Genius Loci (novel)

Genius Loci was the eighth full length novel published as part of Big Finish Productions' Bernice Summerfield series. It is also the first novel to explore (and is set) during Bernice Summerfield's early life before she met the Seventh Doctor in the novel Love and War.

Publisher's summary
''One day she will bring down empires and decide the fate of the universe. One day she will be feared by the creatures of evil and revered wherever people have had just a little bit too much to drink.''

But all that is yet to come...

Right now Bernice Summerfield is 21 years old and living hand to mouth and drink to drink. Offered a job beyond her qualifications she is lured out to the backwater planet of Jaiwan where nothing has ever happened -- ever.

There she joins a disparate team of archaeologists who have just discovered that the planet of Jaiwan may have been just a tad more interesting than people thought. This could be Benny's big break and her ticket to a proper career in archaeology.

That's if archaeology doesn't kill her first.

Plot
to be added

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Professor Mariela Ankola
 * Pilar Hidalgo
 * Simone Agani
 * Heidi Maputo
 * Chayana Lopeti
 * Shawnee
 * Lola
 * Elsa Lafayette

Culture

 * Professor Mariela gives Bernice a copy of her personal database, which included a lot of files on 20th century Earth.

Individuals

 * Bernice Summerfield is twenty-one when she arrives on Jaiwan.
 * Whilst on Jaiwan Bernice:
 * Gets her foot ripped off by a pot fish spider. She gets a new one on her second birthday.
 * Is nearly drowned.
 * Shot in the back (she had a lined protective jacket on).
 * Escapes a nuclear blast.


 * Bernice is known to the spiders (after fist contact) by the name "Fools Rush In".
 * Bernice kills Lola; this is the first time she's killed anyone.
 * Pinky and Perky were two artificial intelligences, one built the railways (Perky) and the roads and town plans (Pinky). They fell in love and started to share programming.
 * Professor Mariela Ankola is known as the Professor by everyone.

Foods and beverages

 * Krill is part CO2 scrubber, part additional protein source. Benny 'slings' it (and more notably knows how to make it taste palatable) to travel on spacecraft for free.
 * Vodka is Russia's greatest contribution to interstellar travel (in Bernice's opinion).
 * There is a Kwik-Kurry at General Layfeyette's army base.

Literature

 * Archaeology for Primates was published by Martian University Press in 2534.

Organisations

 * Benny dropped out of Spacefleet and is now on the run from it.
 * There is a draft in place.


 * TMF (Too Mad to Fight) is a suffix pertaining to the draft, meaning psychologically unfit for duty, Bernice has a fake one on her passport.

Planets

 * In January, 2562 Benny decides to head for Earth.
 * The Professor encountered lethal toxins while excavating an industrial site on the planet Cray.
 * The planet Heaven is becoming a popular planet to be buried on, but the Professor has a Last Ticket for burial on Earth in the Rift Valley, Tanzania.
 * Pilar Hidalgo is from the planet Shantak

Science

 * Benny calls her group of archaeologists Combat Archaeologists.
 * Nuclear dampeners create a field inhibiting chain reactions.
 * Nuclear blasts have some sort of effect on hyperspace.

Species

 * Martians are known as some of the best archaeologists in the galaxy.
 * A team is sent to discuss the ramifications of the spiders being sapient. It is made up of a human, an Earth Reptile and a Martian.
 * Benny still calls Draconians 'Dragons'.
 * Earth Reptiles never forgave humans for usurping them and taking over their planet.

Technology

 * Continuous Active Recording units are used at the archaeological digs.

Vehicles

 * Fulcrum is a VTOL capable troop carrier.

Continuity

 * Draconians (and the Draconian War) were first mentioned/appeared in TV: Frontier in Space.
 * Earth Reptiles first appeared in TV: Doctor Who and the Silurians and The Sea Devils.