Talk:Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures

Canonicity?

Do the 23 books from Oh No It Isn't! (novel) to Twilight of the Gods (BNA novel) count under Tardis Data Core rules? Under Valid source it states: Those things which don't have the permission of all relevant copyright holders...are excluded., A story that isn't commercially licensed by all of the relevant copyright holders doesn't count., As a general rule, if something is an approximation of something else in the DWU, then we don't fool with it. The classic example is the independently-published Faction Paradox stories that are not a part of the BBC Books range. Because writer Lawrence Miles does not have a license to DWU elements other than the Faction Paradox organisation itself, he must resort to using "code names" for Gallifrey, the Doctor, TARDISes, the Master and any number of the basic building blocks of the universe. So, essentially, even though the Faction Paradox stories are based around the fully licensed Faction Paradox(who appear in several official DWU stories) AND the Faction Paradox use other fully licensed, non Faction Paradox, characters from the DWU, the stories don't count because they use BBC characters they don't have the rights to(using code names for them). On the Faction Paradox Wiki it states on the Main Page: The trickiest thing to understand about the series, is that even though it's a spin off of Doctor Who it is not a part of the DWU. Creator Lawrence Miles had no access to concepts like "the Doctor", "the Master", "the TARDIS", "the Time Lords" — any of the things that make Doctor Who what it is. So you won't find direct mentions of these people and concepts.

Sound familiar? A series of books based around an officially licensed DWU character, that uses other official, licensed DWU characters? But that has to resort to using code words for things like Time Lords, TARDISes etc. "the building blocks of the DWU"?– The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.132.229.5 (talk).

So you don't think the Bernice Summerfield New Adventures should be valid sources on the wiki? Shambala108 ☎ 18:46, October 29, 2013 (UTC)

It's not what I think. Accoring to this wiki's own rules, they shouldn't be. Also, from the Valid Sources page(and it's got its own box): A rose by any other name is not as sweet. If the story consistently uses alternate names for DWU characters, places and situations, it's probably not allowed. So, using this wiki's own rules, the Bernice Summerfield New Adventures are not a Valid Source.– The preceding unsigned comment was added by 41.132.229.5 (talk).

Merger with Virgin New Adventures

Is there any real reason for why this page exists separately from Virgin New Adventures? These novels were the seamless continuation of the New Adventures series, and they've never been officially branded as "Bernice Summerfield New Adventures" or anything close. Before I changed it to be more accurate a few months ago, the main VNA page justified this distinction by saying, "The series concluded with the Eighth Doctor novel The Dying Days" and "the books continued with Bernice as the principal character in a new series of novels which were officially dubbed 'The New Adventures'". Both of these statements are completely untrue. Not only had the novels been officially dubbed "The New Adventures" since Happy Endings – if we were basing the change off of branding, we'd really have three pages, for Virgin New Doctor Who Adventures, Virgin Doctor Who New Adventures, and Virgin New Adventures – almost nothing changed behind-the-scenes after The Dying Days besides the loss of the Doctor Who license: Peter Darvill-Evans stayed as editor, the cast of writers was virtually unchanged, and the preponderance of personnel treated it as one continuous series (eg Lawrence Miles saying in the forward of Dead Romance that "when Dead Romance was first published in 1999, the New Adventures range had been going for eight years").

Undoubtedly, the series changed in several ways in 1997, and I'm not going to even try to minimize that. In Oh No It Isn't! a new "NA" logo appeared on the front cover, under the "The New Adventure" banner that had been there since Happy Endings. The focus of the series also shifted from stories about the Doctor and his companions to stories about said companions.

However, in 2010, Doctor Who went through a significantly more dramatic shift. Not only did it change its main character and get a new logo, just like the New Adventures did, Doctor Who got an entirely new production crew and did an almost clean break from the previous series: with the exception of River Song, no character from series 1-4 appeared in a major role in post-2009 Who until the Saxon Master in the finale of Moffat's last series. In stark contrast, the post-Dying Days New Adventures retained editor Peter Darvill-Evans, and they featured not only Bernice Summerfield but tons of other characters from the pre-1997 VNAs in major recurring roles: Jason Kane, Chris Cwej, Irving Braxiatel, Clarence, and Roz Forrester, just to start!

We don't split NuWho into BBC Doctor Who and BBC Eleventh Doctor Doctor Who – hell, we don't even split NuWho from Classic! – so why on Earth should we split New Adventures into Virgin New Adventures and Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures? I've thrown together an example of what a merged page would look like at over at User:NateBumber/Sandbox4, and I think it'd be a definite improvement for both pages. Comments, critiques, etc? – N8 ☎ 17:28, September 4, 2017 (UTC)

Funny story: Someone on Discord just expressed frustration that Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures doesn't include all New Adventures novels that Bernice appeared in, eg Love and War. That is what the name would imply, isn't it?

On a side note, happy almost-one-year anniversary of this proposal! – N8 ☎ 14:29, August 10, 2018 (UTC)

Well, happy anniversary indeed. Now that I learned about it, I can actually think on it. Meanwhile, I noticed that the proposed mock-up puts The Dying Days as the first novel of the Benny era. I think Paul Cornell, the creator of Benny, thought of Oh No It Isn't! as being her solo beginning. Amorkuz ☎ 18:48, September 16, 2018 (UTC)

Cheers to that! And yes, that's how I had it, since while The Dying Days is indeed the last VNA with the Doctor Who license, it's also the first to have Benny as the explicit main character. But you're right, and I'll change the mock-up to reflect that. (I should also add User:OncomingStorm12th's delightful edits.) – N8 ☎ 00:06, September 17, 2018 (UTC)

Here is another list following the suggestion: [1] Amorkuz ☎ 19:19, September 16, 2018 (UTC)

Worth noting that Wikipedia also does the same at its page for the VNAs. – N8 ☎ 00:06, September 17, 2018 (UTC)

There are also multiple quotes in the Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story that points towards the range being one continuous whole instead of 2 separate ranges - User:Liria10 00:29, September 17, 2018 (UTC)

I don't know much about the range, but based on the arguments presented I am compelled to agree with the merger. --Borisashton ☎ 18:47, September 18, 2018 (UTC)

Ok, so I ordered a copy of the first BS book. Let's see what it has inside. Amorkuz ☎ 08:43, September 19, 2018 (UTC)

Data from the novel Oh No It Isn't!

Information. I myself am surprised. I need to think what it means. So I provide the raw data so that you could too.

1. The back cover states that it is "The first book in a new series of The New Adventures". "The New Adventures" is not inline, but rather a logo-like rectangle.
2. The back cover also states that "The New Adventures is an imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd."
3. In case you, like me, start questioning what "imprint" actually means, here is a Wikipedia article Imprint (trade name) as the start.
4. "NA" or "The New Adventures" are sprinkled throughout the book, typically as logos.
5. Copyright page states "First published in Great Britain by Virgin Publishing Ltd [address]" and "Copyright © Paul Cornell 1997"
6. The last page announces "Coming soon in The New Adventures" listing several upcoming titles.

What I really did not expect is for "The New Adventures" to be an imprint. Hmm... Amorkuz ☎ 21:57, September 26, 2018 (UTC)

... huh. Yeah, that's really weird. That "imprint of Virgin Publishing Ltd" line wasn't on the back cover of The Dying Days, but it looks like it stayed all the way to the final NA (long after they'd scrapped that "The New Adventures" logo for the more ambiguous "NA"). I really can't believe I've never noticed this before; sorry I've taken so long to even see this reply.

So what would that mean for our treatment of these pages? The New Adventures about the imprint, with separate sections for the equally-anonymous "new series" and its predecessor? I'm thinking of coughing up the dough and getting a copy of Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story to see if that will shed any further light on the topic. – N8 ☎ 00:12, December 5, 2018 (UTC)

Data from the novel The Dying Days

Oh, here's something. User:JayRed584 has provided me with this page from the end of The Dying Days, which has some very relevant quotes:

1. "The New Adventures began in 1992 ... The Missing Adventures started two years later. The Dying Days and The Well-Mannered War are, respectively, the sixty-first and the twenty-third in the two series. They are also, both, the last."
2. "This book, The Dying Days by Lance Parkin, also presages a new beginning ... We're waving goodbye to the Doctor, not to the New Adventures."
3. "From May 1997 onwards the New Adventures will blaze a trail into uncharted territories"
4. "Oh No It Isn't! by Paul Cornell, the first of the new New Adventures."
5. "Doctors may come and Doctors may go, but with your support the New Adventures can go on forever."

These quotes are a little bit conflicting: #1 explicitly says that The Dying Days is the last New Adventures novel, but then #2 and #4 both make it clear that the New Adventures are not ending in The Dying Days and are continuing. (I quite don't know what's signified by "new New Adventures" in #3!)

By my reading, this seems to support the "two series, neither of which have individual names, but both of which are under the New Adventures pseudo-imprint" interpretation. At which point I must scratch my head over whether that, in practice, would look any differently from the merger-with-separated-sections idea already in place on my Sandbox.

In any case, what's clear is that "Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures" (or even "Virgin New Adventures", come to think of it) is completely unattested in official merchandising, so either way something should be changed. – N8 ☎ 15:50, December 15, 2018 (UTC)

My understanding is that "new New Adventures" was a means to say that while the series was taking a new route, (books focusing on Benny rather than on the Doctor) it was still going to be the same imprint/series. Perhaps the quote "The are also, both, the last" was written more in a symbolical than literal sense (being the last New Adventure focusing on the Doctor). OncomingStorm12th ☎ 15:57, December 15, 2018 (UTC)

Looking over it all again with fresh eyes, and I agree that seems to be the best explanation for all of this. In which case the obvious solution would be the straightforward merge. – N8 ☎ 03:06, January 11, 2019 (UTC)

I don't really see how "last in the series" can be symbolic or metaphorical. I agree that there are issues here that need addressing, but note that The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield, for example, in BF, gets its own page. This is all very confusing, though, with the imprint and the conflicting statements above.

I'm reading it more as "This series of The New Adventures is now ending, but its spirit shall live on in a new series by the same title." Have we thought of maybe using (Doctor Who) and (Bernice Summerfield) as parentheticals?
×   SOTO contribs ×°/↯/•]   💬•| {/-//:   04:04, January 11, 2019 (UTC)

I think it's pretty clear in calling this "the end", "last" in the series, and in calling Oh No It Isn't! the "first" of a new series, "a new beginning". Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the "new New Adventures" were also a continuation of the series which ended with The Dying Days. And we're not given any name to easily differentiate them.
×   SOTO contribs ×°/↯/•]   💬•| {/-//:   04:10, January 11, 2019 (UTC)

Well okay, I don't know how easily we can dismiss the symbolic or metaphorical interpretation. Those statements are inherently contradictory, so regardless of which way you look at it, some of them must be intended figuratively; we could go back and forth forever about which are which. But I'm willing to cede the point, because frankly I'm not certain what difference it makes. We can't use Virgin New Adventures (Bernice Summerfield), because not all the novels feature Bernice Summerfield as a main character or at all, and it still has the same ambiguity problems as the current title. I just edited User:NateBumber/Sandbox4 to reflect that "New Adventures" is an imprint rather than a series, and I think it looks pretty good. Though I'd be eager to know any feedback! – N8 ☎ 01:36, January 22, 2019 (UTC)

Just pointing out for the record that only admins can merge pages; in addition, if a page has a merge tag that has started discussion, the discussion must be resolved before action can be taken. Shambala108 ☎ 23:22, March 19, 2019 (UTC)

Data from the novel Twilight of the Gods

User:Liria10 mentioned in Thread:235670 that there's a relevant afterward in Twilight of the Gods. Here is the picture in full. Particularly relevant:

When in 1997 the BBC declined to renew the license under which the New Adventures were published as Doctor Who novels, it was easy to continue the series without the Doctor and his TARDIS. Bernice took centre stage, the covers were redesigned to remove any lingering Gallifreyan associations, and the NA imprint was born.Peter Darvill-Evans

So it sounds like the awkward distinctions I drew on User:NateBumber/Sandbox4 are pretty valid. User:Revanvolatrelundar has closed the debate in favor of the merger, but it's good to include here for completionism's sake. – N8 ☎ 17:12, September 16, 2019 (UTC)