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lesserjoke's review
2.0
This is a fascinatingly weird book, the culmination of a series of adventures that the Seventh Doctor continued to have after the classic run of Doctor Who was canceled as a television program in 1989. When that version of the Time Lord hero was officially succeeded by the Eighth Doctor in a 1996 TV movie, the New Adventures series drew to a close by filling in the final stories of the earlier incarnation. Lungbarrow, the last of these novels, also attempted to answer long-lingering questions about the Doctor's origins and properly canonize the so-called Cartmel Masterplan that script editor Andrew Cartmel had been building towards when the show went off the air.
It's subsequently famous in fan circles, but understandably a bit of a mess. The main plot revolves around the Doctor's titular family home, a Gormenghast-inspired gothic manor of eccentric relations, indoor swamps, and giant living furniture. We learn that Time Lords are created in the "looms" of such houses, a technological process made necessary after the species stopped giving birth countless eons ago. We are also given strong evidence that irregularities in the Doctor's own looming link back to the Other, a shadowy figure of power from the dawn of Gallifreyan history. Around all this there's some good old-fashioned Gallifrey politics, the return of TV companions Leela, Romana, and Ace, two versions of the robot dog K-9, and a ton of surreal madness as Lungbarrow comes to life.
All in all, it's not a very good story. This book is simply trying to do too much, and for a purported conclusion, there's a lot that is left ambiguous, understated, and unresolved at the end. It's still a worthwhile read for a dedicated Whovian looking for a snapshot of the era's mythology, but as an actual reading experience it's more frustrating than enjoyable.
It's subsequently famous in fan circles, but understandably a bit of a mess. The main plot revolves around the Doctor's titular family home, a Gormenghast-inspired gothic manor of eccentric relations, indoor swamps, and giant living furniture. We learn that Time Lords are created in the "looms" of such houses, a technological process made necessary after the species stopped giving birth countless eons ago. We are also given strong evidence that irregularities in the Doctor's own looming link back to the Other, a shadowy figure of power from the dawn of Gallifreyan history. Around all this there's some good old-fashioned Gallifrey politics, the return of TV companions Leela, Romana, and Ace, two versions of the robot dog K-9, and a ton of surreal madness as Lungbarrow comes to life.
All in all, it's not a very good story. This book is simply trying to do too much, and for a purported conclusion, there's a lot that is left ambiguous, understated, and unresolved at the end. It's still a worthwhile read for a dedicated Whovian looking for a snapshot of the era's mythology, but as an actual reading experience it's more frustrating than enjoyable.
coffee_deer's review
3.0
Honestly, this book is such a mixed package.
Is there a great deal of bold, revolutionary ideas that reimagine the canon? Yes, there is. Do I want to consider them canon now that I've read about them? Nah, not really - at least, most of them I don't.
Is the story good? Well, all in all... yes, it is. But it's too overloaded with lengthy bits of nothing and way too many POVs in the first half of the book, more than a half of them being original characters - and, I'm so sorry, not that interesting to me to want to spend so much time with them. Even Leela, one of my absolute favourite companions in the series, felt rather boring here to me... I liked Chris a lot, though, and spent a lot of time waiting for the chapters when he and the Doctor would come back.
I'd say that the way this book is written is somehow ironically reflected in the afterword where the author gives super lengthy and too detailed notes on every chapter in the book. Sometimes, they are interesting - for example, when he tells us that this certain song first appeared in the book by another author. Most of the time - at least, to me - they felt tediously unnecessary. Like, surely you don't have to explain to the reader that the sunny day of the protagonist's childhood should bring back the memories of suchlike scenes in the works by classic authors if you've done your job well?
I don't know, I guess these notes may be precious to someone who likes this book more than I do. To me, even the ending of the story itself took to many pages to actually end.
Is there a great deal of bold, revolutionary ideas that reimagine the canon? Yes, there is. Do I want to consider them canon now that I've read about them? Nah, not really - at least, most of them I don't.
Is the story good? Well, all in all... yes, it is. But it's too overloaded with lengthy bits of nothing and way too many POVs in the first half of the book, more than a half of them being original characters - and, I'm so sorry, not that interesting to me to want to spend so much time with them. Even Leela, one of my absolute favourite companions in the series, felt rather boring here to me... I liked Chris a lot, though, and spent a lot of time waiting for the chapters when he and the Doctor would come back.
I'd say that the way this book is written is somehow ironically reflected in the afterword where the author gives super lengthy and too detailed notes on every chapter in the book. Sometimes, they are interesting - for example, when he tells us that this certain song first appeared in the book by another author. Most of the time - at least, to me - they felt tediously unnecessary. Like, surely you don't have to explain to the reader that the sunny day of the protagonist's childhood should bring back the memories of suchlike scenes in the works by classic authors if you've done your job well?
I don't know, I guess these notes may be precious to someone who likes this book more than I do. To me, even the ending of the story itself took to many pages to actually end.
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