The novel “The Daughters of Earth” by Sarah Groenewegen was published for the first time in 2017.
Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart’s birthday is approaching and it’s a chance to finally spend some time with his fiancée Sally. In the Scottish Highlands, it’s a snowy period but for the two of them, a secluded cottage can be suitable to be together.
Before he can be with Sally, Lethbridge-Stewart has to deal with UFO sightings that go far beyond blurry photos. Sally leaves for the cottage on her own but ends up in the storm and has an accident. She gets rescued by a group of women and gets taken to a house in the area where the group has a base from which mysterious activities start.
The Lethbridge-Stewart series tells the adventures of the character who became famous in the “Doctor Who” TV show when he works without the Doctor. The stories start from the period immediately following the debut of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in the TV show and then extend the period covered. These stories include some characters that appeared in the TV show, some invented for other productions connected to it, and others that were created specifically for these novels.
The books in this series also explore Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart’s personal life and this also includes his relationship with Sally Wright. This means that you need to read all the books to know the various pieces of that story. That’s also true of Anne Travers, who often assists Lethbridge-Stewart in a role similar to the one the Doctor plays in “Doctor Who” classic series.
“The Daughters of Earth” takes place at a time when the relationship between Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart and Sally Wright is strained because lately, he had to deal with a series of unusual situations that took up virtually all of his time. Even the short vacation they set up on the occasion of his birthday becomes a problem because his job forces him to investigate strange phenomena related to UFO sightings.
A crucial part of the novel is about what happens to Sally when she leaves on her own for the Scottish cottage and has an accident due to bad weather. She gets rescued by some women and she finds herself in what is the base of the Daughters of the Earth, a feminist and pacifist group. On various occasions, the novels in this series connected with the historical events of the time in which they’re set, in this case in particular the feminist movements and the reactions to the war in Vietnam. A dialogue between some characters indicates that the novel’s events begin not long after the first Moon landing, a complicated period from the social point of view.
The plot slowly reveals the Daughters of the Earth’s activities, also thanks to the conversations between Sally and the group’s women. Some activities are initially mysterious and are mainly linked to the group’s leader, whose secrets are slowly revealed. Sally is a corporal in the British Army but because she’s a woman she’s not considered a real soldier and received very limited training compared to male soldiers. It’s one of the cases that remind us how, only a few decades ago, it was normal to consider women unsuitable for certain activities, so they weren’t provided with adequate preparation for them.
Surely there are readers who scowl at a story of this type. The fact that today we’re still talking about gender discrimination already shows how much we still need to continue examining the problem, even through history.
“Doctor Who” was originally produced by a woman, Verity Lambert, who left her mark on the saga. Even in the classic series, there were companions who have left their mark and this has happened from the beginning, with Barbara’s importance. Zoe thought herself smarter than the Doctor, Liz Shaw was a high-level scientist, Sarah Jane Smith is mentioned by writer Una McCormack in the foreword of “The Daughters of Earth” for the influence she had on her life.
The stories of the protagonists end up being the main part of “The Daughters of Earth” with the mystery of the phenomena related to the UFO sighting in the background for much of the novel. Honestly, if you’re looking for a story in the typical style of “Doctor Who”, the one that influenced this series of books, you might be disappointed. If you’re interested in a story with social implications that talks about the past to connect with the present, you will like this one.
