An Unearthly Child
Remembrance of the Daleks
Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible
New Adventures Roundup
The Telemovie
Lungbarrow
The New Adventures Roundup Part Two
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An Unearthly Child Remembrance of the Daleks Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible New Adventures Roundup The Telemovie |
Virgin Books Lungbarrow The New Adventures Roundup Part Two |
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| Author | Marc Platt |  |
| ISBN# | 0 426 20502 2 | |
| Published | 1997 | |
| Cover | Fred Gambino |
| Synopsis: After 673 years, the Doctor returns to his place of greatest fear: his home, the lost house of Lungbarrow in the southern mountains of Gallifrey. Meanwhile, Romana's presidency is facing its greatest test, Leela and Andred's futures are uncertain and the Doctor's deepest secrets are forcing themselves out into the open... |
A Review by Matt Michael 24/4/98
"In this, the seventh Doctor's final new adventure, he faces a threat which could uncover the greatest secret of them all..."
And does. Lungbarrow's place in history is assured on three counts -- it resolves the Cartmel Masterplan, concludes the seventh Doctor's adventures, and finally answers the question: Doctor who? Sort of.
It's also a very well-written book, with heavy shades of Platt's Ghost Light (which replaced Lungbarrow in Season 26) running through the story -- a tale of the Doctor's return to his home, a Gormenghastian nightmare filled with resentful family members. There are candle-lit meals, detectives frozen in stasis and a buried evil in the interior. The overall effect is very gothic.
Platt's characterisation is superb. This is the definitive seventh Doctor of the New Adventures, shaped by his experiences, his mistakes and still haunted by some of his actions. There are a host of well-drawn characters old and new - from Ace and Leela to Innocet and the mysterious Other. But this is the Doctor's book, as it should be, as he finally faces his past.
The revelations at the end of the book answer some of the oldest questions about Who -- we see the origins of the Hand of Omega, the Looms and Susan. Even (shock horror) why the Doctor chose to leave Gallifrey. However when these potentially ridiculous explanations come, they are logical, and far from detracting from the Doctor's mystery, actually add to it.
Lungbarrow is the ultimate New Adventure - beautifully plotted and excellently written, combining the Doctor we saw on TV with the more shadowy figure of the NAs, and without resorting to gratuitous sex or violence. As the seventh Doctor entered the TARDIS for the last time, off on a dangerous mission to Skaro, I could not help but shed a tear. If any Virgin book deserves to be canonical, it is this. Lungbarrow is the best original fiction published in the Doctor Who range. Seek it out while you can -- you will not be disappointed. 10/10
A Review by Shaun Lyon 24/9/99
This is it. This is the book we've been waiting for.
Thirty-four years ago, Doctor Who began in a junkyard in central London with an old man enshrouded in mystery. Over the course of twenty-six seasons, seven subsequent years of authorized original novels, one made-for-TV movie and countless fan conjectures, the layers of mystery surrounding the Doctor have been slowly peeled away... never revealing too much, only asking more questions than satisfying them with answers. We learned he was a Time Lord from Gallifrey, we learned about his people and about his purpose. But never about who he was or why he left. Until now.
Originally written for the twenty-sixth season of Doctor Who, but subsequently replaced with his brilliant Ghost Light teleplay for reasons unknown, Lungbarrow has been brought to print by Marc Platt, arguably the most skilled Doctor Who writer in the collective bunch. His is not a book that beats you over the head with a satisfactory answer; like any good chapter of an excellent mystery, his is a novel that asks more questions than it answers, yet reveals the substrata of a secret long since forgotten. To put it very simply, the Doctor, after a millenium of travels through time and space, has come home.
As the final printed adventure of the Seventh Doctor (let me just say that the book ends with the Doctor zipping off to Skaro to pick up the remains of the Master, and we know where that leads), Marc Platt had some obvious tasks to perform: the running theme of the New Adventures as a whole have been of the Seventh Doctor as Time's Champion. And even so, we know that every Doctor has had at least one story that, above all, is a groundbreaker in reestablishing mythos. What's amazing is that all of these establishing stories are fodder for a very complicated and assuming tale that has the Doctor return to his ancestral home, the House of Lungbarrow in the southern mountains of Gallifrey. He has no idea why he's there; all he knows is that the TARDIS has arrived here, and his young companion Christopher Cwej, still dealing with the events of the past few novels, is having some strange dreams as though he's been here before. The House itself is buried in the ground of Gallifrey... why? That would be telling...
Elsewhere, trouble is brewing. Trusty Ace (okay, Dorothee) has been brought to Gallifrey by a doppleganger. Leela, who has become Andred's consort, is hanging around not exactly certain what's going on, but she's found out some interesting information about the Doctor and his house.... a house that doesn't exist in the central databank. Romana, firmly established by the New Adventures as the next President of Gallifrey, is trying to prevent a takeover by the Celestial Intervention Agency. That leaves the Doctor and Chris stuck inside the house, facing some very colorful characters that the Doctor introduces as his Cousins.
Picking up some of the continuity established in Platt's first NA, Time's Crucible and also from Ben Aaronovitch's novelization of Remembrance of the Daleks so many years ago, Gallifrey is established as a barren world, its people robbed by the legendary Pythia of the ability to reproduced. Faced with desolation as a result of sterility, the ancient Rassilon came up with the Looms, genetic manipulators that in effect created the new citizens of Gallifrey. The Doctor believes he is one of the people created by the Loom at Lungbarrow, and to a certain extent he is. Of course, the later TV movie with Paul McGann confirmed that the Doctor was half-human... so where does one draw the connection?
Platt is able to carefully weave this continuity in, but is faced with a problem when he has to absorb another facet of established Gallifreyan lore from the books (and indeed, from Andrew Cartmel's "master plan" for the series when he was script editor in the late 1980's). Gallifrey was established as having faced a horrific "old time" (Silver Nemesis), after which a triumvirate came to power: Rassilon, Omega and someone called the Other. Rassilon eventually ruled Gallifrey, Omega was banished to the alternate universe (The Three Doctors), and the Other disappeared with Rassilon's stellar manipulator, the Hand of Omega, a device with a mind of its own. The Other actually entered his code into a genetic loom, and we are led to believe that the Doctor is a reincarnation of the Other, but of course he still possesses the secret of his true birth.
Suffice it to say that by the time Lungbarrow is over, one is left asking many more questions. We know about the Doctor's family and his upbringing, and why his Cousins hate him so; we find out who Susan, his erstwhile granddaughter, is (no, I'm not going to tell you here); and we find out why the Doctor left Gallifrey, and where he went before he came to Earth with Susan. But even better is what we haven't learned: Who is the Doctor?
By the way, this is Chris Cwej's last book, for obvious reasons. Chris stays behind to get to his own adventures, and it's a parting only glossed over at the end of the book; it's such an obvious conclusion to his own personal saga that we totally accept it. More interesting is the discussion between the Doctor and Dorothee at the end, where the Doctor informs her that he'd planned to bring her here to enroll her in the Time Lord Academy, producer John Nathan-Turner's original exit storyline for Ace in the series (as established in Sophie Aldred's hardcover book Ace). Interestingly, Marc Platt is obviously scoffing at that storyline when both the Doctor and Dorothee agree that it would have been completely wrong for her. (One other note: the Doctor, upon his departure, tells Ace that he hasn't been Merlin yet; a reference to Battlefield. Also, we at last have an identity of the Terrible Zodin and find out she's not what we thought she was.)
Lungbarrow is a virtual tapestry of colorful characters, all of whom inhabit the House. The Gallifreyans back at the Capitol are pretty much as cardboard as they were in the series, and Platt obviously intends for them to remain so (even Andred, who isn't in the book very much; both of the K-9's, who do pop up, seem to have more personality than the drippy Andred). The House has the benefit of Innocet, a female Cousin who becomes the Doctor's only ally; Glospin, the maniacal Cousin who stands to gain control of Lungbarrow; Satthralope, the raving old woman in the rocking chair who has been Housekeeper for many years; Badger, the Doctor's old protector; and Quences, former Housekeeper whose death seems to have something to do with the old William Hartnell incarnation of the Doctor himself. And then there is the House itself...
Lungbarrow is, quite simply, one of the greatest New Adventures ever written. It is mesmerizing from start to finish, with political intrigue at the Gallifreyan Capitol to social intrigue in the dark recesses of the House. Like Ghost Light, widely considered to be one of the most complicated Doctor Who stories of all, this is a novel that must be read at least once for the story, then again for some of the nuances. Much of what I read didn't make sense to me until I went back a second time to read (a first for me for a NA, by the way!) and picked up some of the things I'd missed... quintessential, it seems, to a Marc Platt novel where one must peel away the layers of story just like Doctor Who has peeled away the mythos of the Doctor, until we've been satisfied but left with as much of a mystery as we had before. What a success. What a novel.
A Review by Sean Gaffney 29/9/99
Well, here we are at last.
It's a bit difficult to review this one. My reviews tend to be written immediately after finishing the book for the first time, whereas Marc's stuff demands rereading to get the gist of it. So there's a bit of a gap. Nevertheless, Lungbarrow is a cool book. The final Seventh Doctor NA, it purports to reveal everything, but...doesn't, not really.
PLOT: It's Marc Platt. This isn't going to be Keeping Up Appearances. Incredibly weird and complex, with enough Gallifreyan backstory to keep the DWAS in fits for years to come. There was also very little death in this book, something which surprised me.
THE DOCTOR: One final fling, in a rather un-Doctor like appearance. He plays a companion role through a lot of this book, asking what's going on. He also seems genuinely shocked about his origins. Thank god he jetissoned most of it.
CHRIS: All grown up, as the book says. This is a mature Chris that we've only occasionally seen in the books, and he's finally trying to recover from the psychic shock of Sleepy and TRWND. It also leads into a nice setup with the Benny NAs, as he'll be wandering the cosmos too.
DOROTHEE: Y'know, with an egume. Also asks a lot of questions, but luckily the angst is focused on others. I love the scene where she offers to enroll. I think this is the book where she finally realizes just how much the Doctor means to her.
LEELA: Wow. Still recognisably the warrior, but fitting in...as best she can with Gallifrey. Plus, for once, she knows what's going on. And the curse is broken at last. Never knew Andred had it in him. A great reintroduction that makes up for the end of Invasion of Time. This is the way companions should be written bakc in, not as pointless sacrifices to plot. Wibble.
ROMANA: Getting sneaky. Wonder where she got that from. Anyway, it's refreshing to see a Seventh Doctor-ish manipulator as President, especially when you figure out what she's been negotiating.
SUSAN: Well, there's one mystery kind of solved. I'm impressed that she survived on her own for a year. And of course, this confirms that she can grow old and die with David...oh, wait, John Peel's messing with that. Never mind... :-)
OTHERS: I would like to see more of Innocet. A filial sort of relationship that the Doctor desperately needs. The other cousins were OK, I suppose.
STYLE: A little less weird than Time's Crucible, but only a little. Marc knows how to use words to their best effect, and it shows.
An excellent book. Really excellent. And I loved the line about Skaro. I can just imagine John and Jon arguing back and forth about retconning Skaro, suddenly they see Lungbarrow, and Marc's already done it. D'oh!
And the Cliff Richard bit was hysterical.
10/10.
A Review by Finn Clark 27/2/02
Lungbarrow was the capstone of five years of Virgin mythology - all of which was backward-looking. The Other, the Pythia... what happened, what was the truth? What were the Doctor's origins? Gallifrey was placed firmly in the distant past as one of the universe's first civilisations. Perhaps inevitably Lungbarrow takes the Doctor home, to his past and childhood (and beyond). I'm not saying it's an invalid avenue of exploration, but I think this is as far as it could have been taken.
As an aside, I understand this novel was inspired by Gormenghast. I've never read the book and turned off the BBC adaptation in pain after twenty minutes and returned it to the shop (to date the only time I've ever done that with anything). Don't expect comments on how Platt compares with Mervyn Peake.
Anyway, I like the world. I don't quite buy it, but I like it. Semi-sentient Houses fit in nicely with TARDISes and the Hand of Omega, while the playroom imagery is nice. It clashes with every other depiction of Gallifrey ever, though. It's rich, gothic, epic... but unfortunately a bit dull. Love the scenery, shame about the plot. Everyone bar Innocet in the House of Lungbarrow is a waste of time, running around pointlessly and not trying to be useful or achieve anything. The bad guy makes so little impact that one's main reaction to his unmasking at the end is an attempt to remember who he is. (The whodunnit's explanation is clever, though.)
Similarly, all the Old Gallifrey stuff about the Other and Rassilon is more important than interesting. You need to read closely just to get a grip on what's happening. Does it make any difference to anything? So the Doctor is the reincarnated Other, is he? Perhaps. Maybe. Further layers of complication have been added to no purpose that I can see; it's the Gallifreyan equivalent of the War of the Daleks retcon. You gaze bewilderedly, then bugger off in search of something more interesting.
It's prettily written. Those roses from Revelation are back, I see. There's symbolism (says he, presuming) and some wonderful imagination. Marc Platt has a hell of a brain.
However there's also companion overload. Romana, Leela, New Ace, two K9s, Chris Cwej and (briefly) Susan all jostle for story space, some faring better than others. Chris retires from the plot to become a human television. New Ace is... well, she's New Ace. She gets some charming moments, but I was still hoping against hope that Leela would cut her throat and drop her down a lift shaft. Romana gets to be President, propels much of the plot and is far more sympathetic than you'd expect from later 8DA developments. Leela is awesome and the K9s are funny together.
All things considered, the companions work well and carry the story (which is lucky since the original characters would be hard pushed to boil an egg). This book is like Dr Johnson's dog. I admire it, but I can't pretend it gripped me.
Revelations... by Tim Roll-Pickering 28/5/02
The final New Adventure to feature the seventh Doctor is an interesting one, being based heavily upon an unused story for the TV series by Marc Platt. Reading this novel it's interesting to pause and wonder how much of this would have made it onto the television screen back in 1989, most obviously the murder mystery involving the Doctor's earliest incarnation. Of equal importance, if not more so, is that this novel finally reveals much of the so-called 'Cartmel Masterplan' that ran throughout the New Adventures, yet at the same time it leaves many questions still unanswered.
At its most basic level, Lungbarrow is about the environment the Doctor grew up in and fled from. The House of Lungbarrow is truly a terrifying place, with giant living furniture and strange wooden servants called Drudges roaming the place. Even before the House gets buried for centuries it is clearly an unpleasant environment that is best escaped and throughout the book Platt is successful at maintaining this feeling. The rest of Gallifrey that is seen in the present is more mundane and mainly in keeping with previous Gallifrey stories. The plot elements of the CIA trying to force a coup against Romana and the presence of Leela and no less than two K9s would never have appeared in a televised version but they work incredibly well, enhancing the story no end. This novel sees Romana continue her attempts to move Gallifrey away from its isolationist stance and develop greater relations with other worlds, a policy that literally sees fruit at the end of the book...
There is some strong charecterisation throughout the story, with Innocet coming across as easily the most likeable of all the Doctor's Cousins, though there is very little competition for this. It is hard not to feel sorry for her when it appears she has been killed, whilst her coil of hair is an interesting visual touch that many novels would have left out. Glospin is portrayed interestingly and it works since it is not immediately apparent that he is the murderer. However some of the other characters are sketched a little too vaguely, such as Owis who is little more than a coward and over eater or Satthralope who is little more than a bitter old hag. Of the Doctor's companions, Chris is portrayed well as he goes through many doubts about his continuing to travel with the Doctor, whilst Dorotheé is true to her role as 'Time's Vigilante' but also displays some of her Ace characteristics that remind us of her earliest days with the Doctor. Leela comes across well as a savage who has been confined within society for some time, but Romana is used only sparingly and has a far greater role behind the scenes than in the open. Wisely the two K9s are used as sentient computers rather than as talking pets. But it is the Doctor who comes across best. Rather than the all conquering 'Time's Champion', we see a much older and wearier Doctor who is facing death and struggling to find the will to go on. The Doctor's final triumph and then his journey into the future seen in Enemy Within make for a strong ending to this tale.
The plot elements for the story are relatively simple, but Lungbarrow is so much more than a mere plot. The novel's true success comes from the way it presents Gallifrey and especially the House of Lungbarrow and really gives the reader a sense of just why the Doctor became a wanderer in the first place. But it is not for this that Lungbarrow is best remembered, but rather the revelations it contains...
Many earlier New Adventures contain clues and hints about both the Doctor's and Gallifrey's past, but other than Platt's earlier Time's Crucible few give much more than the briefest of hints. Lungbarrow builds on these earlier novels and the TV series and shows us more of Gallifrey's ancient past as well as the Doctor's departure. We finally get to see just what happened to the Other, who came up with the acronym 'TARDIS', how the Doctor was able to escape from the Time Lords' surveillance altogether, just what his links are to his planet's ancient history and the Other and we even get a hint as to just what the faces seen in The Brain of Morbius mean. Yet at the same time we are left with many unanswered questions and it feels as though he have only peeled back a single layer of the mystery, leaving much scope for further questions.
Lungbarrow is a well crafted novel that brings the seventh Doctor's adventures to a close in style. Marc Platt was a sensible choice to write this novel and the opportunity to finally bring the Lungbarrow story to the public. This is a an excellent ending to a long run and deserves to be read and reread many times. 9/10
A Review by Andrew McCaffrey 17/5/04
This is the third time I've read Lungbarrow, and I think it's the first time that I've actually understood most of it. Yes, this is one of the most complicated, detailed and multi-layered books that the New Adventures produced, but ultimately one of the most rewarding. The more one thinks about it, the more there is to appreciate. It's remembered now mostly for the sections set during the Old Time on the Doctor's home planet of Gallifrey and for the return of the Doctor to his ancestral seat, the House of Lungbarrow in the Southern Mountains of Gallifrey (after a mere six hundred seventy-three year absence). Platt continues on with the story that began life in the so-called Cartmel Masterplan and which was further fleshed out in Platt's own Time's Crucible. But Lungbarrow is far superior to that previous NA. On a second (or third or fourth) reading, we already know what the great "revelations" will be, so we can focus more on how we arrive at them. And that's the most interesting part of this journey.
First, as for answering all of the questions about Who the Doctor is... In that respect, all the important speeches go to Leela, who simply argues that the Doctor is a mystery, full stop. Of course, the novel itself does go a little farther than that. We see some critical moments in the Doctor's life before he initially left Gallifrey. But the details are sketchy. Some things we see, other things are left to our imagination. The audience is constantly kept a layer away from the action. The most important questions are merely suggested, and not answered. Why does the Doctor do this? Why does he pick one course of action and not another? What is his motivation? We never get anything like a full picture, which leaves the Doctor with a few secrets still intact. The book sits comfortably, balancing between tying up some loose ends from the past, while offering some hints about what will be coming up in the Doctor's future (namely the Paul McGann movie which had aired about a year before the publication of this novel and contained revelations of its own). To be honest, on paper, I'm not thrilled about some of the answers Platt provides ("Grandfather indeed! I've never seen you before in my life!" Ttpppth!). But I can't fault the book for its imagination or its scope. It's to the book's credit that the things that should have annoyed the daylights out of me didn't really bother me much at all.
And now that I've addressed the point that most discussion concerning this book revolves around I'm going to move on to more interesting topics. Don't get me wrong; the tantalizing "secrets" about the Doctor, the Other and their history are all very interesting, but what I take from this book is mostly its range of storytelling, its superb setting, and its memorable characters. The Doctor's cousins are fascinating. Most Time Lords have forty-four cousins, but we only really encounter six of them, which makes the book much easier to follow than it would have been otherwise.
In fact, I'm having difficulty separating the characters from their setting in my mind. I cannot imagine the House of Lungbarrow without the cousins, and the cousins themselves simply wouldn't work without the overarching support of the House. I'm not quite sure whether to describe the House as another character, or the characters as parts of the House. I suppose I'll have to be boring at this junction and just say that it's a bit of both. Certainly they play off each other; the stranger the cousins appear, the more sinister the house becomes.
Platt's characterization is a gift. Not only for his own creations, but also for the established characters that he's writing for. His Leela is deadly accurate, taking what was a fairly hokey idea (Leela choosing to stay behind with Bland Character #3) and actually exploring it in an interesting way. At times, the number of previous characters he's writing for can feel as though it's about to get out of hand. But Platt manages the Doctor, Chris, Ace/Dorothee, Romana, Andred and two K9s (plus a few Special Guest Villains) in style, although poor Chris spends his last story as a regular having someone else's dreams and flashbacks. No one new to Doctor Who would be able to make heads or tails out of any of this, but then no one new to Doctor Who has any business starting here.
I get the feeling that world-building is something that Platt enjoys doing in his fiction. He's certainly very good at it. The passages involving the workings of the Houses, the Looms, the Gallifreyan rituals, and so on are completely engrossing. Although he's populating Gallifrey with different item, he's using a similar method to the great Robert Holmes, who had an uncanny ability to build up an entire universe by tossing out a few details, painting in some specifics while leaving others to the imagination. It's a rare talent -- one that has served both of these writers well. Platt's prose drew me in utterly, driving up the tension with each passing page, while juggling several items at once while building a fascinating world, and intriguing people.
For me, a good rule of thumb is that if I needed a long time to finish a novel, then it generally means that I was bored or I plain loathed it. But I took my time with this reading of Lungbarrow, happy to drink in the atmosphere and deliberate over the details. I didn't feel a need to read quickly, because I was in no hurry to finish. I knew what questions would be asked, I knew what answers would be offered. I had much more fun stopping to smell the roses. Good-bye, Seventh Doctor; you'll be missed.
Just Who Is The Doctor? by Matthew Kresal 12/10/08
Lungbarrow: The last of Virgin's New Adventures to feature the seventh Doctor that is perhaps the rarest Doctor Who novel ever - and deservedly so! Lungbarrow is an epic conclusion not only to the New Adventures of the 90's but to the seventh Doctor era in general. It is an epic journey into the question at the heart of the series: just who is the Doctor?
Like Marc Platt's TV story Ghost Light, which was an alien invasion story wrapped up in a ghost story, Lungbarrow is a "who is the Doctor really?" wrapped up in a murder mystery/conspiracy thriller. In fact, Ghost Light evolved from what would have been the TV version of this story, which is interesting to note because of some of the similarities between the two. Both stories bring a central character (Ace in Ghost Light, the Doctor here) to a house that hides one of the darker aspects of their past. Here, though, the Doctor is accused of not only causing the house of Lungbarrow to fall into chaos but accused of killing its leader in his first incarnation (the Hartnell one). While it is a murder mystery with the Doctor and his companion Chris seeking to prove the Doctor's innocence, there is also a conspiracy story unfolding on Gallifrey with Romama, Leela, and Ace as the Celestial Intervention Agency puts some plans into motion of their own, which also include the Doctor's past. Yet, while all this is going on, there is a running question throughout: who is Doctor and where did he really come from? By the end of the novel, there are plenty of answers and a few more questions raised as well. It's a complex story that means that unless you have a very good knowledge of the series (or a good reference work like Lance Pakrin's AHistory near by) you may get a little lost. But don't let that deter you.
Platt seamlessly, and epically, brings together elements from the entire history of the series up to that point. There are appearances or references to companions from throughout the New Adventures' run, plus plenty of references to the books and TV stories as well. Here we finally get to see the background of the first Doctor's "granddaughter" Susan and discover how she fits into the entire equation of the series as well. Platt is dead-on in his characterization of each of the TV characters, which helps to make Lungbarrow one of the truest-to-screen Doctor Who novels of all time.
One of the true highlights of Lungbarrow is Platt also gives some much-needed backstory to the Time Lords, their home world Gallifrey and to the Doctor himself. Platt takes back to the founding of Time Lord society to reveal few surprises. We get to see the much-fabled "dark times" of Gallifrey's past and finally meet the mysterious co-founder of Time Lord society known simply as the Other. The Other in fact has a strong connection to the Doctor's past which is only revealed as the novel is coming to its climax in one of the best pieces of Doctor Who writing ever. Plus, Lungbarrow makes a nice intro for the 1996 TV movie as well, making this the last true story for the seventh Doctor. While it is loaded with enough references to make any new fan scratch their heads, this is a novel that any serious Doctor Who fan should enjoy.
It is the broad range of things brought together that makes Lungbarrow the true epic that it is. It is the culmination of the (nearly) first thirty-five years of the series in all its forms. With its answers to some of the show's fundamental questions, to the reappearance of old characters, to the "dark times", the revealing of the Other and the lead-in into the TV movie, Lungbarrow covers a lot of ground and covers it brilliantly. Lungbarrow is an epic story that only a handful of other Doctor Who stories can come close to matching in scope, characters and (for lack of a better word) brilliantness.
Sadly it is (and almost certainly will remain) out of print; a hard copy of this will cost you a chunk of money. Is it worth that chunk of your money? Well worth it, in my opinion, because if you love the series then this is a must-have.