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| Author | Marc Platt |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Fred Gambino |
| Series | Doctor Who book: Virgin New Adventures |
Release number | 60 |
| Subject | Featuring: Seventh Doctor Chris,Romana,Ace,Leela,K-9 |
| Set in | Period between The Room with No Doors and the television movie |
| Publisher | Virgin Books |
Publication date | 20 March 1997 |
| ISBN | 0-426-20502-2 |
| Preceded by | The Room with No Doors |
| Followed by | Doctor Who (broadcast and chronological order) The Dying Days (novel) |
Lungbarrow is an original novel written byMarc Platt and based on the long-running Britishscience fiction television seriesDoctor Who. Published inVirgin Books'New Adventures range, it was the last of that range to feature theSeventh Doctor.
When all stories of any media under any banner are listed chronologically, this is the last which features the Seventh Doctor as the "current" Doctor, althoughPaul McGann'sEighth Doctor had already made his televised appearance by the time the novel was published.
His mind occupied with thoughts of his coming regeneration, the Doctor accidentally returns toGallifrey and the House of Lungbarrow, where for over 673 years his 44 cousins have been trapped, but mysteriously only six of them are still left. Meanwhile,Chris Cwej is having strange dreams of the past, when the family cast the Doctor out. The Doctor is accused of the murder of the head of the House, but he finds many allies in the form of former companionsAce,Romana,K-9 Mark I, K-9 Mark II andLeela, who have become embroiled in a Celestial Intervention Agency plot to overthrow Romana's presidency. The secrets of the past are catching up to the Doctor—in particular, the secret that links him to a figure from Gallifreyan history known only as theOther.
Lungbarrow wrapped up the last of the continuity of the New Adventures and put the Doctor on course to gather theMaster's remains fromSkaro, as depicted in the1996 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 aseBay at prices many times the original cover price.
The novel which followedLungbarrow,Lance Parkin'sThe Dying Days, featured theEighth Doctor. When Virgin subsequently lost their licence to print originalDoctor Who fiction, they chose to focus on a character from the New Adventures which the BBC did not own, former companionBernice Summerfield.Lungbarrow serves, in concert withDying 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 ofDoctor Who, the thenscript editorAndrew Cartmel introduced new elements of mystery into the character of theDoctor. Suggestions of dark secrets that the Doctor might be more than just aTime Lord were inserted into scripts of stories such asBen Aaronovitch'sRemembrance of the Daleks andKevin Clarke'sSilver Nemesis. Had the series not been effectively cancelled in 1989, the following series would have made some of these revelations.Lungbarrow began life as a television script, which was rejected byJohn Nathan-Turner on the grounds that it revealed too much about the Doctor and the Time Lords, too quickly. Elements of Platt's plannedLungbarrow instead became part of the Series 26 serialGhost Light, such as the sinister house keeper, the trapped investigating policeman and finale based around the family dinner. If produced, the story would have featuredAce as the main companion and been set entirely within the House.
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 BooksDoctor 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 numbering of this book (60 of 61) refers to the publisher'sintended order, not the actual order of publication. Because of chronic delays troublingBen Aaronovitch'sSo Vile a Sin (which was eventually finished byKate Orman), it was actually the 59th New Adventure published.
Lance Parkin on an Outpost Gallifrey forum thread[1] stated in 2005 that the reason the last three books in the Virgin New Adventures range, includingLungbarrow, were so expensive on thesecondary market was excessive demand, rather than an unusually low initialprint 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.
A new version ofLungbarrow, with both additions and subtractions to the original text, author's notes and an artwork gallery, was presented as ane-book on the BBC website from 22 August 2003 to December 2010.
The Houses that Platt gives Gallifrey are similar to the household featured in Peake'sGormenghast trilogy. Badger, a character who makes his first appearance inLungbarrow, has much in common with a character in Peake'sGormenghast novella,Boy in Darkness, which originally appeared in the collected workSometime, Never by Golding, Wyndham and Peake.[2]
