Bernice Summerfield: Virgin New Adventures

Series · 23

books · 1997-1999

By Terrance Dicks, Parkin Lance, Jim Mortimore, and more

Books in series

Oh No It Isn't!

1997

The Doctor's former companion, Bernice Summerfield, has found a new job at St Oscar's University. Whilst on a field trip to Perfecton she is attacked by a reality warping missile. Bernice must be at her best to solve the problems that this creates.

Dragons' Wrath

1997

Are the Knights of Jeneve more than legend? Why is the warlord Nusek so desperate to secure Benny's services? In a world of secret societies, concealed motives and overly elaborate executions, Benny must divine the truth behind the propaganda—or become a footnote in the chronicles of a maniac's rise to power.

Beyond the Sun

1997

Bernice Summerfield's no-good ex-husband claims to be in deadly danger. Unfortunately, Benny does not believe him until he is kidnapped. Feeling guilty she sets off to rescue him. Her only clue is a dusty artifact that Jason claimed was part of an ancient weapon, rumored to have powers beyond the sun.

Ship Of Fools

1997

'So who do I have to kill to get off this cruise?' When Krytell Industries offered Benny a small, slightly dubious and, um, unofficial job aboard the majestic space cruise-liner, the Titanian Queen, she jumped at the chance. After all, with an unlimited expense account, an entire new wardrobe and more strings of pearls and other jewels than you could shake an Art Deco stick at, what more could a poor girl want? That was then. Now, the luckless if remarkably deserving passengers of the Titanian Queen are dropping like flies. Are the deaths the work of the mysterious criminal known as the Cat's Paw? Or is the super-rich businessman Krytell himself somehow involved? And will the great detective, Emil Dupont, finally stop getting things completely and utterly wrong and solve it all in time for tea and muffins? Whatever's happening, Benny had better discover the truth for herself, and discover it soon. Before she suddenly finds herself another highly deplorable crime statistic.

Down

1997

Tyler's a colony world on the unattractive side of Earthspace, crawling with off-world bodysnatchers. Not really Benny's sort of place. She is as surprised as the authorities are when they pull her out of the ocean in a forbidden quake zone. Her explanations only confuse matters more. What could have stolen Benny's reason? .

Deadfall

1997

Jason Kane, Benny's useless ex-husband, finds himself trapped on the legendary planet Ardethe. Activating the distress beacon he stole, he summons Chris Cwej, who promptly has his mind wiped by the machinery he inadvertently awakens. A prison ship then arrives full of women convicts and suddenly people start dying. Jason doesn't know who the true foe is and Chris doesn't even know his name.

Ghost Devices

1997

Bernice travels to the primitive and religious world of Canopus IV, where the locals worship the Spire, a kilometer-high tower that bends time, and talks of gods who can see through time. Someone must solve the mystery of the Canopusi's ancient gods, and Benny is just the archaeologist for the job.

Mean Streets

1997

So secret that none but an elusive inner circle know its nature or purpose, The Project is a criminal scheme so grand in scale that it casts a shadow across a hundred worlds. Having lost one partner in attempting to infiltrate the Project, Chris Cwej finds another in Bernice Summerfield—and a new crime-fighting duo is forged to take on a faceless foe and expose the ultimate crime.

Tempest

1998

Smith consulted his watch very deliberately. "You have one hour to find the Imnulate and hand it over to me. If you do not, I will tear this train and its passengers apart piece by piece!" Tempest: a wild and untamed world perpetually wreathed in cloud and storms. The only means of long-distance travel across its surface are the great transcontinental monorails that traverse its lonely and dangerous wastelands. Returning home from a lucrative lecture, Professor Bernice Summerfield finds herself on the most celebrated of these mighty trains. The Drell Imnulate: a fabulous and unique religious idol. Precious enough to kill for. So important to those rival factions who follow the way of its maker that they will dare anything to ensure its return. Isolated in the wilderness and far from civilisation, death strikes the luxurious Polar Express, and a routine journey turns into a nightmare. But can Bernice save a train on the brink of disaster?

#10

Walking to Babylon

1998

"I'm scared of letting all these people down. Like the whole human race. At least if I get blown up as well, they can say I died heroically. Assuming I ever existed at all." When Bernice Summerfield visits the People—an incredibly advanced civilisation living in a Dyson Sphere—she discovers that even in utopia, they still have their problems. An illegal time travel experiment threatens a war which could destroy them all. Rather than risk it, the People and their ultra-powerful computer, God, are prepared to eradicate the source of the problem—the ancient city of Babylon. But such action would involve the death of a quarter of a million human beings, and do incalculable damage to Earth's history. Babylon—and the human race—have one hope. Benny returns to the cradle of civilisation to try and stop the interference. She has just one week to prevent a catastrophe that could mean she will never be born. Her only assistance comes from a Victorian linguist who has stumbled across the experiment himself. But he's no help at all—even though he has a power neither of them suspects.

#11

Oblivion

1998

At the center of disruption in the universe, three adventurers are trapped on a parallel Earth. If their friend cannot reach them in time, they will be obliterated. At the center of disruption in the universe, three adventurers are trapped on a parallel Earth. If their friend cannot reach them in time, they will be obliterated.

#12

The Medusa Effect

1998

Medusa - an experimental spaceship developed by the Advanced Research Department of St Oscar's University. Missing since it was launched, presumed lost in the wars, it was a project so secret that it has never been declassified. Now, twenty years on, Medusa is coming home. After one of the investigation team dies suspiciously, Professor Bernice Summerfield is assigned to help discover what went wrong. But to do so she must solve a riddle. What is the strange link between the original crew and the team now on board the drifting ship? And why do their ghosts still haunt Medusa?

#13

Dry Pilgrimage

1998

"I am going to make you immortal." Bored with her job, bored with being perpetually skint, Bernice Summerfield leaps at the chance of a free holiday arranged by her new friend Maeve Ruthven, St Oscar's Professor of Comparative Religion. But all is not what it seems. Benny's holiday rapidly goes from bad to worse to downright dangerous. For a start, the "luxury cruise" is a religious pilgrimage, and alcohol is forbidden to those on board. Then she is attacked, badly injured and confined to a wheelchair. And that's before the murder. Benny finds herself caught in a web of intrigue—not knowing who on board can be trusted or which way to turn. And with the future of more than one world depending on her actions, she must decide who to believe, expose the hidden killer and prevent a ruthless grab for power.

#14

Sword of Forever

1998

Since the Inquisition destroyed the order of the Knights Templar in 1307, their most precious possession has remained hidden. Now, 26th-century archaeologist Bernice Summerfield has uncovered a clue, etched on a human skull, that may reveal the hiding place of this long-sought-after treasure.

#15

Another Girl, Another Planet

1998

Immersed in political scandals, gun-running and a centuries-old love affair that ended in disaster and disgrace, Bernice must discover a terrible truth or jeopardize the future of an entire planet.

#16

Beige Planet Mars

1998

Surrounded by death on Mars, Bernice and her errant ex-husband Jason must solve a murder and unmask a traitor to save millions of lives threatened by a forgotten horror.

#17

Where Angels Fear

1998

The planet Dellah is falling into the ancient gods have returned, armies battle with dark magic, and the entire galaxy is threatened by an age-old menace that can corrupt and enslave.

#18

The Mary-Sue Extrusion

1999

Once a cultural centre, now a twisted home of unholy Gods, Dellah lies in ruins. Elsewhere, the solar system stands on the brink of war and chaos. Bernice Summerfield can restore stability to the sector, but she needs to find herself before it's too late for everyone.

#19

Dead Romance

1999

Considered the greatest work by novelist Lawrence Miles, Dead Romance now returns, after four years of being out-of-print, as a re-release from Mad Norwegian Press. In addition, this volume contains rare short stories by Miles. Dead Romance contains the diaries of Christine Summerfield, a 23-year-old cocaine user in London who encounters a time traveler named Christopher Cwej. Together with Cwej, Christine comes to discover a mind-bending secret about London and the whole of Earth, engages in a desperate game of rock-scissors-paper against an unspeakable Horror that almost defies definition, and chronicles precisely how the world came to end on October 12, 1970. In addition, this re-release of Dead Romance also features rare back-up stories, written by Miles and presently only available in out-of-print, frightfully expensive works. Specifically, this re-release contains the short stories Toy Story and Grass, plus an original essay by Miles on the mechanics of his Faction Paradox universe.

#20

Tears of the Oracle

1999

The Oracle of the Lost knows all, and tells all. But there's a price. Sometimes knowledge can be dangerous, and in this case it's driving Bernice Summerfield out of her mind.

#21

Return to the Fractured Planet

1999

Things aren't going well for Bernice. Her home world, Dellah, has been taken over by sadistically evil beings with god-like powers. Her university is a burnt-out ruin. And the infection in her head could kill her at any time. But when she hears of the horrors that befell the planet Sharabeth, she suspects that something from Dellah has escaped through time. She embarks on what she knows may be last quest.

#22

The Joy Device

1999

'Nothing happens, nobody comes, nobody goes... it's worse than Samuel Beckett.' Benny has had enough. Enough of the angst and the heartache. Enough of Jason and the others. She needs a holiday, and so she's heading to the Eastern Rim, a part of the galaxy where there is still a frontier, and adventure to be had. She's packed her trowel. She's off. Her friends are concerned. Drug barons, war lords, criminal cartels and outlaws have fled to the Rim from authority and order. There's a distinct risk of getting into trouble, not to mention life-threatening peril. It's not so much that Benny might come to harm; she might find she likes it out there. But Benny finds the Eastern Rim almost suspiciously ordinary: no violence, no action, no excitement. So when she is asked by a shady curio dealer to help him find Dorpfeld's Prism, it seems just another cursed relic to recover before retiring to the bar. In a place this dull, nothing dangerous can possibly happen. Can it?

#23

Twilight of the Gods

1999

The final show-down. The older races, scared by the arrival of the gods on planet Dellah, had left our galaxy. But now the gods are weakened, they are about to come back. War is imminent and humankind's slice of the galaxy is going to be the battlefield.

Authors

Jim Mortimore is a British science fiction writer, who has written several spin-off novels for popular television series, principally Doctor Who, but also Farscape and Babylon 5. When BBC Books cancelled his Doctor Who novel Campaign, he had it published independently and gave the proceeds to a charity – the Bristol Area Down Syndrome Association. He is also the writer of the Big Finish Doctor Who audio play The Natural History of Fear and their Tomorrow People audio play Plague of Dreams. He has also done music for other Big Finish productions. He released his first original novel in 2011, Skaldenland.

Christopher Bulis is a writer best known for his work on various Doctor Who spin-offs. He is one of the most prolific authors to write for the various ranges of spin-offs from the BBC Television series Doctor Who, with twelve novels to his name, and between 1993 and 2000 he had at least one Doctor Who novel published every year. Bulis' first published work was the New Adventure Shadowmind, published in 1993 by Virgin Publishing. This was the only novel Bulis wrote featuring the Seventh Doctor, and his next five books were all published under Virgin's Missing Adventures range: State of Change (1994), The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1995), The Eye of the Giant (1996), Twilight of the Gods (1996), and A Device of Death (1997). When Virgin lost their licence to publish novels based on Doctor Who, Bulis repeated this pattern writing novels for the BBC - with one novel written for the current incumbent Doctor as part of BBC Books' Eighth Doctor Adventures range, and then all of his other novels published as part of the Past Doctor Adventures range. Bulis' novels for the BBC were The Ultimate Treasure (1997), Vanderdeken's Children (1998), City at World's End (1999), Imperial Moon (2000) and Palace of the Red Sun (2002). Bulis also wrote the novel Tempest as part of Virgin's Bernice Summerfield range of novels, and also a short story for Big Finish Productions' Short Trips series.

Justin Richards is a British writer. He has written many spin off novels based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who, and he is Creative Director for the BBC Books range. He has also written for television, contributing to Five's soap opera Family Affairs. He is also the author of a series of crime novels for children about the Invisible Detective, and novels for older children. His Doctor Who novel The Burning was placed sixth in the Top 10 of SFX magazine's "Best SF/Fantasy novelisation or TV tie-in novel" category of 2000.

British author, editor and tv storyliner. Educated at Clare College, Cambridge. She has written books for Virgin's Doctor Who line, Abbadon books and Black Flame. She also writes for Doctor Who Magazine and SFX.

Gary Russell is one of the script editing team for Doctor Who, Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures, and the author of many novels and reference books in the Doctor Who range. A former editor of Doctor Who Magazine, he also was the producer of Doctor Who audio dramas for Big Finish Productions for eight years. He was also an actor and is best known for his role as Dick in the 1978 television series of 'The Famous Five'. He lives in Cardiff.