Benny is assigned to babysit a daft experiment. Doggles claims his “history machine” will change everything. And he’s right.
Benny is assigned to babysit a daft experiment. Doggles claims his “history machine” will change everything. And he’s right.
Something Changed
Innapropriate Laughter
So, Wolsey is dead. Who saw that one coming? The thing is, aside from his fantastic turn in ‘Oh No It Isn’t’ the cat hasn’t actually done anything since. He’s just there, a piece of the scenery, and no one but Bernice seems to care about him. That’s quite telling about the rest of the Collection, that as much as we’re slowly growing to know them they aren’t the same as Bernice, they’re their own, independent, characters. Bev in particular seems determined to isolate herself, perhaps Simon Guerrier attempting to distinguish between the characters who, on the surface, could actually be quite similar.
The story makes it immediately clear that Doggles is a character you should be paying attention to, although he hardly dominates being in only a few scenes before the all encompassing, ill defined, ‘History Machine’ is activated. Simon Guerrier takes on Paul Cornell’s usual job though of filling us in on the activities of everyone else on the collection, it almost feels like a postcard from distant relatives, just letting you know what everyone’s up to. As a snippet into other people’s lives it’s well written and interesting, but on its own this short chapter is hardly rewarding.
Until Doggles presses that switch and it all goes to hell….
Siege Mentality
Following the brief James Swallow’s violent and apocalyptic short story carried almost directly on from the predecessor. The actual effects of the history machine are never really defined although the devastation from its passing is clear. Trying to stay resolute and strong the survivors start to rebuild, only to be vicously torn down when Hass’s brother sends an alien drone army to reclaim what’s rightfully his. Although this is finally payback for something that’s been building in the background for a while very little capitol is made of the conflict with Hass’s Martian heritage. Short, violent, end of the world scenario. For those who prefer style over substance definitely.
7 / 10
Dead Mice
At this point in Brax’s history Joseph Lidster appears to know the great man better than anyone else, and so after his strange ‘retreat’ of personality over the last two chapters it’s refreshing to get a good look inside his head for the first time, and our first semi-explanation for what’s going on. Plenty of imagery is made of Brax’s previous exploitations, including a delightful scene where he kills an ‘idiot’ with a ‘purple pawn’, a reference that will only make sense to those who sampled his last offering in the previous anthology. Joseph Lidster also makes use of the disappearance of Wolsey, giving us a pretty spiteful ghost who drives the plot forwards to a pretty horrible end. Not for the faint hearted, but everything here has subtext behind it. Plenty of subtext.
10 / 10
Acts of Senseless Devotion
Considering how important Avril Fenman is to the Bernice series, being the woman who seduced Adrian and conceived Peter, she’s hardly been mentioned since the child was born. Pete Kempshall gives us a clever reference back to the original novel by putting Bernice in a situation where it almost seems realistic she’d try and do what she does. This isn’t a self contained story though, it’s the start of a grand adventure never to be told, as sometimes doing your best just isn’t enough.
8 / 10
Walking Backwards For Christmas
Ben Aaranovitch takes this opportunity to show us something Big Finish hasn’t touched on so far, the early days of Bernice Summerfield. This is an incredibly private, personal piece at the start as it details the very beginning as she goes AWOL from the military. Then there’s another section where she makes two contradictory discoveries about life on another planet, the second revealing something slightly unpleasant about their military history. Then there’s more. Ben Aaranovitch seems to have taken the brief of the history machine at face value and if this ‘was’ the real second chapter it’s the only one that could probably have fitted into a ‘normal’ short story collection. Interesting, just for what it tells us and what you can infer from it, rather than for its specific content.
8 / 10
Match of the Deity
If Doggles was originally created to be a potential Jason replacement, as it certainly appears that he was, Eddie Robson takes this and runs with it, callously disposing of Dave Stone’s frontman and jumping forwards eight years so we can skip all of that tedious grieving and fallout. Bernice is an adult now, grown up, living a normal life, and through a series of incidents and a failed plot that pushes her and Doggles together they end up pairing off. Feels, and plays out, like a cheap soap but it takes advantage of this opportunity to do anything with the collection.
7 / 10
Night of the Living Martian
Another brief glimpse inside Hass’s head but this time we learn and see very little new. It’s a brief, interesting story about possession and history, but the only real twist comes when you learn who died at the end. It would be great but after so many preceding stories where cast members have died, its hardly a shock any more.
6 / 10
The God Gene
Ben Woodhams treads some difficult subjects in this horrifying story of genetic cleansing, disposing of the rest of the collection and running forwards with the similarities/differences between Bernice and Bev. What’s most striking at the end though is not the concept he’s come up with, but the fact Bernice has no comeback or retort to counter it. Excellent use of the two female leads.
9 / 10
Waiting in Green
After so many science fiction action-horror combinations its strange to suddenly be thrown head over heals into a love story. Our first real look at Jason in these new mismatched realities shows us a man horribly disfigures but still madly in love with Bernice. Hass makes an excellent matchmaker between the two, helping the former overcome his looks and prove himself to the latter. And the in the end, some interesting revelations about time… Given what we now know about Jason/Bernice’s relationship, this is another story that could have existed outside of this anthology quite easily.
9 / 10
Showing Initiative
Quick, quirky, comedy twist at the end aside this is actually a fairly unique story, in that it’s the only one in the anthology to actually introduce someone completely new to the readers. There’s nothing unique about Paul Stevens but then again there doesn’t have to be, he’s here to point out peculiarities about the world around him. In fact, this fairly standard story feels almost out of place with the oddballs around it.
8 / 10
A Murderous Desire
Well, this is at least, different. Ian Farrington drops the Science Fiction clichés that have abounded in the previous stories and throws at us something more akin to an Agatha Christie whodunit, albeit a short, sweet and tragic one. It relies on you assuming Bernice’s innocence, because your intimate knowledge of the character means the reader would never suspect her, despite the motive, capability and presence at the crime… This is an excellent turnaround the cast of the collection, with a particularly fine turn from Hass at the end showing Martain honour at its finest, most tragic moment.
9 / 10
Back and There Again
Several people seem to have noticed the reason for Doggles creation, and this is the latest of several stories to pair Doggles and Bernice up in the future, only this time Jason is around to intervene. Told through the eyes of a confused, paranoid, drunken, failed hero trying to make good in a world that he’s fallen out of failure with. Its excellent stuff but we’ve been here before…
7 / 10
One of My Turns
Having previously enjoyed Sin Deniz previous efforts I was a little disappointed with this one which almost lacks its own cohesive story. It follows Bernice around a very confused collection, a state of being which has by this point in the book become fairly standard. Mr Crofton pops up, but doesn’t do anything, swiftly replaced by Hass with no explanation. Then she finds and shoots an elder version of Braxiatel to save the Collection…Surreal but by this point standard.
5 / 10
The Ice Garden
Jonathan Clements story has two sides to it. On the one hand there’s the impressive new ‘suit’ that Hass is now to become, a proper finger biting, tension building, unstoppable force chasing her through the abandoned gardens. Clements uses some beautiful imagery as he plots Bernice’s journey through the frozen world, slowly uncovering Peter’s tombstone. Once again someone has died…
As a piece its fairly good but I think its only lasting effect will be the image of ‘new’ Hass stalking Bernice through the frozen gardens. For what it ties, it succeeds.
8 / 10
Family Man
After Dead Mice introduced the ‘multiple histories’ element of the storylines by putting us in Braxiatel’s eyes, Ian Mond puts us back in there for this final alternate reality. He casts Braxiatel as human, asking what would be different and what would be the same if he was.
Despite that though, we’re not really inside his head, as it’s told from the very bleak viewpoint of Ben, slowly trying to come to terms with why his father left his mother, and why his sister committed suicide. The message is simple; reconciling family with duty can be impossible.
After that things get a little complicated as the ‘real’ Brax bursts into a ‘stable’ moment in history and demands that Doggles head is removed at his own wedding ceremony, predictably with Bernice as the bride. It’s not surprising, considering that there’s been a pretty brutal series of events leading to this point, and its nice to see some culmination of the ‘Reality Bomb’ plot that’s been building behind the scenes until now… But really?
First half: 9 / 10
Overall: 7 / 10
After Life
And that’s it. Chapter three…
Or rather its chapter one again, this time with the benefit of foresight and an alternate history. Wolsey is still dead, Benny and Bev with differences to settle, Doggles still arrives at the collection but doesn’t get to start his great masterpiece…
Something Changed is an oddball of a collection. There are swathes of people who hate alternate universe stories as the perception is ‘they’re not real’, but it’s a fact that when well handled they can be incredibly interesting. Something Changed contains both, flirting between dramatic reinterpretations and ‘ten years later’ scenarios to ensure the reader is constantly surprised.
But somewhere in the mass there’s a lot of repetition. Too many stories revolve around one or more of the main cast members being dead. Most stick pretty rigidly to the past as we knew it, so when the few that change the setup come along they stand out like a sore thumb. It’s got several particularly brutal climaxes and due to the nature of it being a collection rather than a single piece there’s very little payout for all of these miniature disasters. When Adrian, dies then Bev, then Jason, then Peter, then Jason dies again and there’s no fallout you know something’s wrong.
So, although there’s lots to like about it as you go along, and several outstanding individual contributions, this could be the first anthology that doesn’t add up to be more than the sum of its whole.
6 / 10