The Tertiary Console Room: Review - Professor Bernice Summerfield

"For a planet with a burning sky, it's bloody cold here..."

The second season of Bernice Summerfield audios closes in the manner which it began, with an audio scripted by David Bailey, but unlike his first The Secret Of Cassandra, his latest, The Skymines Of Karthos is a far more rousing affair.

The opening is particularly impressive as Bailey uses the device of Benny leaving a message to Braxiatel explaining why she has gone to Karthos as her friend Caitlin has discovered evidence of a ruined civilisation there. This establishes the scene well and by slipping into a scene between Michael and Caitlin Peters, it establishes the boundaries and extent of their troubled marriage that in turn becomes important throughout the later stages of the audio. The scene is undoubtedly exposition, but it is not done obviously and engages the listener's interest immediately.

The story revolves around Caitlin's disappearance on the planet Karthos, which is a mining colony. Bailey crafts a much more involving background to the setting than his previous story and through the characters reactions, a clear picture of a barren world comes through. When Benny arrives and discovers this, the coincides begin to pile up as the colonists have been plagued by attacks from vicious creatures known as fireflies which began shortly after her disappearance. It is a mystery that Benny cannot resist, especially with her friend's life on the line.

Doctor Konstantin also introduces the fireflies in a believable manner through the process of an autopsy. This allows the listener to get a sense of what Bailey intends them to look like without it pushing credibility to have the characters describing them in detail, as it would have done had someone under attack done something similar.

This audio is also set between the two Benny novels, The Infernal Nexus, by Dave Stone, and The Glass Prison by Jacqueline Rayner, meaning that it is the only audio adventure to deal with the fact that Benny is now pregnant. As Bailey suggests in his author's notes, having your main character heavily pregnant means that a lot of the things that Benny can usually do with ease need much more care to think through. Interestingly, Bailey doesn't really make it clear what Benny's condition is until she has reached Karthos, meaning that it may come as an abrupt shock to those unfamiliar with the events of the preceding novels, but it does make the drama seem more natural and as Benny says at one point, the identity of the father has nothing to do with finding Caitlin and is not part of this story!

The pregnancy also affects the way that Benny is characterised, and at times it seems almost as if she is trying to forget that she is in her condition at times as she tries to do the things that she's always been able to do in the past in her role as an intergalactic adventurer, such as a trip to a mountainous area to rescue the missing Caitlin, but it takes Michael to point out the dangers inherent in the course of action she prescribes.

Bailey's script is fast paced, leaving little time for padding, and develops well by ensuring that the hints as to what is really happening on Karthos build up at just the right moments. While it suffers from being a bit too straightforward at times in its focus, conversely the narrow approach keeps the script tight. Sadly, the momentum of the story is not quite carried through to the end with the ending in particular being very abrupt. Despite this, it concludes the story well but it does leave a longing in the listener for something a bit more dramatic and satisfying to match the rest of the adventure.

Lisa Bowerman's performance as Benny is again one of the highlights of the audio. This time she gets to demonstrate a more conflicted approach to the part with her need to find Caitlin battling against the pressures her condition puts her in which is effectively played. The bulk of her scenes take place with Jimmy Wilson's Michael Peters character and there is a sense of unease between the two characters that comes through clearly, but they are prepared to work together to find his wife. Wilson's performance is believable in the portrayal of a troubled relationship with Rebecca Jackson's Caitlin, and the eventual revelation as to why Caitlin went missing is poignantly played. Johnson Willis adds a touch of mystery to the cast with his aloof Doctor Konstantin, whom just does not seem to care about Caitlin's disappearance. Despite being credited second in the cast list, Miles Richardson's Irving Braxiatel makes only a fleeting cameo appearance at the start of the story as his answer machine message, which given the impact he made in The Extinction Event is disappointing although the story doesn't require him to be there.

David Darlington creates the post-production and music, and on both counts he succeeds in creating a rich accompaniment to the drama. The sound design in particular is praiseworthy as Karthos comes across as a very bleak, alien world, and the atmosphere accentuates the qualities Bailey's script was trying to show. The effects used for the voice of the fireflies is also effective at creating a credible alien race, even if they do, on occasion, sound like very angry cats.

The Skymines Of Karthos is a significant improvement on Bailey's first Benny audio as the drama is played out more vividly and convincingly. With an intriguing and unusual setting, a strong cast, led, as always, by Lisa Bowerman this is a fine piece of diverting drama, let down only slightly by a hurried ending.