The Worst Thing in The World

Bernice Summerfield Audio Dramas #7.3

by Dave Stone, Lisa Bowerman (Narrator), Stephen Fewell (Narrator)

The Drome was set up with the best - or at least the most blatantly venal - of intentions. A self-contained planetoid-community, wired with microcams, designed to pump out product to the GalNet media-stream twenty-six hours a Galactic Standard Day.

But now the Medium is rotting minds and turning them to murder. The machine is turning out brain-dead zombies, setting them to stumble through the twists and turns of some inhuman and unguessable plan - and Professor Bernice Summerfield, and her ex-husband Jason, are caught in the middle of it!

Now Benny finds herself in a desperate fight for her life. A fight so desperate that she will be forced to do something she has never done before, a horror that she never imagined she could bring herself to commit. The worst thing in the world.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Audiobook

Audio CD

First published September 1, 2006

About the author

Stone has written many spin off novels based on the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and Judge Dredd.

Stone also contributed a number of comic series to 2000AD and the Judge Dredd Megazine, focusing on the Dreddverse (Judge Dredd universe). In collaboration with David Bishop and artist Shaky Kane he produced the much disliked Soul Sisters, which he has described as "a joke-trip, which through various degrees of miscommunication ended up as a joke-strip without any jokes." Working independently, he created the better received Armitage, a Dreddworld take on Inspector Morse set in a future London, and also contributed to the ongoing Judge Hershey series.

Stone’s most lasting contribution to the world of Judge Dredd might well have been his vision of Brit-Cit, which until Stone’s various novels had been a remarkably underexplored area.

Reviews

[Debra Cook · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bernice and Jason goto check out a community for entertainment movie making. People start killing each other. Can Benny stop the killings from happing.

[Julia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ancora una volta vengo messa in difficoltà dallo stile di Dave Stone, che mi impedisce di capire se questo episodio è geniale oppure sciocco. Certamente sembra un po' una parodia di sé stesso, con tanto di riferimenti meta-fittizi, ma questa non è una novità all'interno della serie, che riesce a spaziare in una miriade di generi diversi.
Mentre Jason viene intervistato sull'ultimo film per adulti che ha scritto, su un planetoide completamente destinato a produrre contenuti mediatici, il CEO della società viene assassinato in circostanze assurde. Chiamata in causa Benny, i due iniziano ad investigare, ma finiscono loro stessi con l'essere risucchiati nelle deliranti trame televisive.
C'è infatti una pesante satira riguardante la banalità e l'assurdità dei programmi per la tv, riprodotti in maniera stereotipica ed eccessiva, che finiscono per degenerare sempre di più.
In mezzo alle scene, il compositore si è divertito ad inserire lunghi jingle che rispecchiano i temi dei vari programmi.
Lo stile eccentrico di Stone è estremamente presente, anche nel modo in cui parlano i personaggi (facendoli sembrare diversi dal solito). La comicità è decisamente sopra le righe, tanto da risultare pesante.
Il finale è la cosa più demenziale che abbia mai sentito. Mi è piaciuto? Sinceramente non lo so, so solo che alla fine mi sono chiesta: “Che diavolo ho appena ascoltato?”, che tutto sommato è in linea con buona parte della serie.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solidly entertaining story with some satire of the entertainment industry and some trademark Dave Stone looniness thrown in. I'm slightly put off by some minor things like the blatant meta-ness of the characters announcing something along the lines of "Wouldn't it be nice to have a little adventure that doesn't relate to anything else?" and I can't figure out why Jason and Benny seem to have adopted a whole new set of swear words that they've never used before or since. And I honestly can't decide whether the ending is genius or pure silliness.

[Anne Barwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the things I love about the Benny adventures is the wide range of genres within the series. This is one of the weirder ones, and full of wonderfully played out satire on broadcasting and TV, some of it very close to skirting the truth especially in regard to what is considered good taste.

Brilliant, full of send ups and 'I don't belive they did that' moments. Highly recommended.

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1329862.html#cutid3