Dead Romance (novel)

 is the nineteenth Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures novel and the second in a row not to feature Bernice Summerfield in the main narrative. This story almost entirely focuses on Christine Summerfield and Chris Cwej. In 2004, it was reprinted as part of the Mad Norwegian Press Faction Paradox line.

Publisher's summary
"All right, let's start with the basics. The world ended on the twelfth of October, Nineteen Seventy..."

I don't know why I'm writing this. It's not like anybody's going to read it. At least, nobody who cares about the fact that I'm a desperate, dying, 23-year-old human being who's just had the whole of history taken away from her.

To whoever's out there, to whatever's left, this is the way things were, just before the end. This is the story about the last days of London, about murder and love and waking up in the ruins, about all the people buried in the wreckage...

I'm lying, obviously. This is my story. This is what I was doing, when October the twelfth came. Because, let's face it, I'm the only one who really matters.

I'm the only one who got out alive.

First notebook (128 pages)
to be added

Second notebook (128 pages, 12 missing)
to be added

Third notebook (128 pages, 8 blank)
to be added

Characters

 * Christine Summerfield
 * Chris Cwej
 * Khiste
 * The Horror
 * Cwej's employers
 * Sphinxes
 * Lady Diamond

Biology

 * Cwej's employers give regenerative powers to their agents, Chris Cwej included.

Individuals

 * Christine Summerfield is probably no relation to Bernice Summerfield, except in name.
 * Chris Cwej is an agent of the Great Houses.
 * After meeting with the machine peoples, Chris comes back to Christine and has sex with her to make himself feel human.
 * Chris Cwej recalls Roz Forrester's death.
 * The Horror is a gestalt of all the stuff lost in the Vortex.
 * Father Kreiner appears as the voice of the Horror that Christine speaks to and negotiates with.
 * The large machine intelligence is Pool, the gestalt from above Arcadia.
 * Benny's earliest known ancestor is Jonah Summerfield I. He was born in 1930 and was killed in an industrial accident in 1975.
 * Benny's distant ancestor Jason Summerfield was born in 2007. He had a son named Jubilation Summerfield in 2039.

Literature

 * Christine writes much of Dead Romance in the ruins of the Homeworld's capitol.

Locations

 * Lady Diamond's shop is on Henrietta Street.

Planets

 * The bottle universe is kept on Simia KK98.
 * Simia KK98 is a colony of Cwej's employers. Inside is an eight-armed statue of their founder holding various artefacts.
 * Cwej takes Christine to a market on Cygni 8.6, where she sees some liquid cats, which may be related to wetworks facility technology.
 * Shada is described.
 * Christine reads about Tyler's Folly.
 * Khiste takes Christine to Ordifica.
 * Christine, after being dropped off on Ordifica, visits a number of colony worlds including Shristostophon, Gardener's World, Hai Dow Seven, Lubellin, Shatner's Climax, Ultra Caprisis, then onto the Homeworld, before heading towards Dellah.

Species

 * Cwej comes back from a meeting with machine people. Supposedly his employers "made a deal with them. Years ago," to let them build time machines.
 * Cwej's employers are the Great Houses.
 * Cwej's employers alter their treaty with the People, which means they can build time machines. God was present.
 * The enemy is obliquely referred to.

Continuity

 * The Gods from which Cwej's employers are preparing to escape appeared in PROSE: Where Angels Fear.
 * Chris Cwej last appeared in PROSE: Oblivion.
 * Roz Forrester died in PROSE: So Vile a Sin.
 * Father Kreiner fell into the vortex in PROSE: Interference.
 * The Time Lord-People Treaty was first mentioned in PROSE: The Also People.
 * The concept of Time Lords regenerating for particular purposes/for war first appears in PROSE: Alien Bodies, and Time Lords in non-bipedal forms appear in PROSE: The Taking of Planet 5.
 * The bottle that appears is implied to be the bottle I.M. Foreman has in PROSE: Interference. Interference also mentioned that the Time Lords are making "Ogron Lords" by altering them to be time compatible; this concept is first introduced in this novel.
 * Simia KK98 was first mentioned in PROSE: Alien Bodies and would later appear in PROSE: The Book of the War.
 * Wetworks technology appears in AUDIO: The Genocide Machine.
 * Henrietta Street features more heavily in PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street.
 * In AUDIO: The Shadow Play, Christine (now called Eliza) mentions that one of the Great Houses was responsible for the invasion of her Earth.
 * Pool appeared in PROSE: Deceit.
 * The bronze spheres Christine saw above Simia KK98 were 90-form timeships. (PROSE: The Book of the War)
 * In a newspaper, Christine reads about sea serpents sighted on Tyler's Folly in 2593. (PROSE: Down)
 * The message from the Ouija board includes the lines "WE ARE ALL IN THE BOTTLE AND ONE DAY THE BOTTLE WILL BREAK" (PROSE: Alien Bodies) and "CHRISTINE ON A RATIONAL PLANET". (PROSE: Christmas on a Rational Planet)