Down (novel)

Down
Main character(s):	Bernice Summerfield
Featuring:	Mr Misnomer, Ash, Lucretia
Main enemy:	The SSSSSSS, !X
Main setting:	Tyler's Folly, 14 January 2593
Key crew
Publisher:	Virgin Books
Writer:	Lawrence Miles
Release details
Release number:	5
Release date:	2 September, 1997
Format:	Paperback Book; 31 Chapters, 311 Pages
ISBN:	ISBN 0-426-20512-X
Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures
← Previous	Ship of Fools
Next →	Deadfall

Down was the fifth Virgin Bernice Summerfield New Adventures novel. It featured a reappearance of the People, who were introduced in Ben Aaronovitch's The Also People.

Publisher's summary

Mankind expects pain. However it seems to outsiders.

Tyler's Folly: a colony world on the unattractive side of Earthspace, a planet wracked by earthquakes and crawling with off-world bodysnatchers. When the local authorities pull a bedraggled Professor Bernice Summerfield out of the ocean in an off-limits 'quake zone, they naturally want to know what she is doing there... but the professor can only mumble something about woolly mammoths and sabre-toothed tigers.

According to Bernice, the planet is hollow, its interior inhabited by warring tribes of cavemen and strangely unconvincing prehistoric monsters. Some dark and ancient god rules this underground kingdom -- albeit a dark and ancient god with a penchant for thirties pulp adventures and Saturday morning action serials.

Can Bernice's claims be true? Is Tyler's Folly really under threat from an ageless subterranean horror? And why does so much of her story revolve around the utterly amoral alien known as !X...?

Chapter Titles

• Prologue: The Worldsphere
• Reality

1. 'The Nightmare Begins!'
2. 'The Travellers From Beyond Infinity!'
3. 'The Beast From Below The Waves!'
4. 'The Return Of The Chrome Crusader!'
5. 'Peril From The Dawn Of Time!'
6. 'Attack Of The Death-Nazis!'

• Reality

7. 'Escape To Horror!'
8. 'Escape To Horror! (Slight Return!)'
9. 'Expedition Of The Damned!'
10. 'Eve Of Exposition!'
11. 'Doomed!'
12. 'Down, Down, Deeper, And Down!'

• Reality

13. Dirigibles Of Death!'
14. 'The Caverns Of Creeping Neurosis!'
15. 'The Horror! The Horror!'
16. 'Where The Wild Things Aren't!'
17. 'The Primordial Soup Dragon!'
18. 'Unholy Catheral!'

• Reality

19. 'Slaves Of The Machine God!'
20. 'The Time That The People Forgot!'
21. 'Countdown!'
22. 'The End! (Or Is It?)'

• Reality

23. 'The Curse Of Mephisto!'
24. 'Reality!'

• Epilogue: The Worldsphere, and Other Wonderful Places

Plot

to be added

Characters

• Bernice Summerfield
• !X (aka si!Xist-i!xatl-iVa!qara)
• Kommander Ernst Katastrophen
• Lucretia Caroline Scannon
• Fos!ca
• Frans Nils Kryptosa
• MEPHISTO
• God
• The SSSSSSS

References

Books

• Frans Nils Kryptosa is an explorer and archaeologist who wrote In Search of Ancient Mu and A Short Trip to the Centre of Creation.
• The SSSSSSS use at least 18 official hymns and the handbook Mein Pantz by Bernard Richtmanstances.

Individuals

• !X (aka si!Xist-i!xatl-iVa!qara) is of the People, but he has removed himself from their society.

Law and order

• As !X is not part of the People's society he is not bound by the Time Lord-People Treaty.

Locations

• !X and Fos!ca are of The People who live in the Worldsphere, both it and Tyler's Folly are examples of Dyson Spheres.

Organisations

• SSSSSSS stands for Stella Stora Sigma Schutz-Staffel SturmSoldaten. They are the most ineffective Nazi group since the Outer Hebridean National Party.

Planets

• Kryptosa was born on Ordifica.
• The Worldsphere is 17 galaxies from Dellah.
• The SSSSSSS' power base is a small sausage factory on Smarley's World.

Psychology

• Teleportaphobia also known as "Molecular Vertigo" is described here as the fear of matter transmission. Specifically it is the psychological disorder that makes a person fear matter transmission as each time you are matter transported your body dies and another is re-created at the receiving end.

Species

• The Metatraxi are "famous" for eating their own parents.
• Bernice has a Selachian palmtop.

Vehicles

• The SSSSSSS submarine uses warp drive but goes through oceans between planets instead of space.

Notes

• There is a web address (www.ndirect.co.uk/shebeen) listed in the introduction of Down which did contain background material to Down, but the link is no longer active and doesn't appear to be archived anywhere.
• Down re-introduces the People. This includes Ben Aaronovitch's unique pronunciations for their names; a full explanation can be found in the introduction to The Also People.

Continuity

• PROSE: The Also People introduced the People and was the first meeting between Bernice and the People.
• Ordifica is mentioned in PROSE: Ghost Devices and seen in PROSE: Interference - Book One.

External links

• Down at the Doctor Who Reference Guide
• The Discontinuity Guide to: Down at The Whoniverse
• The Cloister Library: Down
• Down The Director's Cut by Lawrence Miles via Internet Archive - The Wayback Machine