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cecesloth's review against another edition
4.0
Totally not what I expected (a murder mystery paired with a soap opera?!) and a helluva lot less dark/angsty then you'd expect a VNA to be (with a bunch of happy endings to boot!) It sometimes gets slightly bogged down in the masterplan stuff and I'm not sold on the inclusion of both Ace and Leela.
It's a shame that a bunch of the lore got retconned by Big Finish and the children being born into adult bodies is a tad unfortunate and weird. However, the descriptions of Gallifrey (both ancient and contemporary) are just gorgeous and I don't think we'll ever see it realised this well again.
Is this worth the $1000 AUD being asked for on ebay? No way, but I'll definitely be reading this again in the future, I just hope I can track down an original copy instead of an edited ebook.
It's a shame that a bunch of the lore got retconned by Big Finish and the children being born into adult bodies is a tad unfortunate and weird. However, the descriptions of Gallifrey (both ancient and contemporary) are just gorgeous and I don't think we'll ever see it realised this well again.
Is this worth the $1000 AUD being asked for on ebay? No way, but I'll definitely be reading this again in the future, I just hope I can track down an original copy instead of an edited ebook.
eleanorflovver's review
challenging
dark
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
honestly, that was not as bad as i was expecting. but still, what the fuck??? as a story though, it's honestly fine. the plot is interesting enough to support the insane quantity of lore peppered throughout the text, and it's always good to see leela and romana in action with the k9s. the house of lungbarrow as a living, illogical entity is also an idea i really like, along with the development of past ideas like gallifreyan chapters and the elusive hermit. i also love the concept of the other, especially as a consciousness embedded within the doctor. i personally love anything that references the time before time and the founders of gallifrey, and the implications introduced not just by the existence of the other, but by the fact that they live on somehow in the doctor has so much potential, especially with the timeless child.
however, not everything was amazing. while an interesting concept for another society and a good meme, making time lords woven from looms is just a huge no. i know the lore is fluid and all that, but gallifreyan children do exist, and i think should exist within the show because of the empathetic resonance with the audience. also, while the writing was objectively fine a lot of the time, parts of it were convoluted, especially the ace dialogues and chris' dream sequences. and while i love leela, i did question at times why it was necessary to have her there. the characterisation for seven also felt a bit flat in places, which i suppose may be as a result of the subject matter, as well as the fact that lungbarrow is essentially a tv adaptation, but it definitely felt like the story relied on us to know seven and apply that rather than doing the work for itself.
another thing (though this is definitely on me and not the fault of the novel itself) is that quite a lot of the lore is incongruous with big finish, for understandable reasons. while i know the bf owes a lot of initial legwork to vna traction, i was really struggling to consolidate this leela/romana dynamic and also the lack of braxiatel. it's also quite funny to look back to when the cia was just a faceless monolith of vague time lord insidiousness. not in a bad way, but it's just entertaining how times change.
all in all, it's certainly not the best doctor who story, or even the best but id extended media. but i'm glad i read it, if only for the bragging rights.
however, not everything was amazing. while an interesting concept for another society and a good meme, making time lords woven from looms is just a huge no. i know the lore is fluid and all that, but gallifreyan children do exist, and i think should exist within the show because of the empathetic resonance with the audience. also, while the writing was objectively fine a lot of the time, parts of it were convoluted, especially the ace dialogues and chris' dream sequences. and while i love leela, i did question at times why it was necessary to have her there. the characterisation for seven also felt a bit flat in places, which i suppose may be as a result of the subject matter, as well as the fact that lungbarrow is essentially a tv adaptation, but it definitely felt like the story relied on us to know seven and apply that rather than doing the work for itself.
another thing (though this is definitely on me and not the fault of the novel itself) is that quite a lot of the lore is incongruous with big finish, for understandable reasons. while i know the bf owes a lot of initial legwork to vna traction, i was really struggling to consolidate this leela/romana dynamic and also the lack of braxiatel. it's also quite funny to look back to when the cia was just a faceless monolith of vague time lord insidiousness. not in a bad way, but it's just entertaining how times change.
all in all, it's certainly not the best doctor who story, or even the best but id extended media. but i'm glad i read it, if only for the bragging rights.
questionableburrito's review
funny
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Loveable characters? Yes
3.75
andystehr's review against another edition
5.0
Great stuff. I read the online version of BBC's website. I enjoyed the Cartmel master plan. I liked the idea of the Doctor as more than just another time lord.
nwhyte's review
http://nhw.livejournal.com/548403.html[return][return]I felt very much in sympathy with Finn Clark's review, collected by the Doctor Who Reader's Guide: "Love the scenery, shame about the plot." (Downloaded from here.)[return][return]The scenery is indeed fantastic. I love the two K9s coming together as a team - and it occurred to me that the Fourth Doctor left a K9 to all three of his departing female companions, as we will be reminded next year. I liked Leela and Romana, I liked the Seventh and First Doctors, and I very much liked the back-plot of conservatives trying to launch a coup against the new progressive presidency. (Having missed most of Ace's appearances, and all the previous books with Chris, I wasn't so excited about them. And I thought that, especially in comparison with Bernice in Human Nature, Chris' reaction to losing his partner seemed rather minimal.) I even liked the Gormenghastly setting of the House of Lungbarrow itself, though from the architectural engineering point of view it was a bit over the top. (But the Doctor's robot companion was a bit too much.)[return][return]But the plot? Resolution? Meh, not really. If the Time Lords are being woven out of Looms these days (thanks to what sounds like a non-scientific magical curse), how come Andred has retained enough plumbing to reverse the curse and impregnate Leela? I felt none the wiser about where Susan came from; perhaps I missed the crucial passage. Fairly clear that the Doctor is the Other reincarnated; but, in a very real sense, so what? I didn't like the Hand of Omega in Remembrance of the Daleks, and didn't much like it here either. Anyway, entertaining enough.
cjdavey's review
3.0
Often confused and messy, Lungbarrow tries a little too hard to lay out the mythology of Gallifrey. Much of the book is one big infodump, with the result that it's harder reading than most of the novelisations. Interesting, but no more.
d3dmouth_'s review
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
ellen_mellor's review
4.0
This was my first 'New Adventures' novel and, as far as I can tell, the last one before the 1996 TV movie. I have been led to believe that the NA stories got more intelligent and more 'adult' as they went on and this is certainly the case here. With questions about identity, family and racism, the Lungbarrow is surprisingly complex. It also manages to tie, very tightly, into Doctor Who continuity and the TV companions (Ace, Leela, Romand and K9) characters that appear in the story are very recognisable as the characters from the television.
This was available from the BBC website as an ebook - which is a good thing considering that the paperback is going for silly money on Amazon - but has been taken down in one of the Beebs redesigns. It is, however, still floating around out there and Google search* should turn it up in an e-readable form fairly easily.
(*As this book is ostensibly a BBC production, I feel obliged to mention that other search engines are available.)
This was available from the BBC website as an ebook - which is a good thing considering that the paperback is going for silly money on Amazon - but has been taken down in one of the Beebs redesigns. It is, however, still floating around out there and Google search* should turn it up in an e-readable form fairly easily.
(*As this book is ostensibly a BBC production, I feel obliged to mention that other search engines are available.)
mandigolightly's review
1.0
It read like bad a Doctor Who au. The only parts that "felt" like Doctor Who were the Leela, Andred and Romana parts.
fullfledgedegg's review
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0