Bernice Summerfield
A late entry into the companion posting month, I realised halfway through writing this that I have listened to very few of the audio adventures featuring Benny Summerfield. This therefore a partial account of the awesomeness that is Bernice Summerfield.
I'll start with a (not so brief as I originally intended) run-down of her adventures. Benny first appeared in 1992 in Paul Cornell's novel Love and War which, interestingly given that the words "I'm a tomb raider" appear in the novel, predates Lara Croft's first appearance by four years (at least according to Wikipedia). Benny grabbed my interest immediately, as a thirty-year old academic (an archeologist), she represented something I aspired to be far more than her predecessor Ace had done. Love and War is an excellent novel though, not entirely through its own fault, the departure of Ace is, in my opinion, slightly fumbled. Benny is introduced as a more mature companion than Ace, though not without her own set of insecurities. Despite the fact that, at that point, Benny's academic credentials are forged she is the Professor to the Doctor and her skills lie in sifting through the evidence and then jumping to a conclusion. Her sometime husband Jason muses on this in Nobody's Children (three linked novellas written 15 years after her first appearance, this segment by Philip Purser-Hallard)
"Her brain's doing that thing it does. The thing I love.
She's taking disparate, unrecognisable fragments of something altogether foreign to her, brushing them clean and looking at them from every angle. In just a moment she's going to reassemble them into what's obviously, and could only ever have been, one thing."
So Ace leaves the TARDIS and Benny joins it and goes on to have a series of adventures which, on the whole, do not highlight the character's strengths a great deal as the writers sought to discover how she worked. All too soon the TARDIS dynamic changed again as "New Ace" is reintroduced crowding Benny out. But funnily enough its around here that the character really begins to find its feet. I'd pinpoint Andy Lane and Jim Mortimore's Lucifer Rising as one of the best early books for Benny, possibly because its set at an archeological dig, possibly because the contrast with "New Ace" begins to round out her character. We see her kindness and pragmatism, we understand that she's as passionate about injustice as Ace but has a calmer and more reasoned approach. Ace eventually departs again and Benny gets another handful of adventures where she travels alone with the Doctor which this time serve her much better, in particular Sanctuary by David McIntee gives her a grown-up romance in a purely historical novel and Human Nature has her playing the role, later given to Martha, of the Doctor's lifeline while he is John Smith. New companions Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester join, Benny meets Jason Kane (in Death and Diplomacy by David Stone) and after a love-hate whirlwind romance they get married in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, one of the most self-indulgent of the New Adventures which is a good deal more successful than it has any right to be. Benny and Jason crop up a again in Return of the Living Dad, their relationship calmer and deeper, and she is reunited with her missing father Isaac Summerfield.
And then something very strange happens. Unlike any other companion until Cardiff started producing Doctor Who, Benny developed a life and adventures of her own. Of course the pragmatic reason for this was that Virgin Books lost the license to publish original Doctor Who fiction but, nevertheless, wanted to retain their successful book line. So Benny gained a real university Chair, a supporting cast of lecturers and academics, including Justin Richards' renegade Time Lord Irving Braxiatel, and set off on adventures centred around lost artefacts and murder mysteries. In these Benny took centre stage as a Doctor-like figure. But unlike the Doctor, we never lose sight of her fraility and insecurities. She is rarely, if ever, a god-like force with mystical powers. Instead she succeeds through her native wit, perseverence, and sense of justice. In the Making of Doctor Who Terrance Dicks (allegedly) coined the phrase "never cruel or cowardly" to describe the Doctor, in Human Nature Paul Cornell riffed on this idea. In Beyond the Sun by Matthew Jones Benny gets to write her own manifesto and character description:
"Bernice Summerfield is a human being. And as such she is all too capable of being cruel and cowardly. And yet, while she is often caught up in violent events, she endeavours to remain a woman of peace."
This is another key feature of Benny; she writes her own account of her adventures in a diary. This device has served her well. It's established that she, in fact, writes several accounts overlaying the truth with post-it notes presenting an account of events she is happy with. This allows the authors to play with unreliable narrators but also underlies her essential honesty. Benny rarely, really lies to herself, she always keeps a handle on what really happened even when she doesn't want to think about it too closely.
As, I've always thought, a consequence of the decision to base a book line on the character Benny and Jason split up (in Eternity Weeps by Jim Mortimore). This led to, frankly, one of the more irritating aspects of Benny's character. For a long period it was clear that editorial fiat wished Benny and Jason to be apart but that most of the authors wished them to be back together leading to inconsistent characterisation and repetitious hints that they were about to resolve their differences. Eventually Big Finish took over the line and gradually brought them back together but by this point the love/hate dynamic was so well ingrained it became an excuse, on occasion, for lazy writing. If the plot would benefit from Benny and Jason not talking to each other then they would argue for some random reason and then fail to communicate for the rest of the story.
The University setting was eventually done away with in a partially successful arc plot about returning Gods (Where Angels Fear by Rebecca Levene and Simon Winstone through to Twilight of the Gods by Mark Clapham and Jon de Burgh Miller) that closed Virgin's involvement with the line. Benny was rejuvenated a bit and relocated to Irving Braxiatel's museum-like (but increasingly university-like) "Collection" for Big Finish's run of novels, audio plays and short stories with another back-up cast of academics. In the process she gains a son, Peter, conceived during some body-swapping confusion in 2001's The Squire's Crystal and born in The Glass Prison (both by Jac Rayner). Despite pressures to do otherwise Big Finish have resolutely allowed Peter to grow up in "real" time. While this is commendable the line has squeezed roughly forty books and plays into the seven years of his life, many of which feature Benny going on off-world adventures - this makes you wonder where she actually finds the time we are assured but rarely shown she spends with her son.
In the above bio I've mentioned many of Benny's strengths but no survey of the character would be complete without noting her weaknesses because, without them, she would be a bland sub-Doctor clone. I've already touched on her relationship with Jason which is characterised by a lack of patience on her part and a tendency to assume the worst. She is frequently insecure about her academic status, and in particular has a tendency to be work-shy when it comes to writing (she clearly loves being in the field but the dull writing-up bit does nothing for her) as a result she can be panicky (and sometimes drunk) in formal academic settings. She's happier around her students than around her peers making her a great identification figure when you are a student yourself but making her appear often childish as you reach her equal in years.
I've touched on several Benny books above. Others that are well worth reading are: Theatre of War by Justin Richards which introduces Irving Braxiatel and has Benny doing some archeological detective work, The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch in which Benny is asked to decide the fate of Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart and Just War and The Dying Days by Lance Parkin. In the second these Parkin cheekily marks the end of Benny's first encounter with the Eighth Doctor and last ever encounter with the Doctor at all with the scene:
"Benny hesitated, looking into those deep blue eyes of his. `Yes. Look, before you leave, there's one thing I have to do. I'd never forgive myself otherwise.'
The Doctor looked puzzled. `What would that - '
She grabbed the lapels of his frock coat, kissed him square on the mouth and pushed him hard on to the bed."
Of her solo adventures Virgin's Walking to Babylon by Kate Orman is well worth checking out, as are Big Finish's Life During Wartime anthology (if you can live with the fact you need to purchase an audio (and to say which is a spoiler) to complete the story) and Genius Loci by Ben Aaronovitch (a "young Benny" prequel to her time with the Doctor).
For the future Big Finish clearly plan to pursue both Benny's ongoing story and the young Benny series. Benny has a rich back-story as a Dalek war orphan, brought up and rebelling against a military academy, and finally blagging her way into the archeological profession. I can see why Big Finish feel there is a rich vein of material there.
My last offering is some picspam of the many faces of Benny
The illustrations by Lee Sullivan for her introduction in DWM
An internal illustration from Lucifer Rising drawn by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood
Caroline Symcox's (I think) cover for the Doomsday Manuscript when Big Finish were briefly drawing Benny to look like actress Lisa Bowerman who voices her in the audio plays
And a sample of Adrian Salmon's great artwork generally used by the range
Lastly since, as I observed above, I don't listen to the audios can I make a plea for people to recommend good Benny audios in the comments.
EDIT: Comments now locked, too much spam!
I'll start with a (not so brief as I originally intended) run-down of her adventures. Benny first appeared in 1992 in Paul Cornell's novel Love and War which, interestingly given that the words "I'm a tomb raider" appear in the novel, predates Lara Croft's first appearance by four years (at least according to Wikipedia). Benny grabbed my interest immediately, as a thirty-year old academic (an archeologist), she represented something I aspired to be far more than her predecessor Ace had done. Love and War is an excellent novel though, not entirely through its own fault, the departure of Ace is, in my opinion, slightly fumbled. Benny is introduced as a more mature companion than Ace, though not without her own set of insecurities. Despite the fact that, at that point, Benny's academic credentials are forged she is the Professor to the Doctor and her skills lie in sifting through the evidence and then jumping to a conclusion. Her sometime husband Jason muses on this in Nobody's Children (three linked novellas written 15 years after her first appearance, this segment by Philip Purser-Hallard)
"Her brain's doing that thing it does. The thing I love.
She's taking disparate, unrecognisable fragments of something altogether foreign to her, brushing them clean and looking at them from every angle. In just a moment she's going to reassemble them into what's obviously, and could only ever have been, one thing."
So Ace leaves the TARDIS and Benny joins it and goes on to have a series of adventures which, on the whole, do not highlight the character's strengths a great deal as the writers sought to discover how she worked. All too soon the TARDIS dynamic changed again as "New Ace" is reintroduced crowding Benny out. But funnily enough its around here that the character really begins to find its feet. I'd pinpoint Andy Lane and Jim Mortimore's Lucifer Rising as one of the best early books for Benny, possibly because its set at an archeological dig, possibly because the contrast with "New Ace" begins to round out her character. We see her kindness and pragmatism, we understand that she's as passionate about injustice as Ace but has a calmer and more reasoned approach. Ace eventually departs again and Benny gets another handful of adventures where she travels alone with the Doctor which this time serve her much better, in particular Sanctuary by David McIntee gives her a grown-up romance in a purely historical novel and Human Nature has her playing the role, later given to Martha, of the Doctor's lifeline while he is John Smith. New companions Chris Cwej and Roz Forrester join, Benny meets Jason Kane (in Death and Diplomacy by David Stone) and after a love-hate whirlwind romance they get married in Happy Endings by Paul Cornell, one of the most self-indulgent of the New Adventures which is a good deal more successful than it has any right to be. Benny and Jason crop up a again in Return of the Living Dad, their relationship calmer and deeper, and she is reunited with her missing father Isaac Summerfield.
And then something very strange happens. Unlike any other companion until Cardiff started producing Doctor Who, Benny developed a life and adventures of her own. Of course the pragmatic reason for this was that Virgin Books lost the license to publish original Doctor Who fiction but, nevertheless, wanted to retain their successful book line. So Benny gained a real university Chair, a supporting cast of lecturers and academics, including Justin Richards' renegade Time Lord Irving Braxiatel, and set off on adventures centred around lost artefacts and murder mysteries. In these Benny took centre stage as a Doctor-like figure. But unlike the Doctor, we never lose sight of her fraility and insecurities. She is rarely, if ever, a god-like force with mystical powers. Instead she succeeds through her native wit, perseverence, and sense of justice. In the Making of Doctor Who Terrance Dicks (allegedly) coined the phrase "never cruel or cowardly" to describe the Doctor, in Human Nature Paul Cornell riffed on this idea. In Beyond the Sun by Matthew Jones Benny gets to write her own manifesto and character description:
"Bernice Summerfield is a human being. And as such she is all too capable of being cruel and cowardly. And yet, while she is often caught up in violent events, she endeavours to remain a woman of peace."
This is another key feature of Benny; she writes her own account of her adventures in a diary. This device has served her well. It's established that she, in fact, writes several accounts overlaying the truth with post-it notes presenting an account of events she is happy with. This allows the authors to play with unreliable narrators but also underlies her essential honesty. Benny rarely, really lies to herself, she always keeps a handle on what really happened even when she doesn't want to think about it too closely.
As, I've always thought, a consequence of the decision to base a book line on the character Benny and Jason split up (in Eternity Weeps by Jim Mortimore). This led to, frankly, one of the more irritating aspects of Benny's character. For a long period it was clear that editorial fiat wished Benny and Jason to be apart but that most of the authors wished them to be back together leading to inconsistent characterisation and repetitious hints that they were about to resolve their differences. Eventually Big Finish took over the line and gradually brought them back together but by this point the love/hate dynamic was so well ingrained it became an excuse, on occasion, for lazy writing. If the plot would benefit from Benny and Jason not talking to each other then they would argue for some random reason and then fail to communicate for the rest of the story.
The University setting was eventually done away with in a partially successful arc plot about returning Gods (Where Angels Fear by Rebecca Levene and Simon Winstone through to Twilight of the Gods by Mark Clapham and Jon de Burgh Miller) that closed Virgin's involvement with the line. Benny was rejuvenated a bit and relocated to Irving Braxiatel's museum-like (but increasingly university-like) "Collection" for Big Finish's run of novels, audio plays and short stories with another back-up cast of academics. In the process she gains a son, Peter, conceived during some body-swapping confusion in 2001's The Squire's Crystal and born in The Glass Prison (both by Jac Rayner). Despite pressures to do otherwise Big Finish have resolutely allowed Peter to grow up in "real" time. While this is commendable the line has squeezed roughly forty books and plays into the seven years of his life, many of which feature Benny going on off-world adventures - this makes you wonder where she actually finds the time we are assured but rarely shown she spends with her son.
In the above bio I've mentioned many of Benny's strengths but no survey of the character would be complete without noting her weaknesses because, without them, she would be a bland sub-Doctor clone. I've already touched on her relationship with Jason which is characterised by a lack of patience on her part and a tendency to assume the worst. She is frequently insecure about her academic status, and in particular has a tendency to be work-shy when it comes to writing (she clearly loves being in the field but the dull writing-up bit does nothing for her) as a result she can be panicky (and sometimes drunk) in formal academic settings. She's happier around her students than around her peers making her a great identification figure when you are a student yourself but making her appear often childish as you reach her equal in years.
I've touched on several Benny books above. Others that are well worth reading are: Theatre of War by Justin Richards which introduces Irving Braxiatel and has Benny doing some archeological detective work, The Also People by Ben Aaronovitch in which Benny is asked to decide the fate of Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart and Just War and The Dying Days by Lance Parkin. In the second these Parkin cheekily marks the end of Benny's first encounter with the Eighth Doctor and last ever encounter with the Doctor at all with the scene:
"Benny hesitated, looking into those deep blue eyes of his. `Yes. Look, before you leave, there's one thing I have to do. I'd never forgive myself otherwise.'
The Doctor looked puzzled. `What would that - '
She grabbed the lapels of his frock coat, kissed him square on the mouth and pushed him hard on to the bed."
Of her solo adventures Virgin's Walking to Babylon by Kate Orman is well worth checking out, as are Big Finish's Life During Wartime anthology (if you can live with the fact you need to purchase an audio (and to say which is a spoiler) to complete the story) and Genius Loci by Ben Aaronovitch (a "young Benny" prequel to her time with the Doctor).
For the future Big Finish clearly plan to pursue both Benny's ongoing story and the young Benny series. Benny has a rich back-story as a Dalek war orphan, brought up and rebelling against a military academy, and finally blagging her way into the archeological profession. I can see why Big Finish feel there is a rich vein of material there.
My last offering is some picspam of the many faces of Benny
The illustrations by Lee Sullivan for her introduction in DWM
An internal illustration from Lucifer Rising drawn by Lee Brimmicombe-Wood
Caroline Symcox's (I think) cover for the Doomsday Manuscript when Big Finish were briefly drawing Benny to look like actress Lisa Bowerman who voices her in the audio plays
And a sample of Adrian Salmon's great artwork generally used by the range
Lastly since, as I observed above, I don't listen to the audios can I make a plea for people to recommend good Benny audios in the comments.
EDIT: Comments now locked, too much spam!