‘EARTHWORLD’

Please feel free to comment on my review.

EarthWorld with the Eighth Doctor, Fitz and Anji

This was my first experience of a proper Eighth Doctor Adventure from BBC Books!

The Eighth Doctor has had a long life in books, comics and audios since debuting in ‘The TV Movie’ back in 1996. Over the years, I’ve enjoyed many of the Big Finish audios starring Paul McGann as the Doctor. I’ve also read some of the Eighth Doctor comic adventures featured in ‘Doctor Who Magazine’.

I haven’t read many of the Eighth Doctor novels published by BBC Books from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. I have read the first book ‘The Eight Doctors’ by Terrance Dicks in the ‘Eighth Doctor Adventures’ range of BBC Books but that’s as far as I got. I haven’t read any more of these books since.

With me reading through the books that I have on my ever-changing reading list, I’ve had the fortune to come across the Eighth Doctor adventure called ‘EarthWorld’ published by BBC Books. This was reprinted in 2013 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of ‘Doctor Who’ and represent the Eighth Doctor.

I recall purchasing the book when holidaying in Bath back in 2013 as well as ‘Festival of Death’ I believe. Originally I was going to read ‘EarthWorld’ to help me write an Eighth Doctor adventure I was doing at the time. Sadly, I did not have the time to read the book but the Big Finish audios helped me anyway.

It would be years later in 2019 that I would get a chance to read ‘EarthWorld’ as well as the other ‘Doctor Who’ books I purchased years ago but never had the chance to read. I was looking forward to finding out what this Eighth Doctor adventure would be like and whether I would get into these novels.

The ‘Eighth Doctor Adventures’ range of ‘Doctor Who’ books are a peculiar bunch of stories. From what I’ve gathered, there have been many inconsistencies in the storytelling and the development of characters. This includes an Eighth Doctor adventure that featured Jo Grant divorced from Clifford Jones. Ouch!

From what I’ve read in the introduction given by Jacqueline Rayner for the 2013 reprint of ‘EarthWorld’, the Eighth Doctor goes through a stage where he loses his memory and Gallifrey gets destroyed at one point. Gallifrey got destroyed?! Ha! As if that would ever happen in the TV…oh yeah!

In many ways, the ‘Eighth Doctor Adventures’ range of books seem to do some brave things with ‘Doctor Who’ overall. They wouldn’t get followed up much on when the TV series came back, but at least there was imagination involved behind the creation of these books. But there are so many, I can’t read them all!

So what would my first experience of an ‘Eighth Doctor Adventure’ in ‘Doctor Who’ from BBC Books reprinted in 2013 be like? Would I enjoy it? Would it match to what I’ve enjoyed in the Big Finish audios? That’s what I hoped to find out once I began delving into the book at the start of June 2019.

As I indicated, ‘EarthWorld’ is by Jacqueline Rayner, who has been a contributor to both ‘Doctor Who’ in books and audio. I’ve read another one of Jacqueline’s ‘Doctor Who’ books featuring the Tenth Doctor and Rose called ‘The Stone Rose’. I found her ‘Doctor Who’ writing decent as I hoped to enjoy ‘EarthWorld’.

‘EarthWorld’ was originally published back in 2001. It features the Eighth Doctor with his companions Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor. More about them later. The story is divided into eleven chapters in the book. I’m very amazed by how I got through this book swimmingly despite the lengthy chapters it had.

As for ‘EarthWorld’ as a story…I found it okay. I heard not too many good things about the book beforehand and I can see why that is. ‘EarthWorld’ is interesting as a story and I did get into some of the character development. But it wasn’t exciting as when I read ‘Players’ by Terrance Dicks previously.

Even Jacqueline Rayner admits in her introduction for the book in the 2013 reprint that she’s critical of ‘EarthWorld’ nowadays, especially as it was one of her earlier works (her first ‘Doctor Who’ book apparently). Well, at least she’s being honest and I still enjoyed ‘EarthWorld’ as a story when I read it.

If I was given another chance to read ‘EarthWorld’ (perhaps with an audiobook reading), I might give this one a higher rating. But it was a struggle to get through this book at times and it often became a chore. There were also previous events that occurred in other books for characters I knew little about.

Regarding the characters, Fitz Kreiner as one of the Eighth Doctor’s companions is someone I knew about already. Fitz was in the Big Finish audio ‘The Company of Friends: Fitz’s Story’ and he was played by Matt Di Angelo in that. So I knew what Fitz was like and how he sounded with reading ‘EarthWorld’.

For those who don’t know, Fitz came from 1963 Earth where he met the Eighth Doctor. Unlike my character of Billy Walker from 1963 however, Fitz smokes a lot, drinks a lot and likes the ladies a lot, making him a womaniser. Fitz often came across with a laid-back attitude and wanted to be a big star.

That was how he was depicted in the Big Finish audio he was in and he’s certainly like that in the book I read. I enjoyed reading Fitz’s character in-depth and how he interacted with the Eighth Doctor and Anji. It was interesting to hear how he had adventures with the Doctor in the past before meeting Anji.

Anji Kapoor as a character is someone I knew the least about. I did read her once in one of the Short Trip collections by Big Finish in a story called ‘Notre Dame du Temps’, but that wasn’t really enough to identify her with character. It was intriguing to read this book and learn who she was as a character.

‘EarthWorld’ apparently is Anji’s second appearance in ‘Doctor Who’ as her first was in ‘Escape Velocity’. Interesting that BBC Books decided to reprint Anji’s second appearance in ‘Doctor Who’ instead of her first. Wouldn’t it make sense to reprint ‘Escape Velocity’ for us to get to know who Anji is?

Anyway, Anji comes from London in 2001 and is of Asian decent. In her first ‘Doctor Who’ story, she apparently lost her boyfriend Dave and is still grieving for him. She often writes e-mails to Dave about her current adventure with the Doctor and Fitz. She trusts the Doctor but struggles to get on with Fitz.

The concept of EarthWorld is interesting about a duplicate Earth-like theme park attraction on the planet of New Jupiter where not everything is consistent in terms of historical accuracy. Mind you, the concept is not fully well-utilised and is often forgotten about despite dinosaurs getting featured in this.

There’s also this story about these three beautiful homicidal sisters named Asia, Africa and Antarctica that have android replicas made of them and there is a backstory on what happened to them when they were young with their parents and the father being the President of New Jupiter. But often, it’s dull.

I did appreciate there being development of how the three sisters Asia, Africa and Antarctica became villainous and it was sad when Asia got killed and Africa and Antarctica mourned for her at the end. But there wasn’t much of an emotional build-up as most of the story felt bland in terms of its telling as I read it.

The Eighth Doctor’s journey in the story is interesting. This is the Eighth Doctor at a stage where he’s recently lost his memory and he’s gone back to where he was at the start in ‘The TV Movie’. I’ve gathered the Eighth Doctor’s journey in the books are at odds with the audios, making his timeline complicated.

As a book to represent the Eighth Doctor era, I don’t think this serves to that advantage. Oh, it was interesting how he interacted with John F. Hoover who is the President of New Jupiter and discovered the history of his three daughters. But I didn’t find this book presenting the Eighth Doctor in the best light.

This is the problem with the ‘Eighth Doctor Adventures’ books as they have a certain story arc but no matter where you start say in the middle of that series, you’re going to be out-of-your-depth as to what’s going on in the series. There should have been a better, more exciting story to represent the Eighth Doctor era.

With all that said and as I’ve stated already, I would like there to be an audiobook reading for ‘EarthWorld’ so that I can enjoy the story again and get a better understanding of what’s going on. Whoever would read it is a different matter. Either Paul McGann or Matt Di Angelo would be good choices to read this.

Whether the ‘Eighth Doctor Adventures’ in BBC Books will get adapted into audio dramas by Big Finish is uncertain, though it’s doubtful. I would like to hear ‘EarthWorld’ as an audio drama though and it’d be great to hear Paul McGann as the Doctor and Matt Di Angelo as Fitz again. Who’d play Anji though?

So yeah, ‘EarthWorld’ is not a great ‘Eighth Doctor Adventure’ to represent the Eighth Doctor era of ‘Doctor Who’ for the 50th anniversary. But I enjoyed reading it and getting introduced to this book series with Fitz and Anji as the Eighth Doctor’s companions. Maybe I will read more books of this series soon.

‘EarthWorld’ rating – 6/10

---

The previous story For the Eighth Doctor was ‘Escape Velocity’ (Book) For Fitz was ‘Escape Velocity’ (Book) For Anji was ‘Escape Velocity’ (Book)	The next story For the Eighth Doctor is ‘Fear Itself’ (Book)  For Fitz is ‘Fear Itself’ (Book)  For Anji is ‘Fear Itself’ (Book)
Return to The Eighth Doctor’s Timeline
Return to Fitz’s Timeline
Return to Anji’s Timeline
Return to The Doctors’ Timelines Index
Return to The Companions’ Timelines Index
Return to Doctor Who Timelines
Return to Doctor Who
Return to Sci-Fi