Doctor Who: Lungbarrow (1997)
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).
Marc 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 K-9s (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 items, 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.
This review was originally posted May 2004
