Bernice Summerfield (series)

Bernice Summerfield was the first series produced by Big Finish Productions, combining both audio and prose releases in an ongoing narrative, with the titular character portrayed by Lisa Bowerman.

Bernice Summerfield — 1998–present

Main character:

Bernice Summerfield

Key crew

Music:

Matthew Cochrane

Sound design:

Matthew Cochrane

Covers by:

Adrian Salmon

Series details

First release:

September 1998

Publisher:

Big Finish Productions

Music theme
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Bernice Summerfield series
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Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures	The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield

The series began in 1998 with audio adaptations of six Virgin New Adventures novels. After the first season's success, Big Finish began producing audio stories and prose stories simultaneously.

Initially, the ongoing narrative was spread evenly between the two media - for instance, Benny became pregnant in the novel Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Squire's Crystal and gave birth in the novel Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison, with the audio stories making several minor references to her pregnancy. However, from the third series onward, the audio stories became the primary series, with novels and short story collections providing greater depth to the world and heavily expanding on the large cast of regular characters. Occasionally, however, prose stories would be integral to the overall narrative, such as the audio story Death and the Daleks continuing on directly from the anthology Life During Wartime, and the regular characters Hass and Doggles being introduced in the anthologies A Life Worth Living and Something Changed respectively. When Simon Guerrier took over as executive producer for Series 7, he made an effort to better combine the audio and prose stories, featuring hitherto prose-only characters in audio and incorporating prose-featured events, such as the death of semi-regular character Ms Jones in the anthology Parallel Lives, into the overall story arc.

Many characters created or established in the Virgin New Adventures, such as Jason Kane and Irving Braxiatel, made major appearances in this series, and several others, such as Wolsey, Isaac Summerfield and Kadiatu Lethbridge-Stewart, were featured in occasional stories. Additionally, links were made with Big Finish's Doctor Who content, such as the character of Bev Tarrant crossing over from the Main Range to become a regular character.

Several authors who wrote for Benny at Virgin also contributed to the line. Writers like Matt Jones, Paul Cornell, Justin Richards, Lance Parkin, Dave Stone, Ben Aaronovitch, Daniel O'Mahony, Lawrence Miles, Mark Clapham and Gary Russell had at least one story produced.

Most of the stories cover Bernice's life following her departure from travelling with the Doctor. However, several prose releases have featured stories that portrayed Bernice's life long before she met the Doctor.

The series concluded in 2013, but Benny received a new series the next year as The New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield, where she was briefly reunited with the Seventh Doctor and Ace, before teaming up with an incarnation of the Doctor from an alternate universe. The release format continued to be annual boxsets, with occasional accompanying book releases under the Bernice Summerfield title.

Stories

		Novel			Anthology

Series 1

Main article: Series 1 (BFBS)

Series 1 was a collection of audio adaptations of Virgin New Adventures novels.

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Released
1	Oh No It Isn't!	Paul Cornell and Jacqueline Rayner	Audio	Wolsey, Grel	September 1998
2	Beyond the Sun	Matt Jones		Jason Kane	September 1998
3	Walking to Babylon	Kate Orman and Jacqueline Rayner		Jason Kane John Lafayette	January 1999
4	Birthright	Nigel Robinson and Jacqueline Rayner		Jason Kane John Lafayette	February 1999
5	Just War	Lance Parkin and Jacqueline Rayner		Jason Kane	August 1999
Buried Treasures	Making Myths	Jacqueline Rayner		Keri
Buried Treasures	Closure	Paul Cornell
6	Dragons' Wrath	Justin Richards and Jacqueline Rayner			September 2000

Series 2

Main article: Series 2 (BFBS)

Beginning with series 2, Big Finish began to release original audio stories about Bernice Summerfield. They also began to publish short story anthologies that continued ongoing plotlines from the audios.

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dead Men Diaries	Various	Short story anthology	Various	September 2000
	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Doomsday Manuscript	Justin Richards	Novel	Brax, Joseph, Adrian, Fifth Axis	November 2000
2.1	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Secret of Cassandra	David Bailey	Audio		December 2000
	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Gods of the Underworld	Stephen Cole	Novel	Brax, Joseph	February 2001
	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Squire's Crystal	Jacqueline Rayner	Novel	Adrian, Joseph, Brax, Fenman	April 2001
2.2	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Stone's Lament	Mike Tucker	Audio	Adrian	May 2001
2.3	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Extinction Event	Lance Parkin	Audio	Brax	July 2001
	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Infernal Nexus	Dave Stone	Novel	Jason	August 2001
2.4	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Skymines of Karthos	David Bailey	Audio	Brax	September 2001
	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison	Jacqueline Rayner	Novel	Brax, Joseph, Jason, Adrian, Isaac, Peter, Fifth Axis, Fenman, Chris Cwej	January 2002

Series 3

Main article: Series 3 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
3.1	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Greatest Shop in the Galaxy	Paul Ebbs	Audio	Joseph	February 2002
3.2	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Green-Eyed Monsters	Dave Stone		Jason, Adrian, Peter	June 2002
3.3	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Dance of the Dead^[1]	Stephen Cole		Ice Warriors	October 2002
	A Life of Surprises	Various	Short story anthology	Various	October 2002
3.4	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Mirror Effect	Stewart Sheargold	Audio	Brax, Jason, Adrian, Joseph	March 2003

Series 4

Main article: Series 4 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
4.1	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Bellotron Incident	Mike Tucker	Audio	Bev, Brax, Joseph, Rutans	April 2003
4.2	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Draconian Rage	Trevor Baxendale		Brax, Draconians	August 2003
4.3	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Poison Seas	David Bailey		Brax, Sea Devils	September 2003
	Life During Wartime	Various	Short story anthology	Various	13 October 2003
4.4	Death and the Daleks	Paul Cornell	Audio	Brax, Jason, Adrian, Joseph, Bev, Isaac, Fifth Axis, Daleks	January 2004

Series 5

Main article: Series 5 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
	The Big Hunt	Lance Parkin	Novel		May 2004
5.1	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Grel Escape	Jac Rayner	Audio	Jason, Peter, Joseph, The Grel	July 2004
	A Life Worth Living	Various	Short story anthology	Various	July 2004
5.2	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Bone of Contention	Simon A. Forward	Audio	The Galyari	August 2004
5.3	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Relics of Jegg-Sau	Stephen Cole		K1	November 2004
SP	Silver Lining	Colin Brake		Cybermen	9 December 2004
	A Life in Pieces	Various	Short story anthology	Various	December 2004
5.4	Professor Bernice Summerfield in the Masquerade of Death	Stewart Sheargold	Audio	Adrian	March 2005

Series 6

Main article: Series 6 (BFBS)

Starting in series 6, the anthology releases began to alternate between collections of short stories and groupings of three novellas. This continued until series 9.

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
6.1	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Heart's Desire	David Bailey and Neil Corry	Audio	Eternals	June 2005
	The Tree of Life	Mark Michalowski	Novel	Joseph	3 June 2005
6.2	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Kingdom of the Blind	Jac Rayner	Audio	Jason, Monoids	July 2005
6.3	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Lost Museum	Simon Guerrier	Audio	Jason	December 2005
	Parallel Lives	Various	Novella anthology	Various	2 January 2006
	Something Changed	Various	Short story anthology	Various	3 January 2006
6.4	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Goddess Quandary^[2]	Andy Russell	Audio	Keri	February 2006
6.5	Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Crystal of Cantus^[3]	Joseph Lidster	Audio	Brax, Jason, Joseph, Peter	June 2006

Series 7

Main article: Series 7 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
	Genius Loci^[4]	Ben Aaronovitch	Novel		19 June 2006
7.1	The Tartarus Gate	Stewart Sheargold	Audio	Jason, Joseph	July 2006
7.2	Timeless Passages	Daniel O'Mahony	Audio		August 2006
7.3	The Worst Thing in the World	Dave Stone	Audio	Jason	September 2006
7.4	Summer of Love	Simon Guerrier	Audio	Jason, Bev, Adrian, Doggles, Joseph, Hass	October 2006
	Collected Works^[5]	Various	Short story anthology	Various	1 September 2006
	Old Friends	Various	Novella anthology	Various	2 November 2006
7.5	The Oracle of Delphi	Scott Handcock	Audio	Jason	November 2006
7.6	The Empire State	Eddie Robson	Audio	Jason, Maggie, Brax	November 2006

Series 8

Main article: Series 8 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
8.1	The Tub Full of Cats	Daniel O'Mahony	Audio	Maggie, Brax	February 2007
8.2	The Judas Gift	Nick Wallace		Bev, Adrian, Brax, Doggles, Joseph, Hass, the Mim, Draconians	April 2007
8.3	Freedom of Information	Eddie Robson		Adrian, Brax, Doggles, Joseph, Hass, Jason, Peter, the Mim, Draconians	June 2007
	Nobody's Children	Various	Novella anthology	Various	3 August 2007
8.4	The End of the World	Dave Stone	Audio	Jason, Brax, Adrian, Mira	September 2007
	The Two Jasons^[6]	Dave Stone	Novel	Jason, Mira	May 2007
8.5	The Final Amendment	Joseph Lidster	Audio	Kadiatu, Jason	October 2007
	Missing Adventures	Various	Short story anthology	Various	19 November 2007
8.6	The Wake	Simon Guerrier	Audio	Peter, Brax, Adrian, Bev, Doggles, Joseph, Hass	January 2008

Series 9

Main article: Series 9 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
9.1	Beyond the Sea	Eddie Robson	Audio	Peter	June 2008
9.2	The Adolescence of Time	Lawrence Miles		Peter	July 2008
9.3	The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel	Jim Smith		Mycroft, Straxus, Cwejen	September 2008
	The Vampire Curse^[7]	Various	Novella anthology	Various	2 December 2008
9.4	The Diet of Worms	Matthew Sweet	Audio	Peter	October 2008

Series 10

Main article: Series 10 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
10.1	Glory Days	Nick Wallace	Audio	Peter, Bev, Adrian, Brax	June 2009
10.2	Absence	Daniel O'Mahony		Peter	July 2009
10.3	Venus Mantrap	Mark Clapham, Lance Parkin		Adrian, Peter	August 2009
10.4	Secret Origins	Eddie Robson		Peter, Robyn, Brax	September 2009
	Secret Histories	Various	Short story anthology	Various	1 December 2009

Series 11

Main article: Series 11 (BFBS)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
SP	Dead and Buried	Eddie Robson	Video	Brax	1 September 2010
11.1	Resurrecting the Past	Eddie Robson	Audio	Peter, Brax, Bev, Adrian, Robyn, Doggles, Joseph, Hass	September 2010
	Present Danger	Various	Short story anthology	Various	20 September 2010
11.2	Escaping the Future	Eddie Robson	Audio	Peter, Brax, Bev, Adrian, Doggles, Joseph, Hass	October 2010
11.3	Year Zero	Jonathan Clements			November 2010
11.4	Dead Man's Switch	John Dorney, Richard Dinnick			December 2010

Epoch

Main article: Epoch (audio anthology)

After series 11, Big Finish began to release new Bernice Summerfield audios in collected "boxsets" rather than spread out over months.

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
1	The Kraken's Lament	Mark Wright	Audio	Ruth, Acanthus, Jack	September 2011
2	The Temple of Questions	Jacqueline Rayner		Ruth, Leonidas, Jack, Heskith
3	Private Enemy No. 1	Tony Lee		Ruth, Leonidas, Heskith, the Epoch
4	Judgement Day	Scott Handcock		Ruth, Jack, the Epoch, Brax

Road Trip

Main article: Road Trip (audio anthology)

Road Trip began the pattern that would last until the series' penultimate release, where the boxset would include three audio stories and be accompanied by a tie-in novel.

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
1	Brand Management	Christopher Cooper	Audio	Ruth	February 2012
2	Bad Habits	Simon Barnard and Paul Morris	Audio
	The Weather on Versimmon^[8]	Matthew Griffiths	Novel
3	Paradise Frost	David Llewellyn	Audio	Ruth, Brax, Peter, Jack

Legion

Main article: Legion (audio anthology)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
1	Vesuvius Falling	Tony Lee	Audio	Peter, Ruth, Jack, Brax	September 2012
	The Slender-Fingered Cats of Bubastis ^[8]	Xanna Eve Chown	Novel	Ruth, Jack	28 September 2012
2	Shades of Gray	Scott Handcock	Audio	Ruth, Jack, Dorian	September 2012
3	Everybody Loves Irving	Miles Richardson	Audio	Brax, Peter, Ruth, Jack	September 2012

Many Happy Returns

The audio story Many Happy Returns was released in November 2012 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Bernice Summerfield's introduction in Love and War. Its contributors included Xanna Eve Chown, Stephen Cole, Paul Cornell, Stephen Fewell, Simon Guerrier, Scott Handcock, Rebecca Levene, Jacqueline Rayner, Justin Richards, Miles Richardson, Eddie Robson, and Dave Stone. A portion of the proceeds went to the myalgic encephalomyelitis charity "Invest in M.E."

Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
Many Happy Returns	Various	Audio	Joseph, Brax, Adrian, Bev, Peter, Ruth, Jack, Leonidas, Iris, Panda, The Doctor	November 2012

New Frontiers

Main article: New Frontiers (audio anthology)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
1	A Handful of Dust	Xanna Eve Chown	Audio	Peter, Ruth, Jack	30 April 2013
	Filthy Lucre	James Parsons and Andrew Stirling-Brown	Novel	Ruth, Jack, Brax	24 April 2013^[9]
2	HMS Surprise	Alexander Vlahos	Audio	Peter, Jack	30 April 2013
3	The Curse of Fenman	Gary Russell	Audio	Peter, Ruth, Jack, Brax, Fenman	30 April 2013

Missing Persons

Main article: Missing Persons (audio anthology)

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
	Adorable Illusion^[10]	Gary Russell	Novel	Jack, Adrian, Bev, Fenman	13 March 2014
1	Big Dig	Hamish Steele	Audio	Ruth, Jack, The Epoch	24 December 2013
2	The Revenant's Carnival	Martin Day		Peter
3	The Brimstone Kid	David Llewellyn		Brax
4	The Winning Side	James Goss		The Epoch
5	In Living Memory	Gary Russell and Scott Handcock		Peter, Ruth, Jack, Brax, The Epoch

The Story So Far

Main article: The Story So Far

To celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Bernice Summerfield series in 2018, Big Finish released several boxsets in the Bernice Summerfield range, including Treasury, a collection of narrated Bernice Summerfield short stories narrated by Lisa Bowerman and Andrew Cartmel; and The Story So Far: Volume One and Volume Two, a collection of six new audio stories set throughout Bernice's life.

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
	Treasury	Various	Narrated anthology	Various	7 August 2018
1	Ever After Happy	James Goss	Audio		25 September 2018
2	The Grel Invasion of Earth	Jacqueline Rayner		Jason
3	Braxiatel in Love	Simon Guerrier		Brax
4	Every Dark Thought	Eddie Robson		The Valeyard
5	Empress of the Drahvins	David Llewellyn		Ruth
6	The Angel of History	Una McCormack		The Doctor
	In Time	Various	Short story anthology	Various	19 December 2018

Further releases

#	Title	Author	Medium	Featuring	Published
	Benny in Wonderland	Xanna Eve Chown	Colouring book		3 October 2019
	The Christmas Collection	Various	Narrated anthology	Various	2 December 2020

Unproduced stories

Title	Author	Medium	Featuring
Bizarre Love Triangle	Matt Jones	Audio	Emile, vampires, the People
The Children of Shreeva	Andy Russell
Figure of Eight	Iain McLaughlin
Last of the Drop Dead Divas	Jim Mortimore
Terra Incognita	Ben Aaronovitch	Novel

Special releases

Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story: A reference book of Bernice Summerfield's life up to Series 8.

Crossovers

The Bernice Summerfield range occasionally crossed over with other ranges:

Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Plague Herds of Excelis: was branded as the Bernice Summerfield range story 3.0 but published under the Excelis Saga range.
The Phantom Wreck: Story from the special anthology The Worlds of Big Finish, a 2015 boxset which also featured characters from Big Finish's Graceless, Iris Wildthyme, Vienna, Sherlock Holmes, and Dorian Gray ranges.
Benny's Story: part of The Company of Friends anthology from the Main Range, but set during the events of this series.

External links

Official Bernice Summerfield page at bigfinish.com

Footnotes

↑ The Dance of the Dead follows directly from The Plague Herds of Excelis.
↑ The events Benny recounts in this story take place before The Lost Museum. However the framing narrative takes place sometime after The Crystal of Cantus. Despite being published before it, the anthology Parallel Lives follows from Benny's trip to Etheria recounted in The Goddess Quandary.
↑ The main events of this story take place immediately after The Lost Museum. However the framing narrative takes place after the framing narratives for both Death and the Daleks and The Goddess Quandary.
↑ Genius Loci is set not during series 6 or 7 but during Benny's earlier life.
↑ The short story Mother's Ruin is set a few weeks after Summer of Love.
↑ This story tales place contemporaneously with The End of the World and The Final Amendment.
↑ Though this anthology was published between The Diet of Worms and Glory Days, there is no gap between those two stories.
↑ ^8.0 ^8.1 This tie-in novel is set between stories in the accompanying boxset.
↑ This novel leads into HMS Surprise.
↑ This novel is set before Missing Persons despite being published later.

[1] The Dance of the Dead follows directly from The Plague Herds of Excelis.

[2] The events Benny recounts in this story take place before The Lost Museum. However the framing narrative takes place sometime after The Crystal of Cantus. Despite being published before it, the anthology Parallel Lives follows from Benny's trip to Etheria recounted in The Goddess Quandary.

[3] The main events of this story take place immediately after The Lost Museum. However the framing narrative takes place after the framing narratives for both Death and the Daleks and The Goddess Quandary.

[4] Genius Loci is set not during series 6 or 7 but during Benny's earlier life.

[5] The short story Mother's Ruin is set a few weeks after Summer of Love.

[6] This story tales place contemporaneously with The End of the World and The Final Amendment.

[7] Though this anthology was published between The Diet of Worms and Glory Days, there is no gap between those two stories.

[Tie-in-8] 8.0 ^8.1 This tie-in novel is set between stories in the accompanying boxset.

[9] This novel leads into HMS Surprise.

[10] This novel is set before Missing Persons despite being published later.

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