#9
Tempest
By Christopher Bulis
Few writers are quite as ubiquitous in Doctor Who fiction as Christopher Bulis, who by this point had written for all but two of the Doctors for Virgin Publishing. (One of the “not”s was Paul McGann and that was probably just because Virgin lost the license. Bulis later rectified this at BBC Books.) It is fitting, then, or at least unsurprising that he should have a crack at the Bernice Summerfield range as well.
Tempest is a murder mystery on a train. So far, blah: it’s fair to say we’ve been there and done that in pop culture. Hell, this range of books has already plundered Agatha Christie for Ship Of Fools. Sometimes though, it’s how you do it, and Tempest… is also not the great brain-teaser of the century as far as murder mysteries go. Bugger. (Let’s just say it employs the old gambit of leaving an obvious suspect completely unremarked upon for some reason. I cheered smugly when I was right.)
There are other marks against it. Bulis has somewhat of a tin ear for names in this, with the action centring around a priceless statue called the Drell Imnulate (just reading it on the page makes my tongue twist), characters such as Lankril, Tralbet the Narg and briefly two completely unrelated people called Lin and Lyn.
Worse though, on a general level, is Bernice. She just doesn’t seem as witty as usual. I can’t help rating these books on how well they’ve captured her voice — it’s one of the only constants of the range — and with inner monologues as, ah, pithy as “The more I learn the more I realise I don’t have to look outside my own species to find behavioural quirks quite as strange as those of any alien society,” I’m unlikely to exceed 3 Paul Cornells out of a possible 5, am I?
And yet: after a while I realised I was haring through this at a good speed. Though I held a pretty firm suspicion throughout over whodunit, I was enjoying the process of uncovering it and how it was dun. Last — and best — of all? It’s bloody Bernice, who is good in this, actually, Mr Judgy Where-Are-My-Quips.
First off, we see Bernice in her element delivering a lecture to laughter and applause. Showing, not telling! Hooray! She’s a guest speaker in need of funds. (“It will be a novel sensation to be solvent for a while.” Wouldn’t you know it, the cushy status quo from Mean Streets hasn’t held up.) As far as she knows she hasn’t been tasked with finding an ancient artefact or even solving a mystery for once, she’s just here to do her job and the plot happens to her while she’s on the way home. I’ve moaned before about the level of contrivance needed to get her into plots sans TARDIS, and it’s nice to make it feel natural once in a while. (Of course it turns out her involvement is not a coincidence, but that reveal didn’t bother me. She manages to avoid being further ensnared, and hence keep her agency, just by getting drunk at the right time. So that’s a character foible becoming critical to the plot. Nice!)
Her (arguable) lack of spark could be attributed to the fact that she’s knackered, and quite simply not interested in cleaning up a mess she didn’t cause. Whatever the reason in-continuity (and outside continuity apparently Bulis wanted to write a very all-ages-accessible Bernice, which in practical terms meant fewer rude jokes, so that’s that mystery solved), the result is a more weathered but I think, not unbelievable Bernice Summerfield. She’s done this sort of thing before, literally: “If you’re volunteering to take charge, be my guest. I’ve played detective before and believe me it’s harder than it looks.” (I think that’s above being called lampshading: if you’re stuck with repetition in a series, say so, as long as you can build on it.) Whether she likes it or not, she fits the role of investigator and hero, and the other characters seem to insist on it.
And why shouldn’t they? I’m probably projecting here – from the book’s general reputation it’s clear I’m quite generous about it too – but I like to think that’s just something characters pick up when they spend enough time with the Doctor. Bernice just seems like the one who’ll sort it out. She fits the mould of responsibility, particularly in a Doctor-ish moment where she consoles the survivors of a fight that, unlike the raiders who just attacked, their own lost lives were given for something that actually mattered. But she’s still not, and can’t be, the Doctor, hence joining in when a gun battle ensues and helping to engineer a fatal crash for some attackers. When we finally get to the accusing parlour scene, it doesn’t feel like a re-run of Ship Of Fools — firstly because this book isn’t so thoroughly arch about it, but mainly because she’s invested in this one, as mucked in as anyone else on this very unfortunate train.
Which is, by the way, another good thing about Tempest. The setting is both claustrophobic, rarely straying beyond the high speed train (which lets us focus on the plot and the characters), and interestingly sci-fi-ish, with the thoroughly inhospitable and weird planet frequently visible (and a frequent hindrance) just beyond the windows. The planet was the original impetus for the book, but I think it’s a smart move to keep it as an incredible thing we only get glimpses of. (You could come back to it and do more with it if you were so inclined, but I’m guessing they didn’t as Bulis didn’t return.) It’s a good way to keep the ho-hum setup from seeming too ho-hum while maintaining the essential “yeah but then what happens” of a murder mystery. That said, don’t panic, there’s plenty of action as well.
The mystery, which I’ve banged on about as being too simple, is at least more complicated in execution, with various red herrings and deliberate nefarious fake-outs. That process is fun, and the character relationships are fleshed out quite interestingly through the investigation. It all serves to get Bernice good and stuck into things, and make it feel as though these things can just happen to her, just as she can sort them out, quite naturally. Tempest isn’t especially bold or showy, but after multiple books where she felt like an afterthought in her own series, I can’t not appreciate that.
7/10
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