EarthWorld (novel)

EarthWorld was the forty-third release in the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures series. It was written by Jacqueline Rayner. It featured the Eighth Doctor, Fitz Kreiner and Anji Kapoor.

2001 BBC Books edition
''Anji Kapoor has just had the worst week of her entire life, and things aren’t getting any better. She should be back at her desk, not travelling through time and space in a police box with a couple of strange men.''

The Doctor (Strange Man No. 1) is supposed to be returning her to Soho 2001 AD. So quite why there are dinosaurs outside, Anji isn't sure. Sad sixties refugee Fitz (Strange Man No. 2) seems to think they’re either in prehistoric times or on a parallel Earth. And the Doctor is probably only pretending to know what's going on -- because if he really knew, surely he would have mentioned the homicidal triplet princesses, the teen terrorists, the deadly android doubles (and triples) and the hosts of mad robots?

Anji's never going to complain about Monday mornings in the office again...

2013 BBC Books edition
Anji has just had the worst week of her life. She should be back at her desk, not travelling through time and space in a police box. The Eighth Doctor is supposed to be taking her home, so why are there dinosaurs outside? The Doctor doesn’t seem to know either, or else he surely would have mentioned the homicidal princesses, teen terrorists and mad robots? One thing is certain: Anji is never going to complain about Monday mornings in the office again.

Plot
The Doctor tries to return Anji to 2001 Soho, but mistakenly ends up on New Jupiter, a crude mock-up of historical Earth. While running from a caveman android, Anji and the Doctor are separated from Fitz and captured by guards who brand them terrorists and put them in a cell with three other prisoners, teenage boys Zequathon, Beezee, and Xernic. Anji's necklace, which had her name on it, is taken from her. It is identical to the ones worn by the teenagers, who tell the Doctor and Anji that they are members of ANJI, or the Association for New Jupitan Independence, a group trying to give New Jupiter cultural and political independence from Earth, at this time ruled by a feudal President with three daughters, Asia, Antarctica, and Africa. The Doctor and Anji are informed that they are in the death-row cell.

Fitz wanders through an Ancient Egypt zone and happens upon an android version of Antarctica, who takes him to the Twentieth Century London Zone, thinking he is a misplaced android. He tells her that he is a pop singer named Fitz Fortune, but she is unimpressed and returns to the Egypt zone. Fitz meets curator Venna Durwell, who like Antarctica thinks he is a broken android. To convince her that he is real, Fitz points out many errors after she quizzes him on 20th century "topics"--Winston Churchill didn't have seaside boxing matches and there should be no mail-delivering War Machines. Durwell decides to extract his historical knowledge and then kill him to give herself credit for her "research", but he escapes while she deals with a park emergency. A security android brings him to the President's daughters, who demand he give a concert or be killed. To prove they are serious about the latter choice, they take a trip to the Roman zone to see a robotic lion killing another abductee.

Characters

 * Eighth Doctor
 * The Doctor lacks the knowledge to properly use his sonic screwdriver and can only do so if someone is distracting him first.
 * The Doctor is implied to not know why he likes the TARDIS looking like a police box until overhearing Fitz explaining why to Anji.
 * The Doctor suffers a great anguish at being locked up, described by Anji as a "caged tiger".
 * Fitz Kreiner
 * Fitz is a large Elvis fan. When he travelled with Samantha Jones, she revealed how Elvis became overweight and died; Fitz was disappointed and tries to forget that he knows this.
 * Fitz manages to become a rock star, going by Fitz Fortune.
 * Fitz has a massive identity crisis after noticing his guitar playing is better than ever despite his having neglected to practice. He realises the TARDIS rewired his brain to make him a better version of himself and is very disturbed by the fact.
 * Fitz is placed in a memory machine and is made to relive his entire life. Much to his great dismay, this includes his birth.
 * Fitz convinces the TARDIS to help him make sure the Doctor doesn't get his memories back yet.
 * Anji Kapoor
 * Anji tried to fit in at school by pretending her name was "Angela".
 * Anji thinks about getting a t-shirt that says I'm a main character. Don't kill me.
 * Anji intermittently appears to write emails to her late boyfriend, explaining her current situation and showing remorse for his death.
 * Considers the idea that she is undergoing a drug-induced hallucination.
 * James
 * Goes by Xernic.
 * An ANJI terrorist.
 * Jonathan
 * Goes by Zequathon.
 * An ANJI terrorist.
 * Timothy
 * Goes by Beezee
 * An ANJI terrorist.
 * Venna Durwell
 * The curator of EarthWorld
 * Africa
 * Antarctica
 * Asia
 * Elizabethan Hoover
 * Elvis
 * Hanstrum
 * John F Hoover
 * The "F" is the Presidential F and doesn't stand for anything.

Continuity

 * There are dinosaurs and cavemen in the Prehistoric Zone. (in the 2013 reprint's foreword, Rayner says the caveman was a homage to An Unearthly Child)
 * The Twentieth Century Zone, an inaccurate replica of 1960s London, has replicas of the Robot Yeti and the War Machines. (TV: The War Machines, The Web of Fear) The curators believe that the War Machines delivered post, likely because WOTAN was situated in the Post Office Tower. Fitz, predating Web of Fear, doesn't know why a Yeti is part of the exhibit.
 * The Doctor and Fitz tell Anji "tales about how they used to fly round the universe in a stroppy redhead".
 * Fitz recounts how he joined the Doctor and the events of PROSE: The Taint.
 * Fitz recalls Samantha Jones showing him Elvis Presley in later life.
 * The Doctor shouts out "Number 17" to Anji, a reference to the number escape plans he used to have with Sam.
 * The Doctor remembers a place where the night sky was burnt orange and the tree leaves were silver. This is almost exactly Susan's description of her home from TV: The Sensorites.
 * Fitz mentions being James Bond (PROSE: Demontage) and Frank Sinatra (PROSE: Frontier Worlds).
 * The Doctor hates being locked up. (PROSE: Seeing I)
 * The Doctor remembers Alan Turing. (PROSE: The Turing Test)
 * Fitz mentions that they used to know a bus driver. (PROSE: The Blue Angel)
 * The Butterfly Room, previously destroyed in PROSE: The Shadows of Avalon, is restored.