Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Relics of Jegg-Sau

Bernice Summerfield Audio Dramas #5.3

by Stephen Cole, Lisa Bowerman (Narrator), Michael Kilgarriff (Narrator)

The colonists knew the risks about Jegg-Sau. With a flimsy atmosphere, no mineral wealth and exhausted soil, only the strongest and most determined could hope to make a home there. But with nowhere else to go, they went ahead, allegedly funded by a stock of valuable relics and art treasures stolen from Earth...

But the colony failed. Jegg-Sau was deserted once more, a home only to carrion and rusted dreams. But Bernice Summerfield believes the relics remained, and she's come a long, long way in search of them. What she'll find is that others have reached Jegg-Sau before her. She'll find herself cat's-paw in a dark outpost of frailty and obsession.

And she'll find the robots.

Genres: Doctor Who, Audiobook, Science Fiction

Audio CD

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

See also: Steve Cole.

Stephen Cole (born 1971) is an English author of children's books and science fiction. He was also in charge of BBC Worldwide's merchandising of the BBC Television series Doctor Who between 1997 and 1999: this was a role which found him deciding on which stories should be released on video, commissioning and editing a range of fiction and non-fiction titles, producing audiobooks and acting as executive producer on the Big Finish Productions range of Doctor Who audio dramas.

Reviews

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Benny si ritrova sul pianeta con i bizzarri Ethan Kalwall e sua figlia Elise, dopo che quest'ultima per sbaglio ha tirato giù il suo shuttle (ops). Insieme a loro c'è il robot K103, sullo stesso modello di quello del serial Robot con Tom Baker. Il motivo della loro presenza su Jegg-Sau è in qualche modo legato alle reliquie, ma i due sono particolarmente strani e inquietanti, e il robot che dovrebbe servirli sembra più un carceriere.
La storia è quasi tutta raccontata a flashback, con Benny che narra la sua avventura e spiega le sue azioni.
Come per il serial Robot, il nocciolo della questione è dettato dal fatto che questi robot hanno preso in maniera distorta la loro direttiva primaria (proteggere gli esseri umani e sostituirli nei compiti più pericolosi), e Benny deve cercare di tirarsi fuori dai guai a parole cercando di farli ragionare o di ripiegare la situazione a suo vantaggio. Ma andando avanti ci ritroviamo con un plot-twist inaspettato che rende il tutto più agghiacciante e che conduce ad un finale piuttosto deprimente.

[Daniel Cork · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Robot’ is a fan favourite Doctor Who story and one of the very best debuts for a new Doctor. When I found Stephen Cole had written a kind of sequel to it for Bernice Sunmerfield I knew I had to give it a listen.

Having crash landed on Jegg-Sau Bernice comes across a father and daughter on an ex-colony world lonely and isolated except for the robots. Bernice is about to discover an uncomfortable truth.

Stephen Cole has written an unsettling audio drama about the loneliness of robots and the limits to their understanding of humans. It’s a story with an underlining sense of darkness and loneliness.

Overall: A great story. 9/10

[April Mccaffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Relisten continues...

Certainly one of the better Benny audios. Intriguing story involving robots and relics and not all is what it seems..

[Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting take on a well trodden sci fi trope. The inclusion of the giant robot from 4th Doctor adventure "ROBOT" is an interesting but fun one and help links the Bernice Summerfield range back to the Doctor Who range again.

[Wendy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't initially have high-expectations for an audio that brings back the giant robot from Robot, which seemed like a one-off character if there ever was one. Still, Cole comes up with a plausible enough excuse for their to be another robot, and creates a rather demented "lost in space" style scenario of a Benny crash-landing on a planet with a marooned colonist, his daughter, and the robot being the only inhabitants.

The thing that made the giant robot interesting in Robot was its extremely flawed attempts to understand and mimic human emotions. The same flaws drive the plot here, with things getting weirder and darker than they ever did on TV. (The ultimate in this is the revelation that the robot derived much of its understanding of human relationships from a semi-pornographic virtual reality dating game. Yikes!) The story takes some grim and graphic turns, and isn't at all the light-hearted giant robot romp that I was (for some reason) anticipating.

[Anne Barwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice appearance by a classic Who character with references to its origin story. Not everything is as it appears to be, and I enjoyed the twist toward the end. One thing I do like about the Benny stories is that it's not always the happy ever after you expect nor the ending you expect. They're not afraid to dabble with 'out of the box' and anything is possible.

[Debra Cook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Benny wakes up on Jegg-Sau in the company of 2 humans and a robot. But are the humans actually humans. And is the planet full of relics as benny was sent to get. Find out on your own.