The novel “Bloodlines: Home Fires Burn” by Gareth Madgwick was published for the first time in 2019.
Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart is taken from the normal space-time continuum by an entity who explains that he’s the Guardian of the Quantum Realm and needs him as an agent because he can’t operate directly in the physical universe. Now that there’s no one left to watch over the integrity of time, serious dangers are emerging due to interference in the timeline that could cause serious damage.
Professor Edward Travers has been sent to investigate strange events that may be caused by new Nazi weapons but he finds himself involved in the disappearance of a village child. Eileen Le Croissette is sent undercover to investigate a factory engaged in the British war effort which is using far too many resources that aren’t producing new weapons.
The Lethbridge-Stewart series tells the adventures of the character who became famous in the “Doctor Who” TV show when he works without the Doctor. The stories start from the period immediately following the debut of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart in the TV show and then extend the period covered. These stories include some characters that appeared in the TV show, some invented for other productions connected to it, and others that were created specifically for these novels.
After the publication of several books that told self-contained stories that sometimes contained references to previous short stories and novels, the Lethbridge-Stewart series focused more on story-arcs. The Bloodlines mini-series focuses on stories that mix references to the television saga and this book series, which focuses on the Lethbridge-Stewart and Travers families.
In this first book of the Bloodlines mini-series, Alistair Lethbridge-Stewart only appears at the beginning when he meets the Guardian of the Quantum Realm. In the classic “Doctor Who” series, two Guardians of Time appeared and various literary works connected to the saga added more Guardians.
The real protagonist of “Bloodlines: Home Fires Burn” is Professor Edward Travers, a character who met the Second Doctor and appeared several times in the Lethbridge-Stewart series. Another important character in this novel is Eileen Le Croissette, a real woman whose role in this story seems consistent with what she did during World War II. Candy Jar, the publisher that runs the Lethbridge-Stewart series, also published the autobiographical books chronicling Eileen Le Croissette-Younghusband’s story and experiences. In the novel, her path crosses with that of Matthew Stewart.
“Bloodlines: Home Fires Burn” is a story that exploits the idea of danger for the timeline to develop themes related to war, the weapons that are used in a war, and the consequences, including the very long-term ones, of the choices made by the parties fighting each other. The events of World War II intertwine with those of an interstellar war fought in the future that left very serious consequences even after generations.
The plot is full of events with twists and revelations but all this is used to develop especially ethical and moral themes. The points of view and motives of the time travelers offer food for thought. Various discussions between characters offer different angles of the various problems under consideration which give a broad vision, and in my opinion, they’re the greatest merit of this novel.
The complexity of “Bloodlines: Home Fires Burn” is perhaps too much for the limited length of the books in this series but in my opinion, Gareth Madgwick handles the various elements well. The result seemed to me a good mix of action and reflections in a story that uses characters and other elements connected to “Doctor Who” but is easy to understand to readers who are not very familiar with this saga. The novel has an ending but is part of a mini-series and therefore part of a bigger story, so I recommend it to anyone who wants to engage in reading various interconnected works with different plots and subplots.
