Lungbarrow (novel)

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Lungbarrow was an original Doctor Who novel written by Marc Platt as an expanded adaptation of his unproduced television story of the same name. 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, was 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

In a prologue, the Other stands on the Omega Memorial watching riots across Gallifrey shortly after Pythia's Curse. He contemplates suicide, but is stopped by the Hand of Omega. He decides on another plan to leave Gallifrey. Later, a young Doctor is up to mischief during a tutoring session with Badger; he distracts his tutor and runs outside.

Under Andred's command as Castellan, a young captain, Jomdek, is sent to Surveillance Actuary Hofwinter to send a classified transduction order. The datacube is intercepted, but Jomdek and Hofwinter report that it has been sent as instructed.

Ace, now living in 19th century Paris and going by Dorothée, is intercepted on her time-travelling motorbike and encounters what appears to be an exact duplicate of herself, who claims to be "Ace," not Dorothée, and is aiming a gun at her. They talk, and end up reminiscing about various identical life experiences, but "Ace" seems remarkably focused on learning more about the Doctor. Dorothée points this out, and "Ace" vanishes.

Andred fields questions from Almoner Crest Yeux about President Romana's whereabouts, to which he claims she is simply unavailable. In truth, Andred does not know where Romana has gone. Leela and her K9 visit Andred's office to tell him that they've found a data anomaly. Six hundred and seventy-three years ago, one of Andred's cousins, Redred, was sent on a mission to the House of Lungbarrow, where both he and the House itself went missing. Their conversation is interrupted by a call from Romana asking where her transduction order went, as the "guest" she was expecting never arrived. She claims that "everything" depends on the negotiations she is currently engaged in.

Yeux speaks to Jomdek, revealing that he is the one who intercepted the transduction order, which retrieved Dorothée.

Back in Andred's quarters, K9 informs Leela that all record of Lungbarrow's existence has been deleted. Leela never informed Andred that Lungbarrow was the Doctor's home.

Meanwhile on the TARDIS, Chris Cwej is experiencing nightmares. The Seventh Doctor finds him asleep in the bath. Chris tells him about his nightmare, which included a group of women reciting "eighth man bound", though he had not previously encountered the chant. The Doctor dismisses the dream, revealing nothing of what he might know about it.

In the House of Lungbarrow, Cousin Arkhew climbs into the clock in an attempt to find Quences's will. Owis, looking for food, encounters Glospin, who teases and scares him about the House Drudges and skinless skulls. Owis frames Glospin for stealing food, and the Drudges take Glospin away while Owis retreats to Innocet's room. Innocet is building a card tower, while Jobiska is waiting to play the board game Sepulchasm with Arkhew. Owis plays with her instead. The Doctor's TARDIS arrives in the House, restarting the clock and trapping Arkhew in it, as well as toppling Innocet's house of cards.

Chris and the Doctor exit the TARDIS, with Chris curious and the Doctor reluctant. Chris touches a cobweb, which sends him into a shared vision of the past with Arkhew. He sees the cousins of Lungbarrow preparing for Quences's Deathday. Two Cousins discuss who they think might inherit the House, with a leading contender being Glospin. They suspect that Glospin's job title of "cellular eugenicist" is a cover for a position in the Celestial Intervention Agency. They are confused by the presence of Owis, who is apparently the Doctor's Replacement, though the Doctor has not died. If the House has loomed more than its allotted 45 Cousins, it could mean a great scandal. Innocet confronts Glospin about documents he is intending to send to the Chapterhouse regarding the Doctor's claim to membership of the House. Quences refuses to read his will (and therefore, refuses to die) until all of his cousins are present (until the Doctor is present). Housekeeper Satthralope, in keeping with this wish, seals the House closed with all cousins inside and buries it under Mount Lung. Chris sees the First Doctor stab Quences. Glospin regenerates, and Satthralope convinces the House and herself that Quences is not dead, but in stasis.

Leela has K9 use Andred's security codes to access more restricted records on the Doctor, which alerts Yeux and the CIA. She is arrested. When she is questioned (mostly about the Doctor), chancellor Theora attempts to get her released, but finds the CIA's operations to be out of her and Romana's control, even when Romana apparently arrives in person. As Theora leaves, the capitol is bombed.

Innocet, learning about the bet between Owis, Arkhew, and Glospin to find Quences's will, sends Owis out to find Arkhew. Innocet encounters Cousin Rynde, who tells her that Cousin Maljamin has "gone away" like the rest of their Cousins.

Chris reawakens to the Doctor and the TARDIS missing. He finds a note telling him to stay put, but leaves to find the TARDIS anyway. He finds the Doctor in the kitchens. The Doctor claims not to know this place. Chris keeps hearing voices that the Doctor does not. They separate again, and Chris finds Glospin (wearing a different face than in the dream) imprisoned in an oven by the Drudges. Chris makes a few attempts to free him, at which point the Doctor returns and Glospin immediately recognizes him. Glospin and the Doctor argue, and Glospin reveals that it is Otherstide, the holiday commemorating the banishment of the Other and the exact anniversary of Quences's Deathday. After some small amount of begging, the Doctor gets Glospin out of the oven.

Innocet finds Owis talking to Maljamin, who has climbed into a chimney in an attempt to see the sky. She tells Owis to watch Maljamin and ensure he does not leave.

The Doctor, Chris, and Glospin find the TARDIS webbed to the ceiling of the main hall. Innocet arrives and confronts the Doctor just as he discovers that it is not, in fact, nighttime, and that it is dark because the House has been buried. Innocet tells the men that Arkhew has been murdered.

Theora and Romana, who had projected a hologram of herself earlier, call and discuss the bombing; while there was only one casualty, they determine that it was targeted at the Tharil embassy and cannot determine its source.

Andred, Romana's K9, and Leela's K9 rescue Leela and Dorothée from CIA custody. They are taken to the Presidential quarters to speak with Romana (again a projection).

Glospin goes to speak to Satthralope, who has not left her chair in decades. After being informed of the Doctor's presence, Satthralope sends the Drudges after him, but he and Chris are protected by Innocet officially inviting them as guests in accordance with the laws of Housepitality. Chris continues to have visions and nightmares of the Doctor's memories. Back in Innocet's room, Maljamin, who has been tied to a chair, attempts to escape, and Innocet eventually lets him without giving the Doctor a clear answer as to where he and the rest of their cousins have gone.

Unrest grows in the Panopticon about Romana's absence, which Lord Ferain and Yeux of the CIA take as an opportunity to seize power. Ferain calls for Romana's impeachment. Leela, Romana, and Dorothée talk while in a projection that looks like an impressionist painting. Romana tells the two humans that Gallifrey must change if it is to survive, and the Doctor is a key factor in this. She sends the two of them to the House of Lungbarrow to find the Doctor.

Innocet takes Chris to see the last family portrait, confirming that the person he saw kill Quences was, in fact, the Doctor. Chris has a vision of Quences banishing the Doctor from the House and revoking his name. Satthralope and Glospin confront the Doctor in person. Satthralope wakes the house against Glospin's wishes. The Drudges try to escort the Doctor to the library for imprisonment, but encounter Rynde and Owis along the way. Innocet and Chris find the Doctor as well. The Drudges try to detain the Doctor again, but Badger appears and defends him.

Back in Innocet's room, she and the Doctor play Sepulchasm while Chris has more visions of the Doctor killing Quences. The Doctor and Innocet discuss how the Doctor's old room has been rendered inaccessible by a lagoon flooding that wing of the House, likely caused by an experiment left by the Doctor. The Doctor also explains to Chris that his visions are being caused by the TARDIS rerouting the Doctor's subconscious to Chris's mind, as the Doctor's mind cannot contain all of his memories anymore. He also hypothesizes that this is why they ended up at the House in the first place.

Innocet, a talented telepath, proposes that Chris allow her into his mind to access the Doctor's memories and clear his name. The first memory they view does indeed show the Doctor stabbing Quences, but the second shows the Doctor somewhere else entirely shortly before the murder. He is in an office in the Capitol when the Hand of Omega enters his office, pestering him. Then, Glospin visits, informing him of anomalies in the Doctor's genetic coding that would imply he is not from Lungbarrow's genetic material. He intends to share this information with the Prydonian Chapterhouse in hopes of having the Doctor removed from the House legally. The Doctor denies this, and drafts a letter of his own informing the Chapterhouse of Owis's looming. He then uses energy from the Hand of Omega to activate and steal a Type 40 TT capsule.

Innocet accepts that the Doctor couldn't have been at the House when Quences was murdered. The Doctor encounters Quences's ghost, who again expresses disapéointment that the Doctor did not follow his wishes.

The Doctor and Glospin play Sepulchasm; the Doctor finds Quences's will in the Sepulchasm board.

Leela and Dorothée arrive in the House. They find Redred held in stasis in the House's sabotaged transmat chamber. The Drudges use Dorothée's groceries (still on her bike from before she was taken in) to make an Otherstide feast. At the feast, the House performs a puppet show reenacting the banishment of the Other. Chris, haunted by the Doctor's thoughts, has an outburst at the play, claiming it is inaccurate; Glospin again accuses the Doctor of being an infiltrator in the family. The Doctor asks for Innocet's help in finding his TARDIS. She refuses, saying that she can no longer trust him. The Doctor says he is no longer bound by Lungbarrow's rules, as he has been disinherited; Satthralope says that that cannot be confirmed until the will has been found. The Doctor procures the will and threatens to "wake Quences up." Badger releases Redred from stasis, who still believes it is the same day he arrived. Redred reveals that he had, upon arriving, delivered an edict from the Prydonian chapterhouse that Lungbarrow, having been found guilty of looming an additional cousin, has five days to appeal the decision before it is excommunicated from the chapter. This is, the Doctor suspects, why the transmat booth was sabotaged.

The TARDIS falls from the ceiling. The Doctor deactivates the hologram over Quences's "stasis chamber," revealing a picked-clean skeleton to the House. Satthralope loses control of the Drudges, who begin guarding the coffin. Redred reports that the Doctor's TARDIS is the same one that had been reported stolen "last night" (the night before Quences's Deathday). Glospin, revealing his CIA status to Redred, claims that the Doctor killed Quences and is not truly a Cousin of Lungbarrow. He encourages Redred to try and get into the Doctor's TARDIS for evidence.

Jobiska follows the other missing cousins while Chris becomes overwhelmed by the Doctor's subconscious; they both go to the flooded north annex together. Innocet, overwhelmed by these events, follows them, and the Doctor tries to stop her. A creature in the water (an experiment left behind by the Doctor) attacks both of them. The Doctor manages to get them safely to the other side of the lagoon, but Innocet does not want him following her. When Badger arrives to protect the Doctor, she attempts to run, and then threatens the Doctor with a sword. Badger fatally wounds Innocet. As she dies, she tells the Doctor that she did not want the House to know where the other cousins were. She tells him that they are all waiting for him in his own room. The Doctor finds a deep pit in his room that Chris, haunted and delirious, stands over. The Doctor cuts off Innocet's hair, which she had been growing and wearing on her back since the House was buried, and uses it as a rope to get down. He finds his Cousins all in a cavern at the bottom of this well, now surrounding Chris. The Doctor takes back some of his subconscious from Chris and feels all of his Cousins' hate for him at once.

At the lagoon entrance, Leela and Dorothée are discussing whether to follow the others when Romana arrives, this time in person. She is here on the run, having nowhere else to go after Ferain took over the capitol. The lost Cousins emerge from the north annex, and the House produces a bridge for them to cross the lagoon. Chris follows, carrying a beaten Doctor and enacting the Doctor's persona, Scottish accent and all. The Doctor rambles about Eighth Man Bound, saying that he could never see past his seventh regeneration and that he believes it is truly the end for him. Innocet, regenerated and weak, emerges as well. She, with the help of the Doctor's companions, attempts to enter his mind and save him, but can only successfully enter through Chris.

After seeing all of the Doctor's previous regenerations and an encounter with Time, the companions see the Other on the Omega Memorial (the same scene from the prologue). The Other goes to the city slums, where he visits Mamlaurea and his granddaughter, Susan, telling them to leave for Tersurus. Susan says she will be waiting for him.

In another flashback, the Other has a confrontation with Rassilon. The Other expresses disappointment at Rassilon's styling of himself as a god, then leaves. Rassilon orders all exits from the planet sealed. Glospin enters the vision, having found the companions. Everyone seeing the vision sees the Other enter the central progenitive chamber, dispersing his body into the loom data of Gallifrey.

They then see the First Doctor shortly after stealing his TARDIS. He has landed in the old days of Gallifrey, exactly a year after the Other's disappearance. The Hand of Omega leads him to Susan's place, where she immediately recognizes him as her grandfather. She was unable to leave due to Rassilon's closure of the spaceports. Though he does not know how, the Doctor knows her name. The two leave in the TARDIS, and the visions end.

When the group wakes up, Ferain and a number of CIA soldiers have them in custody and place them under "House arrest." Chris's mind has cleared, and the Doctor is healing. He says he has "jettisoned" his subconscious. The Doctor gives Dorothée canisters of nitro-9 that had been in his pockets since they were travelling together. They return to the main hall, where the returned Cousins are rummaging through the Doctor's belongings from his TARDIS. The Doctor enters the TARDIS and disables it, preventing anyone else from entry.

In the commotion, Leela and Dorothée sneak away to the kitchens. They prepare to detonate the nitro-9 to unbury the House. Dorothée notices that Leela is pregnant. A Drudge attacks them, but a creature from the Doctor's room enters and fights it off. Leela paralyzes the creature with a janis thorn.

The Doctor challenges the accusations against him. Satthralope enters, now having lost control of her own mind and speaking directly for the House. She still insists that Quences is asleep, not dead. The Doctor calls the House as a witness in the impromptu trial against him. Chris testifies, describing the Quences's murder as he saw it. Glospin claims that he was regenerating at the time of the murder and that Satthralope personally nursed him through the rebirth. The House denies this, claiming that regeneration is a private process. Only the loom records regenerations, and the House reveals that Glospin regenerated two separate times on that day. In his earlier fight with the Doctor, he sampled some of his DNA, and used it to regenerate into an identical form before regenerating into his current body. After it is proven that Glospin killed Quences, Owis admits to killing Arkhew on Glospin's orders. The House begins to crumble under proof that Quences is dead. The Doctor gives Quences's will to Badger, which summons Quences's ghost. Quences reveals that his murder had been predicted to him, and he had purposefully had his mind transferred to Badger instead of the Matrix. Quences confirms that his chosen successor is, indeed, the Doctor. Leela and Dorothée return to the main hall just as the charges detonate.

Everyone except the Doctor, Glospin, and Satthralope are able to escape the collapsing House. Romana orders the Doctor to retrieve the House loom data and keys, which he does. Chris returns into the House to save the Doctor; they escape in the TARDIS.

The Doctor gives the House keys and loom data to Innocet, proclaiming her Housekeeper. Romana promises that Lungbarrow will be reinstated as a Prydonian House and that a new House will be grown from the original template. Romana reveals that the negotiations she has been preoccupied with are with the Sisterhood of Karn, bringing the potential end of Pythia's Curse. Leela and Andred's child will be the first naturally born Gallifreyan child of the new era. The High Council has been calmed by Romana's return, and Ferain allows her to remain in power should she send the Doctor on the mission he intended for her: retrieving the Master's remains from Skaro. Chris decides to leave the Doctor, stating that he might return to Bernice Summerfield. The Doctor leaves everyone to their promised futures.

Characters

Flashback / In-memory characters

Other Time Lords

The Doctor's cousins

Worldbuilding

Books

The Doctor

Gallifreyan culture

Gallifreyan lifeforms

Gallifreyan locations

Gallifreyan technology

  • Looms create new Gallifreyans.
  • The Hand of Omega befriended the Doctor because it sensed the Other's essence in him.
  • The Time Vortex is red when travelling forward in time and blue when travelling backwards.

Gallifreyan organisations

Individual Gallifreyans

Plants

Planets

Species

  • President Romana is successfully negotiating with the Tharils.
  • Romana did not attend the reception for the Chelonian envoy.
  • Fledershrews are present in the House of Lungbarrow.

Relatives of the Doctor

Notes

  • Lungbarrow wrapped up the last of the continuity of the New Adventures and put the Doctor on course to gather the Bruce 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. Future Seventh Doctor novels would be released under the BBC Past Doctor Adventures line.
  • The Seventh Doctor's last words in the Virgin New Adventures series are; "Dorothee! I just remembered. I haven't been Merlin yet!"
  • 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. Additionally, as part of Virgin's Black Lace erotic novels, the novel The Stranger (written by Portia Da Costa) centred around an individual called "Paul Bowman", who, by the author's own admission, was based upon the Eighth Doctor. The events of the novel were notably later mentioned in PROSE: Father Time and The Gallifrey Chronicles, thus unofficially making The Stranger a part of the DWU, albeit with a minor dating discrepancy.
  • This novel, however, was 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 claim that Time Lords are born fully mature, never having a physical childhood, has been contradicted by several pieces of media.
  • In the television story The Time Monster, the Third Doctor tells Jo Grant a story regarding when he was a "little boy".
  • In all versions and adaptations of Shada, Romana II recalls having owned a Gallifreyan nursery book when she was "a time tot".
  • In the television story The Sound of Drums, the Master is shown as a child in a Time Lord ritual. The Tenth Doctor specifically mentions that before this ritual "[the c]hildren of Gallifrey [were] taken from their families [at the] age of eight to enter the Academy". The television story The End of Time reuses footage from Drums while the Master's childhood is discussed. In The End of Time, the Chancellor refers to the "simple task" of the four beats of a Time Lord's heartbeat being transmitted back in time and implanted into "the Master's mind as a child".
  • The Eleventh Doctor has a cot, seen in the television story A Good Man Goes to War, which he claims to have once slept in, and an incarnation is shown as a young boy in the television story Listen, in which he is described by a Gallifreyan man as "that boy".
  • In the television story The Girl in the Fireplace, Reinette describes the Doctor as having a "lonely childhood" and being "[s]uch a lonely little boy" while she looks inside the Tenth Doctor's mind. In TV: The Empty Child, the Ninth Doctor himself similarly remarks that he knows what it's like to be the "only child left out in the cold".
  • The Ninth Doctor agrees with Doctor Constantine's remark of being a "father and grandfather" in the television story The Empty Child, the Tenth Doctor recounts being "a dad" or "a father" in the television story Fear Her and The Doctor's Daughter and his twelfth incarnation mentions his "dad skills" in Listen. In the television story The Witch's Familiar, Missy mentions a daughter from "the olden days on Gallifrey". In the television story Hell Bent, the Twelfth Doctor mentions how the Doctor "stole" the moon and the President's wife, before correcting himself to say that was a lie from the Shobogans, and she was actually the President's daughter, and the moon was lost.
  • The television movie Doctor Who has the Eighth Doctor remember being with his father and The End of Time also has the Saxon Master asking the Tenth Doctor if he remembered the land on the slopes of Mount Perdition the Master's father owned.
  • In the television story Death in Heaven, the Twelfth Doctor recalls running together with the Master when the Doctor was "little".
  • In the television story Heaven Sent, the Twelfth Doctor recounts a memory from when he was a "very little boy" about a woman who resembled the Veil, which gave him nightmares for years.
  • A second edition of Lungbarrow, featuring both additions to and subtractions from the original text made by the author and accompanied by author's notes and new illustrations by Daryl Joyce, was released by BBCi as an e-book on the official Doctor Who website on 22 August 2003. It became inaccessible in 2010.
  • The Houses of 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 as 60 of 61 refers to the publisher's intended order, which ultimately was not the actual order of publication. Because of chronic delays troubling Ben Aaronovitch's So Vile a Sin, eventually finished by Kate Orman, it was actually the 59th New Adventure published.
  • Marc Platt has stated that had he worked on the book today he would have done a number of things differently that it would have resulted in a drastically different novel. He had attempted to regain the rights to the novel so that Big Finish could adapt it but owed a massive sum of money in back taxes that it became impossible stating "I should have kept an original copy around since it would have more than likely have paid for the rights single-handedly."[source needed]

Continuity

Illustrations

The e-book version published by the BBC on their website included a new cover and seventeen additional illustrations by Daryl Joyce, some with multiple versions. Titles of illustrations are as they were on BBC's site.[3] Daryl Joyce remade the chapter 22 image in 2012.[4]

External links

Footnotes