In which the spirit is willing, but the flesh - no, honesty compels me to admit it was the spirit

[tree_and_leaf]

Good resolutions about getting lots done this evening, to counteract a slightly faily day (well, I wrote a page and a half, in the end, and finally got tickets for trains abroad, but I wasted an awful lot of time and failed to get to Mass due to a pathetic inability to remember when the evening service started). Alas, they came to nothing, and what I have actually done is read Susan Howatch and continue to speculate about the sheer lunacy that would be a Doctor Who/ Starbridge crossover (otherwise known as Fr Darrow vs the Master).

Worryingly, this has got to the stage of me concluding that it would have to also involve Lewis Hall (pencilled in as the narrator) and the beginnings of a plot, which would include a climactic scene in which Jon Darrow would be in two places at once. DON'T LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, BILOCATION IS CANONICALLY POSSIBLE IN THE STARBRIDGE-VERSE (at least if your surname's Darrow). It would, of course, have to be an AU (for one thing, I can't see the Master trying that disguise twice. Too hard on his nerves; politics is easier than religion).

Of course, it may well not get written at all, and if it does, will probably turn out entirely differently. But my track record is much better at finishing fic which contains clergy, and there are possibilities in inserting Frs Darrow and Hall into The Daemons beyond the sheer unadulterated cracky goodness, because the Doctor is particularly obnoxious, and I don't think he refuted Miss Hawthorne on science vs magic vs faith as clearly as he thought he did....

Comments

[kerravonsen]

You are intriguing me. What is this Starbridge thing?

I don't think he refuted Miss Hawthorne on science vs magic vs faith as clearly as he thought he did....
Write eeet! Write eeeet! There is never enough SF that touches on faith in a non-dismissive manner.

[tree_and_leaf]

Starbridge is a sequence of six novels by Susan Howatch ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susan_Howatch ) set in the Church of England, from the 1930s to the late 60s, centred around the fictional cathedral and diocese of Starbridge*; there are a further three novels set in the 80s at a Christian healing centre in London, in which many of the characters, or their children, from the Starbridge books recur.

They're a slightly guilty pleasure, because the plots are fairly lurid - there's a fair amount of inexplicit sex, some violence, and three major characters are psychic, but the characters are memorable and extremely well drawn, and they're full of interesting and sound theology (Howatch is obviously very well up on twentieth century Anglican thought, but it doesn't feel like an info-dump; in fact, they're unputtdownable).


* which bears a suspicious resemblance to Salisbury, and therefore also to Barchester.

[sashajwolf]

I'd certainly read that! It's been over a decade since I read the Starbridge novels, but I do remember being totally absorbed by them at the time.

[tree_and_leaf]

Well, I've written a page and a bit so far, although thus far it mostly consists of Lewis being rude....