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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
- Seventh Doctor
- Chris Cwej
- Ace
- Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima (aka Leela)
- Castellan Andred
- President Romana
- K9 Mark I
- K9 Mark II
- Rodan
- Lord Ferain
- Badger
Flashback / In-memory characters
The Doctor's Cousins
References
Books
- Lord Ferain kept a book called An Alternative History of Skaro: The Daleks without Davros.
- The books The Triumphs of Rassilon, The Book of Rassilon and The Record of Rassilon are books that contain interpretations of Rassilon, Omega and the Other.
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
- Sepulchasm is a Time Lord game (and quite possibly a swear word).
- The play Mystery of the New Time is usually conducted during Otherstide.
Gallifreyan lifeforms
- Gallifreyan forests have striped pig bears in them.
Gallifreyan locations
- The Doctor returns to Gallifrey and his house Lungbarrow.
Gallifreyan technology
- Looms create new Gallifreyans.
- The Hand of Omega befriended the Doctor because it sensed the Other's essence in him.
Gallifreyan organisations
- The CIA kill Ace for twenty minutes and upload her memories to the Matrix.
- An organisation called Space-Time Accessions Bureau exists.
- The Ordinal-General does not allow members of the House of RedLooms into the Bureau of Temporal Anomalies.
Individuals
- Leela, now also known as Leelandredloomsagwinaechegesima, is pair bonded to Andred and is pregnant.
- K9 Mark I learns Andred's security codes.
- K9 Mark II has recently returned from E-Space.
- Lord Ferain is part of the CIA.
Individual Gallifreyans
- Andred belongs to House of the Redlooms.
- Rodan is Leela's friend. She has recently been sent on a cross-cultural liaison course.
- Susan's mother died as Pythia cursed Gallifrey.
- Susan was the Other's granddaughter.
- Susan's nanny was called Mamlaurea.
- The Other, along with Rassilon and Omega, was part of the Trimuvate that ruled Gallifrey.
- The Other threw himself into the original Loom.
- Pythia threw herself into the Crevice of Memories That Will Be.
- Omega was lost in the constellation of Ao.
Plants
- Leela still carried janis thorns.
Planets
Species
- President Romana is negotiating with the Tharils and it is going well.
- Romana did not attend the reception for the Chelonian envoy.
- Fledershrews are present in the House of Lungbarrow.
Relatives of the Doctor
- Innocet loved the Doctor. She has telekinesis and telepathy.
- Quencessetianobayolocaturgrathageyyilunbarrowmas (aka Quences) lived for seven thousand years.
- He was the the 422nd Kithriarch of Lungbarrow and served as Ordinal-General of the Brotherhood of Kithriarchs (head of the Houses of Gallifrey).
- Glospinninymortheras (aka Glospin) is in his fourth regeneration. He's 1,711 years old.
- Satthaltrope is Housekeeper to the house of Lungbarrow. She became Housekeeper when she was 302 years old. She dismissed the hermit as he was too expensive.
- Jobiska is old and senile.
- Rynde was Epicurla Overseer to the Dromeian Chapterhouse.
- Arkhew is dead.
- Maljamin
- Farg died 200 years ago.
- Celesia
- Almund
- DeRoosifa
- Chovor the Various
- Salpash is multi-chinned.
- Luton got stuck in the east chimney of the House of Lungbarrow.
- Owis is 675 years old. He was loomed to replace the Doctor. He is considered "quite stupid". He killed Cousin Arkhew.
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 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. The End of Time reuses footage from Drums while the Master's childhood is discussed. The Time Lord the Doctor also has a cot, seen in A Good Man Goes to War. Additionally, Melody Pond is born as a baby who is a human with Time Lord characteristics. Furthermore, she lived to be a young girl and regenerated into Mels due to an unspecified illness, then accidentally regressed to the form of a baby again. This indicates that Time Lords can exist as newborn babies, grow into children and mature to adulthood like other species do.
- 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
- Lungbarrow - Dead of Night.jpg
Dead of Night by Daryl Joyce
- Lungbarrow - Innocet.jpg
Innocent by Daryl Joyce
Continuity
- The hermit that lived on the mountain near the Doctor's home was mentioned in TV: The Time Monster (and more details given in TV: Planet of the Spiders).
- The Sisterhood of Karn debuted in TV: The Brain of Morbius.
- Leela met Andred in TV: The Invasion of Time.
- Romana returned from E-space in PROSE: Blood Harvest, and became president in Happy Endings.
- A lot of Gallifreyan history revisited in this novel first appeared in PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible.
- Romana gives the Doctor her sonic screwdriver, which she built in TV: The Horns of Nimon.
- The Doctor used the Hand of Omega in TV: Remembrance of the Daleks.
- The Doctor goes on one final mission to pick up the Master's remains, leading into TV: Doctor Who.