Lungbarrow (novel)

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Lungbarrow was an original Doctor Who novel written by Marc Platt. Published in Virgin Books' New Adventures range, it was the last of that range to feature the Seventh Doctor.

It is considered the final novel under any banner to feature the Seventh Doctor as the "current" Doctor, although McGann's Eighth Doctor had already made his televised appearance by the time the novel was published. Due to a publication delay, however, an earlier-commissioned novel, So Vile a Sin, also featuring the Seventh Doctor, would be published later (although it takes place earlier than Lungbarrow in continuity). One additional Eighth Doctor novel would be published under the Virgin New Adventures banner before the series was handed over to Bernice Summerfield.

Publisher's summary

"Nonsense, child," retorted the Doctor. "Grandfather indeed! I've never seen you before in my life!"

All is not well on Gallifrey. Chris Cwej is having someone else's nightmares. Ace is talking to herself. So is K9. Leela has stumbled on a murderous family conspiracy. And the beleaguered Lady President, Romanadvoratrelundar, foresees one of the most tumultuous events in her planet's history.

At the root of all is an ancient and terrible place, the House of Lungbarrow in the southern mountains of Gallifrey. Something momentous is happening there. But the House has inexplicably gone missing.

673 years ago the Doctor left his family in that forgotten House. Abandoned, disgraced and resentful, they have waited. And now he's home at last.

In this, the Seventh Doctor's final New Adventure, he faces a threat that could uncover the greatest secret of them all.

Plot

to be added

Characters

Flashback / In-memory characters

The Doctor's Cousins

References

Books

The Doctor

  • The Doctor was nicknamed "Snail" and "Wormhole" by his cousins (because he has a bellybutton).
  • Before leaving Gallifrey the Doctor worked in the Bureau of Possible Events as a Scrutationary Archivist.
  • The Doctor departs Gallifrey for a final mission to Skaro as requested by Romana.

Gallifreyan culture

Gallifreyan lifeforms

Gallifreyan locations

Gallifreyan technology

Gallifreyan organisations

Individuals

Individual Gallifreyans

Plants

Planets

Species

Relatives of the Doctor

  • He was the the 422nd Kithriarch of Lungbarrow and served as Ordinal-General of the Brotherhood of Kithriarchs (head of the Houses of Gallifrey).

Notes

The "cover" for the e-book version of Lungbarrow. (Art by Daryl Joyce)
  • Lungbarrow wrapped up the last of the continuity of the New Adventures and put the Doctor on course to gather the Master's remains from Skaro, as depicted in the 1996 Doctor Who television movie. It is also one of a number of the New Adventures which is hard to obtain and is often seen on auction websites such as eBay at prices many times the original cover price.
  • Before losing their license to BBC Books, it had been announced that the Seventh Doctor's adventures would have continued in periodic Missing Adventures releases, with the Eighth Doctor taking over the NA line. Ultimately, only one Eighth Doctor novel was published and the MA line came to an end before any Seventh Doctor releases could occur (although future Seventh Doctor novels would be released under the BBC Past Doctor Adventures line as late as 2005).
  • The novel which followed Lungbarrow, Lance Parkin's The Dying Days, featured the Eighth Doctor. When Virgin subsequently lost their license to print original Doctor Who fiction, they chose to focus on a character from the New Adventures which the BBC did not own, former companion Bernice Summerfield. Lungbarrow serves, in concert with Dying Days, to gradually increase the standing of Summerfield's character, laying the groundwork for the later appearance of the Seventh Doctor's then-companion, Chris Cwej, in Summerfield's own novels.
  • Platt's novel, though, is largely concerned with concluding what was known as the "Cartmel Masterplan". In the final two seasons of the original 1963-1989 run of Doctor Who, the then script editor Andrew Cartmel introduced new elements of mystery into the character of the Doctor. Suggestions of dark secrets that the Doctor might be more than just a Time Lord were inserted into scripts of stories such as Ben Aaronovitch's Remembrance of the Daleks and Kevin Clarke's Silver Nemesis. Had the series not been effectively cancelled in 1989, the following season would have made some of these revelations. Elements of Platt's planned Lungbarrow instead became part of the Season 26 serial Ghost Light.
  • Along the way to this resolution, Lungbarrow ultimately reveals much new information about the Doctor's home world and race, some of which had been hinted at ever since the first New Adventures novel. Many of the New Adventures authors migrated to the BBC Books Doctor Who line and elements of this backstory also made their way into subsequent novels. However, there have also been elements in those novels that contradict it.
  • The novel's revelations about the odd way in which Time Lords reproduce through Looms — and the related suggestion that Susan may not have in fact been his biological granddaughter — have proven divisive in fandom. The BBC Wales production of Doctor Who as well as some EDAs have made references to the Doctor having had familial relationships close to what a human would experience. (TV: The Empty Child, Fear Her, Smith and Jones, The Sound of Drums, The End of Time)
  • In addition, the claim that Time Lords are born fully mature, never having a physical childhood, is contradicted in TV: The Sound of Drums, when the Master is shown as a child in a Time Lord ritual. Russel T Davies explained this by stating that the image of the Master as a child is actually what Jack and Martha are imagining as the Doctor is talking. It is not meant as a literal flashback.
  • A new version of Lungbarrow, with both additions and subtractions to the original text, author's notes and an artwork gallery, was presented as an e-book on the BBC website on 22 August 2003.
  • The Houses that Platt gives Gallifrey are similar to the household featured in Peake's Gormenghast trilogy. Badger, a character who makes his first appearance in Lungbarrow, has much in common with a character in Peake's Gormenghast novella, Boy in Darkness, which originally appeared in the collected work Sometime, Never by Golding, Wyndham and Peake. [1]
  • Lance Parkin on an Outpost Gallifrey forum thread [2] stated in 2005 that the reason the last three books in the Virgin New Adventures range, including Lungbarrow, were so expensive on the secondary market was excessive demand, rather than an unusually low initial print run. However, he also noted that reprints of these books were not allowed, because Virgin's license expired before a second printing might otherwise have been made.
  • The numbering of this book (60 of 61) refers to the publisher's intended order, not the actual order of publication. Because of chronic delays troubling Ben Aaronovitch's So Vile a Sin (which was eventually finished by Kate Orman), it was actually the 59th New Adventure published.

Lungbarrow e-book illustrations

  • Time Bike by Daryl Joyce

    Time Bike by Daryl Joyce

  • Lungbarrow - Dead of Night.jpg

    Dead of Night by Daryl Joyce

  • Lungbarrow - Innocet.jpg

    Innocent by Daryl Joyce

Continuity

See also

External links

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Disccontinuity Guide
  2. ↑ Outpost Gallifrey forum thread (registration required)
v • e
Virgin Books New Adventures
Seventh
Doctor
1991
1992
1993
1994
1995
1996
1997
Bernice
Summerfield
1997
1998
1999
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