Professor Bernice Summerfield, interstellar archaeologist, adventurer, romantic and drinker, has had either one very big life or a number of only slightly smaller ones. This anthology contains stories from many times and places across her long career, ranging from the starkly dramatic, through the thrilling, to the hilarious. It links Bernice to her roots, as well as sending her forward into new adventures. And it celebrates a decade of Bernice in print. Cheers!
I might be being harsh here to Terrance Dicks, but its how I came out of this book feeling. I feel bad about writing this but I have to be honest with my opinions.
A Life of Surprises
The Shape of the Hole
This short story quick starts this books ‘on-off’ affair with the Doctor. Although rarely named he looms over this novel in a way he hasn’t in the Bernice range until now. It’s strange, almost making this a Doctor Who novel without the Doctor in.
The point of this story is that he will never disappear, he’ll always be around. Like a lot of Paul Cornell’s work it’s an important, symbolic theme that will mean a lot to Bernice’s life.
7 / 10
Kill the Mouse!
I was left confused by Daniel A Mahoney’s short story Heart of Glass, and although the sequel here is much more accessible, it’s no easier to understand. An alien appears on a planet that is removing people’s faces. Brax becomes a casualty and Bernice is forced to desperately search for answers. Very grim and high on metaphors, but with no real answers or explanations…
8 / 10
Solar Max and the Seven-Handed Snake Mother
Kate Orman produces something special here, an archaeology dig story with something beyond the normal tombs and relics. I can’t do much more than repeat the plot back to you besides say this is an excellent short story.
9 / 10
A Mutual Friend
I just don’t understand the point of this. Bernice is in the 21st century, picking up CDs for Brax and meets a female journalist. They chat for a while, and somehow for absolutely no reason both realise they’re companions of the Doctor. It’s almost as if they have a strange aura, and can recognise each other by smell. This story doesn’t really do anything. There’s no reason for Sarah Jane to be here, and we don’t learn anything from her. It just name checks her, and the Doctor.
I’m not against Bernice meeting other people who have also met the Doctor, god knows there are enough of them out there. But there’s nothing here in this story. Just a bit of empty nostalgia, not even good nostalgia. There’s nothing that actually makes the woman drinking coffee in Starbucks Sarah Jane aside from her name and the fact she’s a journalist.
1 / 10
Alien Planets and You
Dave Stone seeks to out- weird his previous attempts by writing a generic guide to alien evil masterplans. It’s a good checklist you could work through, recognising the clichés one by one that make up a weak or average Bernice adventure.
7 / 10
Something Broken
Whoa. This story flies by before you really realise what’s happened. It shows Bernice foiling a clever high Sci-Fi concept alien plot by doing something ingenious that turns the enemies weapons on themselves. Aside from the specifics of the alien plot there’s little here we haven’t seen before.
6 / 10
The Collection
It’s nice to see Bernice return to the subject of Time Travel. Unlike the parent series, which uses it as an excuse to travel to new exotic locations, here it’s more a massive inconvenience that buggers up peoples lives. I can imagine Brax and Jason doing something like this. My only complaint is once they were both there, surely she would have realised they could use the Time Rings to escape?
8 / 10
Setting Stone
A hark back to an unseen New Adventure, where the seventh Doctor and Benny do something particularly ruthless, as a last resort when they have no other options. Told from the viewpoint of one of the people who suffered as a result of their interference it’s a powerful look back from one of the casualties of war, and an example of what happens if you cross the Doctor.
8 / 10
Time’s Team
If you’ve not seen the TV show Time Team the joke may lose a little in translation but the concept is simple enough. Enjoyable fun.
7 / 10
Beedlemania
Ahem… Well, it’s a fairly average story about a political conference between foreign alien species as they debate the relic. Only to stop it being average, one of the alien species are insistent practical jokers who are unable to take anything seriously. If it wasn’t for the overtly sharp end to the play it’d be pretty dire stuff.
6 / 10
The All-Seeing Eye
Death visits one of Bernices digs, claims her two companions (one elderly, the other depressed) but lets Bernice live because she still has a future left. Told peacemeal alongside a ghost story from the past this is pretty chilling stuff.
7 / 10
And Then Again
Robert Shearman bowls an oddball here with a Bernice play that hardly features Bernice at all. Instead we’re treated to the boring life and times of Bernard Stanley Summerfield, who works in an office and doesn’t love his wife. Something is wrong here. Fortunately there’s a strange, familiar looking little man here to put things right for Bernard.
8 / 10
Cuckoo
Finally, despite appearing on the collection’s cover, Peter’s not been mentioned at all in this novel. He still doesn’t appear here but he is mentioned, and the theme is important. The concept of aliens who give birth to other species children is a great one, and de Tranveldt arrives to turn this into a nice complete story with an almost gruesome ending.
7 / 10
A la Recherche du Temps Perdu
I’m not sure that the Skymines of Karthos demands a sequel, so I was initially wrong footed by the start of this story. However its only a passing reference and actually the story and emanant rewriting of Bernice’s memories expose one of Bernice’s hidden weakness; her diary.
8 / 10
Squadborrenfell
A short dark story somewhat reminiscent of Dragon’s Wrath, with two ancient enemies long presumed dead, actually still active behind the scenes. Yet another unpleasant examination of military minds and acceptable casualties.
7 / 10
Taken by the Muses
A delicious oddball story that actually gives you a better look into Bernice’s head than any of the last ten stories: she’s creative, and despite the terrible situations in she never gives up and surrenders, even if her protests are a tad… unusual.
9 / 10
The Spartacus Syndrome
Another fiendishly clever alien plot, foiled by Bernice by turning their own technology against them in an ‘I don’t know how she does it, she just does’ way that I found annoying in ‘Something Broken’. This time though there’s a little moral bite at the end where Bernice confines her copies to death.
7 / 10
Might
Something that could have been completely overlooked by the arrival of Peter is finally addressed here. I’m not to familiar with Keith Summerfield, Bernice’s future son from ‘Return of the Living Dad’ but who has since been forgotten about. Seeing as she’s no longer with Jason, and Peter’s now around, what happened? What caused the change?
Well we’ll get no answers here, and it’s still dubious about whether it was or wasn’t Keith who appears. Hmmm.
7 / 10
Paydirt
Every short story in this collection until now has built the Doctor up as a figure of mythological proportions. Now we get a story suggesting Bernice herself could one day be viewed in the same way. History lies.
6 / 10
Dear Friend
And the conclusion is a letter to the Doctor. This sums up the stories so far really. It’s about Bernice’s surprising life, and the gratitude she has for one man who showed her it was possible.
There’s also a small afterwards by Lloyd Rose, a non fiction essay repeating the love for the series some people have built up.
———-
All in all ‘A Life of Surprises’ is a much more adventurous collection than the ‘Dead Men Diaries’. It ventures off the collection and shows a flare for good, imaginative stories, albeit at the cost of some of the secondary characters from the collection.
As such its highs are definitely much better than its predecessor, it takes more risks and this pays off. That said it doesn’t always hit the mark, and some stories are better than others. Additionally, although I’m happy the Bernice range hasn’t forgotten where it came from, the Doctors presence becomes almost intenable; he’s inescapable. At times I’d like to see the range more successful at paving its own direction.
However there’s a good balance her between the stories and all in all the collection should be viewed as another success for the range.
7 / 10