the previous books involving the eighth Doctor in order to fully understand what's going on in this book. Which is a shame, honestly. You can go into this book and understand the plot, but you can't go into this and understand the characters, which in turn makes some of the plot hard to follow in regards to their development.
  
  Overall, an okay book. Not amazing, but not necessarily bad either. Like I said, the premise is really cool. I'd love to go to New Jupiter...minus the homicidal princesses and distorted history.
• 
  Sean

  Earthworld has a interesting premise. 'How accurately will our history be remembered?' may not be a question we regularly ask ourselves but it's hard to deny it's not a interesting thought. And this is something Earthworld explores well.
  
  The book largely focuses on the triplets of a future president and their murderous ways. We are led to believe that they are the book's villains, however things aren't quite what they seem. There is a clever twist towards the end of the book that really takes you by surprise and sheds some new light on the triplet's behavior. In fact, a large part of this book seems to feature things not quite being what they seem. It's a complex story at heart and one that requires a strong attention span. I wouldn't really recommend this book to those who find the Moffat era complicated but if you enjoy a complicated narrative, then this book is definitely for you.
  
  Earthworld's historical inaccuracies allow for a lot of humorous moments that you're sure to remember afterwards. One of my favourites is Elvis Presley described as the 'king of Earth'. It's this kind of amusing take on Earth's history being misremembered that really adds to the enjoyment of the book.
  
  The companions are new creations that have never been featured on TV, Anji and Fitz. Overall, I found Anji pretty likeable and I found myself agreeing with a lot of her thoughts. However, Fitz was a little too arrogant for my liking and I basically just wanted a T-Rex to eat him.
  
  So overall, Earthworld is a entertaining(if complicated) read with original companions. However, if you don't like the Moffat era, you're probably better off buying a different book.
• 
  Anton

  This was my first Eighth Doctor book (I usually stick to the New Adventures series featuring the Seventh Doctor, or one of the Past/Missing Doctor books about the first six) and I really enjoyed it. Rather than starting from the beginning of the series, I chose the book BBC reissued for the fiftieth anniversary, which turned out to be a good decision because it starts with a new companion (always helps to see the Doctor through fresh eyes when jumping into unfamiliar territory) and is the start of a new story arc in the Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It's impressive that a writer in 2001 could present the Doctor in a way that's both faithful to the one-off 1996 movie *and* consistent with where Paul McGann would take the character years later in the Big Finish audio plays. The plot is fun and moves along at a quick pace, with plenty of twists and turns and a good deal of humour. New companion Anji Kapoor is likable, and the recent loss of her boyfriend (who died in the previous book) adds some emotional weight to her story. There's some business with the other companion, Fitz, which is a bit hard to get a handle on without the benefit of the preceding forty-odd books, but it's intriguing (definitely makes me want to go back and read some earlier books to know what's going on), and his affection for/undying faith in the Doctor is nice to see on a male companion for a change. By the end I was very ready to continue reading about the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji, so this definitely won't be my last Eighth Doctor Adventure.
• 
  Glenn

  Doctor Who: EarthWorld is a good place for a new reader to Doctor Who to start. The characters in this novel are described in terrific detail, painting a picture of each, in a way that makes it easy for the reader to really get a visual representation in mind.
  
  The Doctor is fleshed out nicely and does a really good job of capturing the character that has been portrayed on screen and in audio by Paul McGann. The story is also a nice introduction to the Doctor's companions, Fitz and Anji. This is Anji's second adventure with the Doctor and the story does a nice job of fleshing out her character and giving a real insight into her mind and motivations. Fitz has been traveling with the Doctor for some time now, but this book does a nice job of helping the reader to get a sense of who he is.
  
  The story is marvelous, putting our heroes in a futuristic amusement park on the planet New Jupiter that highlights the different eras of Earth's many histories, albeit not quite an accurate representation that adds a quirkiness to the story.
  
  Finally, the menace of the story, three young girls named Africa, Antarctica and Asia, whom have some rather misguided motivations are quite unique. Overall, author Jacqueline Rayner does a superb job on her first outing in the world of Doctor Who, and assures us that the franchise is in good hands with future stories she has written for the series.
• 
  Leonardo

  "EarthWorld" feels like it should have been the basis for a memorable episode of the Doctor Who series that never was made in the 1990s. It's an exciting reading experience with a well-crafted alien world (with still enough references to make it a fitting scenario for a post-Earth human civilization), and enough actually life-threatening dangers balanced with a witty sense of humour. I'm certainly that I will even remember small details (Princess Leia, the pet cococrile with a tick-tock inside of her; the circular ring in which the death-match takes place) that make New Jupiter a believable world, as well as the adventures of the main characters in themselves. I certainly will keep reading further novels of the 8th Doctor, and not just because they are the only way to actually get to know him beyond the 1996 TV movie and the 2013 web mini-episode, but I'm afraid that the way that the 8th Doctor is protrayed in the novels fails to go beyond the way he must have been described in the "character bible". In short, at times he even seems like a generic Doctor, despite his charm and intelligence.