Doctor Who: The Crooked World

Eighth Doctor Adventures #57

by Steve Lyons

The people of the Crooked World lead an idyllic existence.

Take Streaky Bacon, for example. This jovial farmer wants nothing more from life than a huge blunderbuss, with which he can blast away at his crop-stealing nemesis. And then there's Angel Falls, a racing driver with a string of victories to her name. Sure, her trusted guardian might occasionally put on a mask and menace her for her prize money, but that's just life, right? And for Jasper the cat, nothing could be more pleasant than a nice, long nap in his kitchen -- so long as that darn mouse doesn't jam his tail into the plug socket again.

But somebody is about to shatter all those lives. Somebody is about to change everything -- and it's possible that no one on the Crooked World will ever be happy again.

The Doctor's TARDIS is about to arrive. And when it does... That's all folks

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Ebooks, Media Tie In, Fantasy

252 pages, Paperback

First published June 3, 2002

About the author

Steve Lyons is a science fiction writer, best known for writing television tie-ins of Doctor Who for BBC Books, and previously, Virgin. The earliest of these was Conundrum in 1994, and his most recent was 2005's The Stealers of Dreams. He has also written material for Star Trek tie-ins, as well as original work.

Reviews

[Michael Battaglia · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS. Since around "City of the Dead", the Eighth Doctor novels have been on a bit of a hot streak, more willing to take chances and push the concept into territory that not only feels new but also wouldn't have worked as well on the TV screens. And they've done it without becoming self-consciously "adult" and shoving the show into extremes of sex and violence (something the Virgin line, for all it did right, occasionally fell prey to). They've managed to adopt a tone that balances fun without being too campy, serious without being po-faced and interesting without eclipsing the reasons we like the show.

Here, on some level, is the ultimate test. Far stranger in its way than anything Lawrence Miles could have gone up with and wackier than even Paul Magrs' pink poodle adventure, this takes the Doctor and friends into territory that could have easily been a complete train wreck, silly for the sake of being silly, and proves that the show can handle any setting with aplomb, as long as the writer has a strong vision of what they're doing and never loses sight of it. Even when people are getting their faces dented by giant hammers pulled out of their pants.

The cover tells you no lies and warns you that this is going to be decidedly different. The Doctor drawn in an animated style, against the background of Warner Bros and Hanna-Barbara analogues, suggesting perhaps that this will be of those tongue-in-cheek stories where someone tells a normal story in the form of a cartoon, sort of a filtered after the fact interpretation of events. But, no. The Doctor and companions land on a world that is literally ruled by cartoon logic, where funny animal characters engage in the same acts over and over again, defying both physics and mortality as they enact constant violence on each other while racing or keeping birds out of their crops or solving mysteries with ghosts or chasing after mice in a futile manner. Needless to say, the Doctor and company figure out fairly quickly that the rules are quite different here even as the inhabitants realize that the rules are different for the newcomers, who don't instantly heal when they got shot or dropped off cliffs. Not only do they stay hurt for far longer they might even (*gasp*) die.

The opening pages of the novel feel like one long tribute to Grant Morrison's classic "Animal Man" story "The Coyote Gospel", which applied realistic physics to cartoon violence with rather dramatic effects (among other things). We get some demonstration on how things work there and give the Doctor time to start messing with it, because if there's one thing the Doctor stands for, its a kind of chaos that brings down established systems, even systems based on absolute anarchy like this one. And the whole book could have been like that, focusing on the Doctor trying to navigate the system, with an endless parade of characters parodying the Saturday morning cartoons that we all grew up on. Yet instead of using the story as an excuse for the writer to insert tributes to his childhood, we get something even better, an actual story.

You see, the Doctor in his arrival, sort of wakes up the characters into realizations that the way things have always been done isn't the way it has to be done and that cycles can be broken. And slowly the bizarre homeostasis that has been in place begins to break, as people begin to question their own determinations and actions. Unfortunately it doesn't lead to more theme songs but instead greater acts of violence as the Doctor attempts to shepherd an entire civilization that is attempting to change involuntarily and overnight.

A story like this can only work if the tone is right and Lyon plays it perfectly straight. Anji and Fitz react as if this is all bizarre even as they try to play along and figure out the rules on the fly, and yet the action is played realistically enough that at worst it becomes a touch surreal but still feels oddly grounded. The Crooked World winds up feeling more realistic than some of the alien worlds we've been subjected to and maybe that's because of its foundations in nostalgia but it keeps that pose even as it becomes all the cartoons we remember taken to extremes. The shift from mindless repetition to more conscious decision making leads to moments that are both oddly poignant and horrific. One character exposed to Fitz realizes that he no longer has to remain in a kitchen constantly being beaten up, but when he does break the cycle, the sudden spontaneous violence upends the rules we've grown used to and becomes genuinely shocking. The balance between amusing cartoon characters and treating those cartoons like actual characters is in its own way amazing, as the author makes you care about the psychological conflicts of people unironically called Streaky Bacon.

But there is no sense of smug ironic humor here, just taking something beloved and extending it into the realm of logical insanity. In this way the novel becomes about change, both subverting cliches and embracing them as the characters realize how dangerous they can be in this new world and yet keep blundering because they have no experience at being really dangerous. Lyon hits most of the marks, from the absurdity of how no one recognizes you with a mask, how to design a proper enemy base, and pretty much every goofy thing that Scooby-Doo ever inflicted upon us (the satire in those portions of the book are perhaps most cutting and lead to the best moments of comedy . . . Anji's first encounter with the green ghost almost makes this book worth it on its own). It's hilarious but manages to contain real moments of menace and suspense.

So yeah, this is one for the ages. It takes a creative chance and succeeds in almost every way (the only comment that felt off was a passing nod to "Anime Town", which felt a little too meta), in much the same way "The Mind Robber" way back when inserted us in the Land of Fiction. This takes matters one step further and makes it utterly "Doctor Who" taking what we once accepted and rendering it strange as if seen again for the first time, and then making it a normal piece of a glorious landscape. For all who think the shows has limits, this is why it doesn't. I don't quite know where they can go from here, but I'm excited to see.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 2 out of 5]

There's no doubt about it: this novel is clever. It's also attempting to push boundaries...but in the wake of the recent TV episode "Lux", it turns out that this isn't the shining example of post-modernism it has been held up to be for the last two decades. None of the regular characters seems to react to the bonkers situation they find themselves in any believable way -- they are so nonchalant that it actually gets on my nerves. Then there is the crisis of conscience experienced by the cartoon denizens of the world -- apart from Streaky Bacon, and perhaps the pseudo-Tom & Jerry pair, there seems to be little in the way of reflecting on the unreality of their situation after the intrusion of the TARDIS. Finally, the Doctor is just wallpaper in this book -- he's so generic he may as well not even have a description. So much potential, barely tapped.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I could give this book a higher rating I would! First it ended my recent book slump! That alone is worth five stars! I was completely lost in this world, even when I wasnt actively reading. If you are a fan of the doctor and the old Saturday morning cartoons, especially Scooby Doo, you HAVE to read this! I laughed out loud several times, felt deep worry and sadness for my new friends from the Crooked World. Seriously such a fun read and will forever have a place in my top 5 to 10 all time favorite books!

This is the book that caused me to tumble down a rabbit hole, which deepened my love for the doctor and created the obsession. I can't wait until my next trip in the tardis to another world and adventures with the doctor and my fellow companions. 🥰💗💕💗🥰

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my first time finishing one of these old EDA's. I overall enjoyed it. I do kind of get the impression that the Doctors not *that* well defined in this compared to, say, the characters audio adventures.

But this was a fun mix of cartoon pastiches, that really showed how flexible Who is as a franchise. A lot of good fun. I'm sure I'll be returning to this series at some point in the future.

[Richard Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I honestly didn’t think I’d enjoy this book as I’m never a fan of blending cartoon characters with real life (Roger Rabbit being the only exception) but this was clever, well-written and I really liked it. Glad I gave it a go.

[Danny Welch · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant book, filled with fun moments and clever quirks, but gets more serious as it goes on until all the depressing and dark stuff start to come in. Highly recommend, a brilliant book with amazing characterization and genius writing from Steve Lyons. Rating: 10/10

[Jacob Licklider · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Act 2 of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods, as the narrator is discussing the problem of the giant, the fairy tale characters break out of the story, drag the narrator in, and sacrifice him to the giant. This breaks the narrative and means the characters must now actually choose what actions to take without the guiding hand of the author, they are now in control of the narrative and that leads to more death and tragedy before eventually resolving in a hopeful enough ending, though always changing and trying to be better. It is an essential piece of metatext that is both accessible and easy to understand. It is important to bring this up because Doctor Who novelist Steve Lyons owns quite a lot to Into the Woods for his trilogy of metafictional novels Conundrum, Head Games, and The Crooked World, the latter being the most explicitly metatextual on speculative fiction in general and the very nature of Doctor Who as an idea. Conundrum and Head Games are a pair of directly linked New Adventures set in the Land of Fiction, while The Crooked World is a spiritual successor to the other two in a similarly fictionally linked setting though one revealed to be a physical place and single planet. The idea behind The Crooked World is that the Doctor is a force of nature responsible for changing the narrative flow of stories. He comes in and fundamentally changes the rules of the universe every time he leaves the TARDIS.


The Crooked World uses this through the lens of cartoons, specifically cartoons pre-1970 including expies of the characters of Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, deconstructing in the first 100 pages or so what makes each of these cartoons work and the formula they have to follow before ripping it to shreds. The inciting incident is our Elmer Fudd/Porky Pig/Wile E. Coyote expy, Streaky Bacon shooting the Doctor with his blunderbuss which nearly kills him. The Doctor, Fitz, and Anji do not work by cartoon logic, while the rest of the world does. Lyons specifically draws on Robert Zemeckis’ Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, though not visually as this is a novel and there is no way to translate that technical wonder that film is, but the ideas are there. The Crooked World as a planet is bound by cartoon morality: those shot will have an overreaction, fall over, maybe be carted off in an ambulance, but be back to normal almost immediately. The Doctor brings injury, pain, and death in his wake to Looney Toons characters, Fitz brings meaningful relationships (through ironically the introduction of sex) to serial parodies, and Anji brings a sense of cold hard logic to the Scooby-Doo gang. The world begins to almost immediately unravel and descend to chaos, every action the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji take ends up changing the world intrinsically and makes things worse. Every thought they have ends up bringing the notions of war, corruption, capitalism, and death in their wake.



The novel eventually becomes a meditation on bringing the central idea of adult, fully formed morality, onto these cartoon characters. What exactly are their purposes when there are consequences to their actions and the universe doesn’t essentially reset at the end of an episode? Our Tom the Cat expy is put on trial at one point because he has genuinely attempted to kill the expy of Jerry the Mouse, and there is even at least some attempt to at least acknowledge much of the racial stereotyping of certain old cartoons. Now this is where Lyons perhaps cannot go as far as he wishes to, the BBC was never going to get the rights to use any of the established characters, but it is clear exactly who they are so the commentary still works and is added to with the idea that these cartoon characters are already corruptions in who they are. The big twist of the novel is that the Crooked World being this cartoon logic laden place is because of the mind of a dead child, taken and insulated at the center of the world who’s escape pod dying. The Crooked World actually goes as far as it can go in making it explicit that changing the narrative as the Doctor and company are the ones to do is not an inherently good thing to happen. The situation only gets worse and the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji do their best, but there’s a moment where they accidentally create an atomic bomb because they are thinking about it. Lyons keeps reality pliable and even when the main trio try to make the world bend to their advantage, the influence of their morality eventually gives the inhabitants their own free will to override things. It means that The Crooked World ends as a tragedy; like Into the Woods the Doctor, Fitz, and Anji are the ones to leave and the world just has to get on and make its own decisions.



Overall, The Crooked World is Steve Lyons’ masterpiece, it’s the crowning achievement of metatext, knowing exactly what cues to take. One minute it has you laughing at the cartoon antics, and how weird things are going, the next it has you questioning exactly how long it will take for the idea to get old, and then finally it begins to have the shift of redirecting, and eventually losing the narrative. 10/10.

[James Lark]

I reviewed this book with a very jolly and talented bunch on the brilliant A Hamster With A Blunt Penknife podcast: listen at https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...

[Joe Ford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just about the most bizarre book ever conceived as a Doctor Who book, brilliantly executed. Clever Worldbuilding, funny gags, and surprisingly poignant and shocking moments. Real growth for the guest characters too.

[Gary Stratmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoughtful fun

Only Doctor Who could make cartoon characters appear so real and teach us the difference between freedom and licence.
Strats

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the Back Cover:

“The people of the Crooked World lead an idyllic existence.

Take Streaky Bacon, for example. This jovial farmer wants nothing more from life than a huge blunderbuss, with which he can blast away at his crop-stealing nemesis. And then there’s Angel Falls, a racing driver with a string of victories to her name. Sure, her trusted guardian might occasionally put on a mask and menace her for her prize money, but that’s just life, right? And for Jasper the cat, nothing could be more pleasant than a nice, long nap in his kitchen -- so long as that darn mouse doesn’t jam his tail into the plug socket again.

But somebody is about to shatter all those lives. Somebody is about to change everything -- and it’s possible that no one on the Crooked World will ever be happy again.

The Doctor’s TARDIS is about to arrive. And when it does... That’s all folks!”

When I first got back into Doctor Who, I realized that the place I worked had a very small section of the BBC Eighth Doctor Adventures (EDA) books tucked away deep inside the science fiction area. I honestly wasn’t too impressed with the covers to most of these as they all had some generic clip-art cover vaguely based on a theme in the book. I know they always say “don’t judge a book by its cover”, which is nice and all, but some of the EDAs just looked bland. One had a grungy looking camera in the dirt, one had a rose in another unrelated pile of dirt, and one had a generic nuclear symbol on the front. I’m not sure if the BBC just needed some cheap covers, or if there was some sort of rights issue involved with using an image of Paul McGann, but many of these did not catch my eye. One book, however, did catch my eye based solely on the ridiculous nature of its cover – a cartoon version of the Eighth Doctor placed next to a series of cartoon birds, pigs, and other weird creatures. I had to get it.

To be honest, this book feels very much like a cross-over fan fiction that somebody would toss together in their spare time. Any story that places itself in a world populated with rights free fake versions of famous cartoon characters has to be a joke right? I mean we obviously have analogues to Scooby Doo, Tom and Jerry, and Penelope Pitstop among others. This goes far above your normal “Brain of Morbius is basically Frankenstein” homage to an utter pastiche of the 1960’s cartoon era. They seemed to do this a lot in these books seeing as I remember one that was basically a James Bond story within the same line.

So, I guess you’re assuming that I hated this book – well actually I really liked it, and not just in a guilty pleasure sort of way. Steve Lyons starts out with your typical zany hijinks found in these cartoons, but the mere presence of the Doctor and his companions changes everything. Lyons slowly leaks in details that show the “crooked world” is falling apart. We first see this in the opening moments of the novel. A character named Streaky Bacon (imagine a cross between Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig) is desperately trying to keep a bird called the “Whatchamacalit” from destroying his garden again…like he does every day. The Doctor steps out of the Tardis only to get a chest full of hot buckshot. He crumples over bleeding to death as the cartoon characters do nothing. You see, in their world all one has to do is wait for the ambulance to show up and the victims are immediately, and somewhat magically, cured. This doesn’t happen at all, and it really haunts the pig. He usually gets away with inconsequential violence because nobody actually gets hurt. In a VERY dark turn he tries to punish himself in some way, due to a lack of understanding by the local sheriff, and attempts to commit suicide – only to have the gun do a cartoony backfire and not hurt him.

When I read that passage, my mind basically crapped it’s pants – here I was thinking that this was going to be a funny ”let’s mock old cartoons” affair, and what I got was a disturbing ode to the darker side of the values taught in said cartoons. Pretty soon all characters are guilt ridden wrecks based on their realization that their whole existence is so messed up. Riots are breaking out everywhere, and nobody is safe.

My only problem with the book is what happens at the end. I won’t spoil the ending at all, but I will say that it’s both VERY powerful, and a bit of a cop-out as it comes a bit out of left field. This isn’t helped out at all, by a Doctor that essentially takes a card from Captain Kirk and says “screw the prime directive!” but I guess that’s par for the course for a character such as The Doctor.

I need to finish reading all those bland covered books I bought “back in the day”; but for now I’ll hold onto the fact that The Crooked World is my favorite EDA (so far) despite the fact that I basically bought it because it made me laugh conceptually. What I ended up with was a very dark, and thought-provoking read. I really need to stop this whole book cover judging business!

[Glenn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I guess since it's a front runner right now on the latest poll on the Doctor Who Book Club - Traveling the Vortex, I had better get my review up.

I read this novel several months back, but from what I can remember, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This was, I believe, the first Eighth Doctor novel that I had read, and because of the unconventional concept of the story, I wouldn't recommend that to others who have not read any Eighth Doctor books before.

That said, it is a very enjoyable book.

The author, Steve Lyons, really has a feel for the Doctor, especially the version that Paul McGann brought to life on screen. Never is there a moment that the Doctor does a single thing that would be out-of-character for him.

Lyons also does a good job fleshing out enough of Fitz and Anji's characters to make them familiar and likable. Without knowing much about them, you do get an idea of who they are and what type of person each one is.

The premise of the story centers around our heroes who have landed on a planet whose inhabitants are similar to cartoons on Earth from the 1930's to the 1970's.

The plot is whimsical and fun, but comes down from that with a few grim moments and seriousness, while keeping with its humor and heart.

Traditional Doctor Who fans may not be as satisfied with the elements, but the motives and style of the story and its main characters stays true to the franchise.

[Leela42 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eighth Doctor Adventure (EDA) with Fitz and Anji. Very well constructed, which is a rarity in Doctor Who 'orginal novels'. On the downside, the wording is unpolished in a few chapters and the last third doesn't fit very well as the reader keeps being brought up short by contradictions with earlier character rationales (as if the book is an expansion on an earlier work but the final product was never polished by an editor).

[Numa Parrott · Rating 3 out of 5]

I balked at the cover, and the description on the back did nothing to reassure me.

Only Doctor Who could turn Looney Toons into a discussion on the sacredness of life and the universal right to free will.

I'd be upset about it if I wasn't so darn impressed.

It still lost two stars for general tackiness.

I'm actually still really conflicted about this one.

Read it if you dare.

[Charlotte · Rating 3 out of 5]

The EDAs seem to be either utterly dark or completely mad. This one's the latter. Quite some amusing ideas about incorporating real-world logic into a cartoon world, but as it's actually set in the Doctor Who world it doesn't always seem to work. Still, amusing read, if absolute bonkers.

[Thedoctor Withrosetyler · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a bit too weird for my taste, with its non-humanoid, twisted-reality cartoon characters. If you could get past that, though, the plotting was very suspenseful, and truly horrifying. A little too horrific, for my taste, actually!

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Eighth Doctor lands on cartoon world. Not quite as funny as it sounds, it goes much more deeply into how the Doctor and his companions affect the world and society more than they realize.

[James Hornby · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quite possibly the most unique book I've ever read. Saturday morning cartoons will never be the same again, but somehow I won't miss that.

[Christopher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating and entertaining story, with an interesting layer of darkness. More than just Doctor Who meets saturday morning cartoons.