In a broken down church on an isolated planet, Bernice discovers more than she bargained for on her latest excavation. An old crime is uncovered, and Bernice is asked to find out what she can about the culprits. The long-dead victims are surprisingly talkative but they ask for something in return… stories.
Bernice Summerfield
Secret Histories
Mark Clapham has put together a short story collection featuring nine separate and very distinct short stories featuring Bernice Summerfield. Each story is distinct and separate, linked together by a framing sequence that is both unusual and distinctive. Bernice is asked to recount stories about life, memories, and death, to try and stir some recollection and clue about the dead as she uncovers them.
A Game of Soldiers
Lance Parkin’s first story strikes me as the most traditional ‘high sci-fi’ story I’ve seen Bernice in for a while. An alien invader attacks and for once nobody is around with a workable plan to save the day. Events rapidly spiral out of control, and the focus of the story is firmly on the human cost and confusion. The story is told from a human perspective, observing the breakdown of society faced by a situation it cannot retaliate against. Bernice is well written, her reactions perfectly natural for such a bleak atmosphere and an excellent introduction to Bernice’s history. As this story shows, her adventures aren’t all fun and games.
8 / 10
Cooker Island
Whereas the first story shows simple, high concept Science Fiction with human cost, Paul Farnsworth gives a suitably oddball reaction story that demonstrates the importance and endurance of life, even in the most unusual of situations. On an expedition with several other people Bernice discovers an outbreak of household appliances, and a conflict regarding one of her colleagues personal history. This story starts down the Doctor Who approach of taking the mundane and turning it into something fantastic with some beautiful imagery, and then rounds it out with a solid human drama concerning disappointment and family drama.
7 / 10
A Gallery of Pigeons
It’s a slight spoiler to announce that this appears to be a de facto sequel to Jim Smith’s fantastic ‘Adventures of the Diogenese Damsel’, however Mycroft Holmes is inched out of centre stage by the appearance of John Watson. It’s the first story not to feature Bernice as its narrator or central character. It’s a short piece, that wraps itself in a very neat circle, despite the obvious unanswered questions that all time travelling stories generate. An almost pointless run-around, a highly amusing distraction and a brilliant excuse to give Mycroft Holmes more mileage.
7 / 10
The Firing Squad
Eddie Robson retires from being producer of the Big Finish range by personally tackling the story of Adrian Wall, one of the few remaining characters from the larger entourage previously built up on the Braxiatel Collection. Set concurrently with ‘A Gallery of Pigeons’, Adrian faces much a more gruelling, both mentally and physically, challenge than Bernice as he struggles for his own survival across war torn France. Eddie writes a fast moving adventure with short, but directed and well intentioned moments of brutality that reflect Adrian’s character, that is very different from the usual Bernice viewpoint.
8 / 10
You Shouldn’t Have
After Adrian’s introduction in the firing squad this story shows him and Bernice paired together, in a brief amusing hark back to the earlier days when they both worked for Braxiatel. It’s a simple enough idea, highlighting the obvious assumptions that both characters make when faced with an alien tribe. Both characters make outrageous statements and momentarily feel stupid for it. Light and inconsequential, it is exactly what it tries to be.
6 / 10
The Illuminated Man
This piece from Mark Michalowski reflects Peter’s experience, concurrent with the events Benny and Adrian went through in earlier stories. It’s well written and shows a bleak but interesting assembly of characters, members of a freak show banded together for their own survival. It’s interesting to note the angrier aspects of Peter’s personality occasionally bubble to the surface, but actually the story shows his curiosity and detective work as he uncovers the secret of a fellow freak. Perhaps though, as Bernice notes in the framing sequence, the story is only what Peter was willing to recount, and it feels like there’s more to tell. For a story like this though that isn’t a bad thing at all.
7 / 10
Redacted
Presumably Jonathan Dennis has read 1984, because this short story takes a society on the verge of becoming that one and shows Bernice trapped, observing the changeover in horror. There’s some overly simplistic taunting of guards, and no moral ambiguity in what’s happening but for a short story the black and white approach pays dividends to the overall feel.
7 / 10
The Song of Old Man Bunyip
Another time travelling story, and Richard Freeman drops Bernice straight into the history of the aborigine people. Although it starts fairly light hearted and inconsequential, with a brief introduction into a new ‘alien like’ culture from our own history, things take a turn for the worth in a shockingly brief appearance of some White men. From there on it slowly delves into a downwards spiral as Bernice observes the death of something very old and sacred, and a good friend’s mind slowly unravel as he gives up on life. There are some interesting concepts here and I really feel for Adoni, but in a way this feels almost too large to be crammed into a short story.
8 / 10
Turn The Light On
The finale is Nick Wallace’s psychological horror, showing Bernice at her most vulnerable. Stranded, alone, rescued from a near death experience she can only vaguely remember, Bernice begins to wonder who has rescued her and what she was doing. It’s a real page turner that’ll drag you eagerly to the end of the book.
9 / 10
Book as a whole:
These short stories are all suitably different, in both tone and content, giving a very satisfying read. The framing material where Bernice leads from one story into another feels fluid and organic, however my main complaint would be lack of explanation or resolution to the mysterious God Machine that leads the characters into the stories ‘A Gallery of Pigeons’, ‘The Firing Squad’ and ‘The Illuminated Man’.
That is a minor complaint though. As a whole the collection fills out Bernice’s recent life thoroughly, with welcome appearances from both Adrian and Peter, with brief recollections of moments from and before her Collection days. Unfortunately, after some initial promise, the framing sequence struggles to mature into a full story of its own at the end of the book and just ends with a quick, almost too simple resolution. However it serves its purpose, introducing and framing the other fantastic short stories, and there are nine in here that admirably show many of the best aspects of Science Fiction.
7 / 10