Review: Lungbarrow
When the BBC decided to take Doctor Who off the air in 1989, one of the scripts that would never see production was Marc Platt‘s Lungbarrow. It was later turned into a novel and published by Virgin. The subject matter makes it one of the most sought after novelizations; it tells the story of the childhood of The Doctor.
As a fan, I’ve been looking for this book for years. I did not find out about it until it as long out of print, and I either never had any luck finding a copy at a used bookstore or was unwilling to pay the high prices that collectors pay for such rarities on eBay. Recently, a copy came into my possession and I was finally able to read what is considered one of the most revealing stories in the canon of Doctor Who mythology.
The story revolves around the Gallifreyan House of Lungbarrow, one of the ancient “families” of Time Lord society. Note the quotes: to understand the story, you need to know that, in the continuity of the New Advenstures books (which picked up where the T.V. series left off), it was revealed that, when Rassilon completed his revolution against a Sisterhood who ran the planet, the leader of that Sisterhood cursed the Time Lord: they could not reproduce. The result was that Rassilon and a shadowy figure from the past called The Other created the Looms: new Gallifreyans are woven from genetic material into full grown adults, and this is where regeneration comes from: more lives because they cannot reproduce easily.
The Doctor is a member of the House of Lungbarrow, having been woven from the Looms, but he is odd from the first. The head of the House, Quences, casts him out for his rebellious nature. And thus, the wandering vagabond we know and love was born. Except…when Quences dies, he hides his will…and only the Doctor can find it.
The story has much more going on than the simple plot I outline: this is a rare portrait of the most basic workings of the Time Lords: the family unit. It’s bizarre and twisted, as much Mervyn Peake as Terence Dicks or Russell T. Davies. Sentient furniture, crazy relatives, dark corners and fabulous monsters are all elements of the tale, mostly to good effect. Platt states in his introduction that he wanted the House to be suitably alien and he succeeds in this, but his success is double-edged. At times, it can be hard to follow the action with the need to describe and explain the alien nature of family life amongst the Time Lords.
Complicating this is the subplot which serves to segue into the 1999 Doctor Who Movie. This novel was to be the last of the New Adventures before the Fox movie, and as such, needed to set up the Doctor’s trip to Skaro to retrieve the remains of the Master. The integration of this subplot seems to me to be overly complicated and byzantine, running around the main plot in such a way that it muddies the main plotline.
Overall, if you read this book, be sure to get a copy with the author’s notes: you’ll find them invaluable. As much as I enjoyed learning the story about who the Doctor was and is in relation to his family, without the notes, I would have been lost.
If you enjoyed the mythology of Gallifrey in the days before Russell T. Davies blew it up, you’ll enjoy this book. If you are new to Doctor Who (meaning only started watching it in 2005), you’ll need to get a bit more background in the old T.V. continuity before reading this novel.
I’d never heard of this novel before, but I’ll certainly have to keep an eye out for it now! Some of my favorite stories from Doctor Who are the ones where we get peeks into Gallifreyan society, and I was more than a little peeved that the new series more or less abolished all that. I understand why they did, from the writers’ point of view, but that still doesn’t mean I have to like it. At any rate, a society that is based on mastery of time travel seems to me to be a source of infinite ideas and intrigues, and I’m glad at least that there is more out there to explore.
This novel was the first DW story I ever read- probably several months ago. Suffice to say, the first 70 pages were a real task to get through! I had only a basic background knowledge of classic Who (having dabbled in all Doctors), and hadn’t read any other of the novel series.
But I got through it- and it blew my mind. I love this book so much now. I never realized it was so expensive. If I ever find a physical copy I’ll cherish it forever.