Molly! ┌| ∵ |┘♪

★★★☆☆ – Alright!

Oh, It’s a Comedy…!

And of course it is – it’s a Jacqueline Rayner book! Why did I expect any different?

If you, like me, have done your time skulking around the wiki; if you’ve read anything about this book, you probably know one thing about it. The one thing this book is famous for (to the degree that this book is famous, which it isn’t particularly). If you don’t, your proficiency in spoiler avoidance is of impressive caliber, but in case you think you do, let’s say it on three: One… Two… Three! It’s the book in which Bernice Summerfield gets nonconsensually pregnant with a wolfman baby while a villain is possessing her body.

Let’s dig into that a bit. Bernice Summerfield, of course, has had an active fiction line since 1992 – thirty-three years, at the time of writing. With the last Virgin New Adventures book being published in 1999, twenty-five of those years have been spent in the care of Big Finish. Despite this, I get the impression – and I cannot say how true it is, as I haven’t read enough of them to be sure – that Big Finish’s Bernice Summerfield novels are considerably fluffier fare than the New Adventures, in both senses: less dark, and perhaps of less substance.

Benny’s Virgin outings live in the collective cultural consciousness to this day – you hear extolment not only of heavy Doctor Who hitters such as Love and War and Just War (no love in that one), but even occasionally of her Doctor-less adventures like Down. Meanwhile, her Big Finish novels are not only not extolled, but… hardly ever mentioned, in my limited experience. With the Virgin novels both better remembered and known for their emphasis on continuity, then, it’s odd to think that most of Bernice Summerfield today – her personality; her continuity – is built on that Big Finish output that’s hardly ever discussed. Paul Cornell’s Bernice “I like a drink” Summerfield is who she was; Big Finish’s Bernice “I need a drink…” Summerfield is not altogether different – but certainly noticeably so.

A Comedy with Non-Comedy Consequences

With two decades of hindsight, this novel feels mind-boggingly odd. The reason? It’s a genre work where the genre trappings have consequences far removed from its genre.

In this book, the villain sleeps with a wolfman while in Bernice’s body and (as is only revealed in a later book) gets her pregnant with the baby of this man for whom she has absolutely no affinity. This is played for laughs, which in all fairness – despite being a writing choice that one could imagine would be avoided today – works just fine in the context of the novel… but then they ran with it. “She’s running sex-crazedly and decadently amok with your body!” works as an amusing circumstance – “You’re saddled with the baby of a man you do not love, conceived against your will while you were practically unconscious” does not. It’s an emotionally immaterial setup to a heavy story arc – a scene borne of comedy, its result deferred tragedy. The sort of genre-subversive whiplash that’s worthy of, say, The Boys, but it seems to have come about accidentally. Of course, when the fallout is eventually handled in The Glass Prison, it still doesn’t feel all that heavy – that is, after all, also a Jacqueline Rayner novel – but it’s the sort of thing that’s impossible to read a synopsis of (or even stop and think about in the shower) without it coming off as profoundly terrifying.

Coming from later releases, this serves to somewhat weaken the house of cards that is Bernice Summerfield’s continuity. When you hear about her past it sounds enticing and rich – so when it’s revealed to rest on a joke, that richness is made a tad poorer. It might serve the series better to experience it in order – going from “haha” to “oh” is decidedly a stronger experience than from “whoa” to “pfft” – but with the two decades of content released after this novel, that’s not necessarily the natural approach. Bernice Summerfield has, in a way, hurt its own structural integrity as a series by being as long-lived and successful as it is.

The Scent of Butter

On its own merits, The Squire’s Crystal is classic Rayner: It’s popcorn literature. It never makes any particularly daring story decisions, and all psychological exploration of the premise – the classic “gender swap” being famously ripe for a panoply of angles – is deftly dodged in service of being an effective, digestible vessel for comedy and a high pace. No palpable angst results from the body swap (Benny is portrayed as experiencing angst, but I can’t in good conscience say the book is written in an angsty tone), and gender roles are only explored from the perspective of genre tropes (“now that I’m a man I can’t use my feminine wiles!”). In a particularly funny moment, the book displays that it’s written by a cis woman a smidge too prominently: It’s apparently vexing that Benny’s new male body’s bits constantly “bounce around”. While wearing tight leather pants. In case you’re not familiar, I’ll tell you here and now: Such is not the penile experience.

This review undeniably sounds like damning with faint praise (mixed in with a helping of regular damning), but if I’m to be honest, as a trans woman currently battling a particularly lengthy bout of debilitating dysphoria, I was dearly hoping not to have to confront the intricacies of sex and gender today. There’s a time and place for popcorn literature, and mine – listening to an audiobook while moving – was certainly it. I suppose one could’ve wished for a few twists and turns to help the book skirt around being quite so “by the numbers”, but alas.

For once, we have a story that’s infinitely stranger in context than on its own.

★★★★⯪ – A would-be masterpiece with an unfortunate aftertaste.

This review contains spoilers for the ending of the book.

Read Human Nature. Do it! It’s a resounding success of a novel that, contrary to the associations of the phrase “tie-in media”, is in the same weight class as some of the best stand-alone sci-fi novels you’ve read. It’s riveting, it’s brave, its characters are written with incredible feeling, and it contains a stupefying example of how to write a satisfying romance in appallingly few scenes. The book is, in this case, a hundred times better than the movie. That said, what I’m interested in exploring in this review is something I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere: how the ending of Human Nature falls on its face.

A recurring theme in Doctor Who, and especially the New Adventures, and especially especially Paul Cornell’s work, is the tension between the epic and the everyday; between grand, unfathomable science fiction and the little things in life. When an effort is made to emphasize this contrast, the author du jour typically comes down on the side of the latter – sometimes unsuccessfully (the Fifth Doctor’s “well-prepared meal” speech in Earthshock [1982], an episode in which the evil robots with big guns arguably win, comes to mind), and sometimes, as is generally the case in Paul Cornell’s oeuvre, powerfully. Take his earlier novel for this line, Love and War, in which the winning hands include calling somebody by their chosen name and telling a story about a road trip passionately enough. Cornell seems to me an eminently media-literate man – he writes, I get the impression, with a watchful eye fixed on his message: Choosing to send your students to war as child soldiers conspicuously yields no positive results whatsoever, and despite the military making an appearance rather early, they’re never allowed to step in to provide any solutions. It is jarring, then, when the novel not only shoots itself in the foot, but does so shortly after explicitly proclaiming that “I shall not shoot myself in the foot”.

Hanging over the plot – in which the Doctor has turned into John Smith, a human, losing his memories and superhuman powers – is the possibility for the true Doctor to make a return in order to, as the deus he is, save the day ex machina. This would, of course, beyond being deeply unsatisfying (plenty of Doctor Who plots follow the structure “the Doctor is tied up somewhere, so everyone else’s agency is limited to waiting for him to show up and fix things”), run counter to the larger message of the book: If true triumph is to be found in the everyday, why should the solution be “we need the inscrutable Time Lord from faraway Gallifrey to work his sci-fi magic”? Indeed, the novel recognizes this, and – as if to reassure the reader – contains this line:

He sat down beside her. ‘John Smith is the real me. And it’s because of all this, not despite it. You don’t know what you really want in life until it’s taken from you.’

‘You mean Joan?’

‘Yes. […] I have to save her. And I have to do it as me.’

Unfortunately, in a move I can only describe as inexplicable, the novel then promptly turns around and has becoming the Doctor be the solution. Hey, is that the machina? Well, the deus has just come ex it, and he saves the day by way of technobabble. How Cornell managed to lay out a plan for the reader so concretely and yet summarily fail to execute on it, I do not know – but there is a possible explanation, though I described it as “inexplicable”. Quote the endnotes of the 2002 e-book version:

[N]obody had ever really done mythologist Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’ for the Doctor, the plot that’s most commonly recognised in popular culture as that of Superman II, where the hero gives everything up to discover what normal humanity is like. Fertile ground, I thought.

The particular stage of the Hero’s Journey Cornell refers to here is the apotheosis, in which the hero gains enlightenment. And, sure, the apotheosis can be applied to the novel as a whole; that enlightenment being found in humanity (that is to say, human nature). Apply the whole Hero’s Journey to the story, however, and the apotheotic moment within the book is… when John Smith sacrifices himself and becomes the Doctor. Here, “enlightenment” is becoming an inscrutable Time Lord from faraway Gallifrey. If Cornell did indeed choose this development as part of the Hero’s Journey, it’s a shame, and if not, it is inexplicable – either way, a tone-deaf moment in an otherwise pitch-perfect book. (As an aside – and this is hardly a critique, as it isn’t fair to ask that an author should’ve come up with the exact same idea – I can’t help but feel Cornell missed the opportunity to let John Smith live out the fifty or so remaining years of his life with Joan, something that would have been possible thanks to the unique setup of the Doctor as a character.)

In fact, at no point after returning to Doctorhood does the Doctor ever make a decision differently in light of his experiences as a human – he gets a chance, in the form of deciding whether to be empathetic enough to say goodbye to his paramour (as opposed to pulling an Irish goodbye for the ages)… but comes down on the side of “no”, and has to be convinced by his companion. (In the first draft of the book, he actually does disappear without a trace, a choice Cornell rightly recognized as a mistake.) Ultimately, there’s never any sign of the Doctor having learned anything from his ordeal, save for a scene at the very end, in which the Doctor cries – a lovely moment, given that it isn’t something the Doctor is given to doing, but underwhelming as the sole result of becoming human for a time.

Human Nature does succeed in its messaging in other areas – for one, it makes a stand for pacifism and conscientious objectors (something Cornell walks back in the TV adaptation, apparently having lost his pacifist streak along the way). As a work of character writing, it’s flawless – I didn’t even mention Bernice Summerfield’s role in the book, but it’s one of her most essential novels; her thoughtscape laid out beautifully before the reader. Take this review as one long – and, admittedly, significant – asterisk next to my central sentiment: “It’s amazing.*”

★★★★⯨ – A would-be masterpiece with an unfortunate aftertaste.

This review contains spoilers for the ending of the book.

Read Human Nature. Do it! It’s a resounding success of a novel that, contrary to the associations of the phrase “tie-in media”, is in the same weight class as some of the best stand-alone sci-fi novels you’ve read. It’s riveting, it’s brave, its characters are written with incredible feeling, and it contains a stupefying example of how to write a satisfying romance in appallingly few scenes. The book is, in this case, a hundred times better than the movie. That said, what I’m interested in exploring in this review is something I haven’t seen discussed elsewhere: how the ending of Human Nature falls on its face.

A recurring theme in Doctor Who, and especially the New Adventures, and especially especially Paul Cornell’s work, is the tension between the epic and the everyday; between grand, unfathomable science fiction and the little things in life. When an effort is made to emphasize this contrast, the author du jour typically comes down on the side of the latter – sometimes unsuccessfully (the Fifth Doctor’s “well-prepared meal” speech in Earthshock [1982], an episode in which the evil robots with big guns arguably win, comes to mind), and sometimes, as is generally the case in Paul Cornell’s oeuvre, powerfully. Take his earlier novel for this line, Love and War, in which the winning hands include calling somebody by their chosen name and telling a story about a road trip passionately enough. Cornell seems to me an eminently media-literate man – he writes, I get the impression, with a watchful eye fixed on his message: Choosing to send your students to war as child soldiers conspicuously yields no positive results whatsoever, and despite the military making an appearance rather early, they’re never allowed to step in to provide any solutions. It is jarring, then, when the novel not only shoots itself in the foot, but does so shortly after explicitly proclaiming that “I shall not shoot myself in the foot”.

Hanging over the plot – in which the Doctor has turned into John Smith, a human, losing his memories and superhuman powers – is the possibility for the true Doctor to make a return in order to, as the deus he is, save the day ex machina. This would, of course, beyond being deeply unsatisfying (plenty of Doctor Who plots follow the structure “the Doctor is tied up somewhere, so everyone else’s agency is limited to waiting for him to show up and fix things”), run counter to the larger message of the book: If true triumph is to be found in the everyday, why should the solution be “we need the inscrutable Time Lord from faraway Gallifrey to work his sci-fi magic”? Indeed, the novel recognizes this, and – as if to reassure the reader – contains this line:

He sat down beside her. ‘John Smith is the real me. And it’s because of all this, not despite it. You don’t know what you really want in life until it’s taken from you.’

‘You mean Joan?’

‘Yes. […] I have to save her. And I have to do it as me.’

Unfortunately, in a move I can only describe as inexplicable, the novel then promptly turns around and has becoming the Doctor be the solution. Hey, is that the machina? Well, the deus has just come ex it, and he saves the day by way of technobabble. How Cornell managed to lay out a plan for the reader so concretely and yet summarily fail to execute on it, I do not know – but there is a possible explanation, though I described it as “inexplicable”. Quote the endnotes of the 2002 e-book version:

[N]obody had ever really done mythologist Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’ for the Doctor, the plot that’s most commonly recognised in popular culture as that of Superman II, where the hero gives everything up to discover what normal humanity is like. Fertile ground, I thought.

The particular stage of the Hero’s Journey Cornell refers to here is the apotheosis, in which the hero gains enlightenment. And, sure, the apotheosis can be applied to the novel as a whole; that enlightenment being found in humanity (that is to say, human nature). Apply the whole Hero’s Journey to the story, however, and the apotheotic moment within the book is… when John Smith sacrifices himself and becomes the Doctor. Here, “enlightenment” is becoming an inscrutable Time Lord from faraway Gallifrey. If Cornell did indeed choose this development as part of the Hero’s Journey, it’s a shame, and if not, it is inexplicable – either way, a tone-deaf moment in an otherwise pitch-perfect book. (As an aside – and this is hardly a critique, as it isn’t fair to ask that an author should’ve come up with the exact same idea – I can’t help but feel Cornell missed the opportunity to let John Smith live out the fifty or so remaining years of his life with Joan,something that would have been possible thanks to the unique setup of the Doctor as a character.)

In fact, at no point after returning to Doctorhood does the Doctor ever make a decision differently in light of his experiences as a human – he gets a chance, in the form of deciding whether to be empathetic enough to say goodbye to his paramour (as opposed to pulling an Irish goodbye for the ages)… but comes down on the side of “no”, and has to be convinced by his companion. (In the first draft of the book, he actually does disappear without a trace, a choice Cornell rightly recognized as a mistake.) Ultimately, there’s never any sign of the Doctor having learned anything from his ordeal, save for a scene at the very end, in which the Doctor cries – a lovely moment, given that it isn’t something the Doctor is given to doing, but underwhelming as the sole result of becoming human for a time.

Human Nature does succeed in its messaging in other areas – for one, it makes a stand for pacifism and conscientious objectors (something Cornell walks back in the TV adaptation, apparently having lost his pacifist streak along the way). As a work of character writing, it’s flawless – I didn’t even mention Bernice Summerfield’s role in the book, but it’s one of her most essential novels; her thoughtscape laid out beautifully before the reader. Take this review as one long – and, admittedly, significant – asterisk next to my central sentiment: “It’s amazing.*”