I once had a routine for how to choose the books I would read.  I alternated between an EDA, a PDA, a New Series book and a Bernice Summerfield New Adventure (this was after I had completed the New Adventure and Missing Adventures many moons ago).   I actually had to look online to check which book came before Frontier Worlds in the order (The Taking of Planet 5) because I couldn’t remember the last one I had read.  So picking up Frontier Worlds was a slightly strange experience as, unlike with the Past Doctor novels, there are running themes and character arcs which are developed across the various novels.  The principal one of the run of books Frontier Worlds is part of is all about Compassion.  Fortunately, as I’m reading this book in isolation, the themes are not too strong and it doesn’t lead to a confusing read.

The Doctor, Fitz and Compassion arrive on the planet Drebnar and become embroiled in scientific experiments and company politics stemming from an alien plant called a Raab.  It has landed on the planet and is stranded.  The locals are exploiting the plant and using it to improve crops, defeat the competition and ultimately change their own DNA.  Fitz and Compassion manage to infiltrate one of the main companies, Frontier Worlds, whilst the Doctor flits between them and their rivals, Reddenblak, working behind the scenes to expose the truth.

I found Frontier Worlds to be a bit of a slog.  It isn’t badly written, far from it, and there are some good authorial choices and exciting set pieces, but I found I was taking a long time to finish the book and my lasting impression was one of drabness and a little lack of vitality.  I think part of the issue may be with the character of Compassion.  She is, in contrast to her name, so dispassionate about events that I found it difficult to care.  Fitz, on the other hand, is a character I have liked in many of his previous novels.  He has some fun in this book, working under the pseudonym Frank Sinatra, but ultimately he spends a little too much of the book reacting to Compassion and trying to understand her, which is a fairly fruitless task.  When he isn’t doing this, he is agonising over his relationship with a local woman, who is then murdered, which leads to him agonising over her death instead.  The Doctor is very much in the background of the book and, as I rather like the novel 8th Doctor, this was a little frustrating.

There are some great set pieces though: Compassion and Fitz’s trek through the jungle; the Doctor crashing a flyer into the corporation building’s foyer and then confronting the villain of the piece whilst the employees look on aghast; Compassion’s virtual rifle through the company’s files; the Doctor’s various encounters with a robot defending a weather control platform.

I also liked the conceit of Fitz recounting the story.  Initially it just seems to be Anghelides choice to write in the first person which is fine, and not unusual in these novels, particularly for the character of Fitz for whom we often get an internal monologue.  But here, Anghelides gives it a little twist when, in the last third of the book, we find that all the first person point of view from Fitz is him recounting to the Doctor what has happened whilst the Doctor has been away doing his bit to solve the mystery.  It’s a clever conceit and did make me smile.

The parallels between this story and The Seeds of Doom are quite apparent, possibly too much so, but Anghelides doesn’t dwell too much on the body horror aspect of humans becoming like plants, and spends more time on the internal and external company politics.  Maybe this is another reason why I find it all a little uninvolving as politics, of any kind, tends to leave me cold.

Not the greatest of the books I’ve read but a solid adventure with enough happening to hold the interest.  I’ll be interested to see how Compassion’s character is developed (I know what is coming) but as a character I still find her distance and lack of empathy a little irritating and frustrating.

I quite liked this. Better than Peter Anghelides​' previous EDA, 'Kursaal', in that it wonderfully characterizes Fitz and Compassion as well as the Doctor. The plot itself is nothing novel: evil CEO abusing the environment and alien species for the most basic of evil CEO goals, eternal life and wealth. A classic, really. But hey, it works, even if the resolution was a piece of extremely unrealistic business deal.

The merit of this book is in the characters and in the prose style. It's very dynamic, funny, and vivid. Maybe too vivid, even. Fitz gets to be the narrator for his and Compassion's underground agents subplot working at Frontier Worlds Corporation, and boy does he know how to tell a tale. His descriptions of Ellis, his horrible, disgusting boss and of Sempiter's transformation were so detailed I found myself getting kinda nauseated, and I'm a person that had meals watching 'Hannibal'. If you need any more reasons to like Fitz as a character, him choosing to give himself and Compassion the aliases Frank and Nancy Sinatra certainly count; that reveal got a very honest snort out of me.

As he said he would at the end of last book, the Doctor found a way to give Fitz and Compassion a 'mission' that would force them to cooperate with each other. He really wants Compassion to become a more compassionate (ha!) person, show more emotion, become more human, and believes pairing her up with the painfully human Fitz is the perfect way to go about it. Plus, he's using the TARDIS to filter the signals that Compassion gets to her receiver to protect her from malicious influences, and encourages her to forgo the receiver whenever possible. She clearly doesn't want to, but goes along. It's manipulative, and he's not subtle at all about it. As usual with the Doctor, his hearts are in the right place. On the one hand, yes, she can be heavily influenced by outside forces to behave in certain ways. He wants her to find herself, to find who she is after lifetimes of being bombarded by signals. On the other hand, that's her culture. She's human, but she's Remote. Does he have the right to keep her from the signals? But then again, she chose to travel with him, and he does have to make sure she can be trusted. After all, she can be a liability in their adventures if he can't trust her to be on his side. Complicated stuff, interesting stuff.

Compassion's characterization here is phenomenal. We get why she's traveling with them. She wants to see more of the Universe and to learn, to get more 'facts and opinions', as she puts it. She clearly enjoys (as much as she can enjoy anything) these adventures, and is taking her part in the Doctor's plan very seriously. Its heavily implied that being connected to Frontier Worlds' computers literally nourishes her, and it's clearly the moments when she feels best. Her little Oscar worthy acting moments were a great addition, as they really drive home that Compassion is cold not because she doesn't know how feelings and relationships work, but because she really doesn't give a f**k. Does she even care for Fitz and the Doctor as friends? Not really! As people? Who knows! It's interesting then that she's very loyal to them. She follows the Doctor's plan to the letter even when she's angry at him, and protects Fitz both physically and emotionally during their trek in the forest.

We finally get to spend some relatively quiet time with Fitz after the whole ordeal that was 'Interference'. In short, the Fitz we have now is a 'remembered' version of the original Fitz, rebuilt from Kode by the Doctor and the TARDIS. He tries his best to move on from it. He's here now, and it's not like he can change what's happened anyway. His mother's dead and he has nothing waiting for him in the 60's except maybe the police. At best he has Sam in the 90's. But is that even true? Can he say 'his' mother's dead, when he's basically just a collection of the original Fitz's memories in a completely remade body? He says even his dreams are different, too ordered. We find out here that so is his (and Compassion's, who is also a remembered version of the once human Laura Tobin) DNA. It's human DNA alright, but it's too 'clean', manufactured. Completely cutoff from everything he knew and was, the TARDIS and the Doctor are really all he has. However, he kind of resents, or fears the TARDIS a bit. She brought him back, but what if she changed him? As for the Doctor, well, Fitz has come to care for him and really trust him. There's a nice scene at the start of the book after the Doctor falls from a goddamned cliff (more on that later) where Fitz really just wants to hug him to comfort him, but can't bring himself to do it. Later, he confides to Compassion that he thinks the Doctor only 'tolerates' his presence, that he never chose him as companion. Bullshit. For one, the Doctor invited him to come with him and Sam at the end of 'The Taint'. Maybe out of pity, maybe as someone to be a friend for Sam, but invite him he did. And just very recently he brought Fitz back from the dead. He didn't exactly coerce Kode into going back to being Fitz, but he did strongly encourage it. Side note, there's a parallel here between Kode and Dark-haired Sam from 'Unnatural History': she did not want to, but had to turn back into blonde Sam, while Kode very much wants to be Fitz again. Anyway, Fitz basically feels like he cares for and needs the Doctor more than the Doctor does him.

Another huge thing he has going on here is his relationship with Alura. We know she's gonna die from the second we meet her, fridged as only a 90's love interest can. While Compassion was locked in their mission, Fitz couldn't help but form connections. They were left there by the Doctor for months, after all. Fitz is very aware that once the Doctor comes back he's going with him. He's just having fun with these people on Drebnar; once he's gone, he won't think of them again. 'Frank Sinatra' is just a character he's playing. But poor Alura doesn't know it's all a game. He gets her killed by involving her in his adventure, which he should know by now can get very dangerous very fast. Later, when her killer comes after him, Fitz is put in a classic 'villain is nearly falling to their death, you can save them by grabbing their hand' situation. He makes the executive decision to let go. We can spin it as self-defense, since the guy was trying to kill Fitz and Compassion, and probably would have killed Fitz if he had helped him, but well. Fitz is not happy about it, but doesn't regret it either.

Compassion and Fitz are a great duo. Her no-nonsense attitude is a great contrast to Fitz's, as their polar opposite personalities and strengths make their interactions very interesting to follow. There are several very good scenes with the two of them. Compassion kills Ellis to save Fitz's life, and gives him a very good pep talk about how the Doctor both likes and needs him, since Fitz can see the big picture and the human side of things better than she and the Doctor can. She later reveals in an ice cold tone she said those things because it's 'what he needed to hear'; more of her great acting in display. She doubles down by warning him that the Doctor is not perfect, that Fitz dotes on him too much, and that he should be aware that they're both likes pets to the Time Lord. 'He's got you to sit up and beg, like a well-trained dog. Well, he won't change me.' was a fantastic line. She's very much aware that the Doctor is teaching her morality, and she is aware that she's changing, but as she puts it, she doesn't 'have to let [Fitz] and the Doctor decide what that change is'. Fitz is incredibly frustrated at her, but one thing he does get out of the whole ordeal is that he's glad he's a dumb, normal human with dumb normal feelings, not someone cold like Compassion, even if that means he will get hurt by things like Alura's death in the future.

So, did the Doctor's social experiment work? Hm. Both Compassion and Fitz kill someone in this story; neither breath a word of it to the Doctor. Probably for the best. The TARDIS gets to tell the Doctor (in a very nice dream sequence) what she thinks of his companions: 'The boy hates you for knowing how much he cares. The girl hates you for wanting her to care. They could both be so much more...' I don't know what that means, but it sounds prophetic.

A few more thoughts on the Doctor: I really like his characterization. Anghelides' also did a great job with him in 'Kursaal', and I'm glad he got it right again. In true Eighth Doctor fashion, he gets horribly hurt within the first 20 pages of this story by falling down a cliff and then getting shot. A silly thing that I adored was this bit, when he's hacking into Dewfurth's account.

'Welcome, Mr. Dewfurth', said the display panel.

'Thank you', the Doctor said to the text on the screen, giving it a halfbow. 'I'm very pleased to be here, you stupid insecure system'

He escapes the torture routine (in the 'medical' flavor rather than the 'information' flavor this time) this time by very unexpectedly headbutting Sempiter in the freaking face. Him being livid at Fitz and Compassion for burning down the Darkling crop made for a pretty entertaining scene, starting with this great opening line: 'As plans to hamper the program goes, I'd give it less than one out of ten. In fact, I wouldn't even use vulgar fractions, and believe me I'm in the mood for saying something extremely vulgar at the moment'. Lol.

If I must complain, I'd say Sempiter could have been a better villain. He wasn't really menacing enough, especially after the Doctor escapes from him so easily. The resolution of having the rival corporation, Reddenblak, buy out Frontier Worlds was, as I said, a bit too simple. I'm no businessman, but the Doctor is impersonating Dewfurth with just an ID card and selling his shares of the company to Reddenblak seemed extremely unrealistic. I like how Fitz questions whether Reddenblak is going to be any better than Frontier Worlds was, and I like that the Doctor's answer is just that it was what he could do at the moment to save that planet. What happens now is out of the hands of the people of Drebnar.

The list of pain, as usual, with probably the record for how fast the Doctor gets hurt:

Memory Loss:1 (in 'The Eight Doctors')
Serious Injuries/Near Death Experience:12 (gets vampired 'Vampire Science', nearly drowns in the Thames in 'The Bodysnatchers', bomb+fingers broken in 'Kursaal', electrocuted in 'Longest Day', gets shot + severe blood loss in 'Legacy of the Daleks', nearly squashed by giant hydra in 'The Scarlet Empress', leg broken + slapped around by giant tentacled monster in 'The Face-Eater', stabbed 3 times in 'Unnatural History', electrocuted in 'Autumn Mist', broken arm + more in 'Interference' 1&2, broken wrist + near death in vacuum of space + more in 'The Taking of Planet 5', falls from a cliff + shot here)
Torture:5 (in 'Genocide', 'Seeing I', 'Unnatural History', 'Interference' 1&2, 'The Taking of Planet 5')