B00DPX9ST8 EBOK

by Parkin, Lance

  [901] Dating Benny: The Gods of the Underworld (Benny BF novel #2) - Benny’s diary dates the start of the adventure to “March 12th 2600” (p7) and the story unfolds for some days afterwards.

  [902] Love and War, presumably a reference to the Daleks’ use of blackmail in Death to the Daleks.

  [903] Dating Death to the Daleks (11.3) - There is no date given on screen, but the story takes place after the Dalek Wars. The Programme Guide placed it in “c.3700” (first edition), “c.2800” (second edition) and The Terrestrial Index put it in “the twenty-fifth century”.

  The TARDIS Logs offered a date of “3767 AD” (the same year as The Monster of Peladon). The Official Doctor Who & the Daleks Book claimed that the Dalek Plague used in this story is the Movellan Virus, so the author set the story between Resurrection of the Daleks and Revelation of the Daleks, around 3000 AD. This is nonsense, though, as that plague would have no effect on humans - as the Doctor says in Resurrection of the Daleks, “it is only partial to Dalek”. The gas that disfigures humans seen in Resurrection of the Daleks is not the Movellan Virus, but a weapon that the Daleks themselves are immune to.

  The Daleks routinely use germ warfare throughout their history (we see it in The Dalek Invasion of Earth, Planet of the Daleks and Resurrection of the Daleks). It’s never stated in this story that the Daleks caused the plague on the human colony planets, but it’s fair to infer they did, especially as they’re stopped from launching a “plague missile” at Exxilon. Timelink suggested “3500”. About Time said, “A dating between 2600 and 2900 would be plausible”.

  [904] Dating Benny: The Stone’s Lament and Benny: The Extinction Event (Benny audios #2.2, 2.3) - These are placed strictly by order of release.

  [905] Dating Benny: The Infernal Nexus (Benny BF novel #4) - “A few months” (p185) have passed since The Squire’s Crystal.

  [906] Dating Benny: The Skymines of Karthos (Benny audio #2.4) - Five months have passed since Benny got impregnated (in absentia) in The Squire’s Crystal.

  [907] Dating Benny: The Glass Prison (Benny BF novel #5) - “About ten months” (p17) have passed since Benny: The Doomsday Manuscript. That’s in line with Benny being inseminated in Benny: The Squire’s Crystal (which takes place in February), allowing that human-Killoran matings must still have a nine-month gestation cycle. The Glass Prison begins at “Day -7” (p9) from Peter’s birth and finishes with the event on “Day 0” (p122), save for an epilogue with his christening. It’s still 2600 (p25). Peter’s middle name is a remembrance of Guy de Carnac from Sanctuary.

  [908] Dating Bernice Summerfield Series 3 (Benny: The Greatest Shop in the Galaxy, audio #3.1; Benny: The Green-Eyed Monster, audio #3.2; Benny: The Plague Herds of Excelis, Excelis series #4; Benny: The Dance of the Dead, audio #3.3; Benny: A Life of Surprises, collection #2; and Benny: The Mirror Effect, audio #3.4) and Series 4 (Benny: The Bellotron Incident audio #4.1; Benny: The Draconian Rage, audio #4.2; Benny: The Poison Seas, audio #4.3; Benny: Life During Wartime, collection #3; Benny: Death and the Daleks, audio #4.4; Benny: The Big Hunt, novel #6) - The dating clues within these stories are sparse, but time, particularly with regards Peter’s growth and development, appears to be progressing roughly in accord with the real world. The opening story of Series 5 (Benny: The Grel Escape) dates to 2603, so it seems reasonable to conclude that Series 3 and 4 respectively occur in 2601 and 2602.

  [909] “Seven years” before Benny: Beyond the Sea. IMC operatives were seen in Colony in Space; the company is also mentioned in Benny: Resurrecting the Past.

  [910] Benny: Death and the Daleks

  [911] Dating Benny: Life During Wartime (Benny collection #3) and Benny: Death and the Daleks (Benny audio #4.4) - According to the introduction of Life During Wartime, “It’s 2602.” The audio follows on from the short story collection.

  [912] Benny: The End of the World. Mira is mentioned throughout the works of Dave Stone, and first appeared in Benny: The Mary-Sue Extrusion.

  [913] Dating Benny: The Big Hunt (Benny BF novel #6) - The blurb says that Benny is taking a break from the rebuilding of the Braxiatel Collection, suggesting that The Big Hunt follows on from Benny: Death and the Daleks - although technically, it was released between Benny: The Grel Escape and Benny: The Bone of Contention. The Eagle Museum is presumably in Armstrong City, mentioned in The Sword of Forever.

  [914] “A good few years” before Benny: The Empire State. Maggi’s full name is given in Benny: The Tub Full of Cats. Braxiatel tells Maggi that the raw energy for her power comes from a stabilised black hole - presumably the Eye of Harmony on Gallifrey.

  [915] Dating Bernice Summerfield Series 5 (Benny: The Grel Escape, audio #5.1; The Bone of Contention, audio #5.2; Benny: A Life Worth Living, collection #4; Benny: The Relics of Jegg-Sau, audio #5.3; Benny: The Masquerade of Death, audio #5.4; Benny: Silver Lining, promo with DWM #351; Benny: The Tree of Life, Benny BF novel #7) and Series 6 (Benny: The Heart’s Desire, audio #6.1; Benny: The Kingdom of the Blind, audio #6.2; Benny: A Life in Pieces, collection #5; Benny: The Lost Museum, audio #6.3; Benny: The Goddess Quandary, audio #6.4; Benny: Parallel Lives, collection #6; Benny: Something Changed, collection #7; Benny: The Crystal of Cantus, audio #6.5) - The Series 5 opener (The Grel Escape) cites 2603 as “the present day”, and the final adventure of Series 6 (The Crystal of Cantus) occurs in January (or possibly February) 2606. Ergo, Benny Series 5 and 6 must be extended over a nearly three-year period.

  Helpfully, two markers denote when the calendar changes - Benny: A Life Worth Living (released between The Bone of Contention and The Relics of Jegg-Sau) says “it’s now 2604” (p1) and also that it’s “April 2604” (p17), and Benny: The Heart’s Desire takes place on Christmas Eve of the same year, pushing the remainder of Series 6 into 2605. The only problem with this arrangement is that Benny has a comparatively unadventurous 2603, but it’s no different from the similarly uneventful gap between her New Adventures and Big Finish stories.

  [916] Benny: The Crystal of Cantus; Benny: A Life Worth Living: “A Summer Affair”.

  [917] Dating 100: “The 100 Days of the Doctor” (BF #100d) - The expedition occurs while Benny is in Braxiatel’s employ; otherwise, its placement is arbitrary.

  [918] The year prior to Benny: The Goddess Quandary.

  [919] Dating Benny: The Heart’s Desire (Benny audio #6.1) - The story occurs on Christmas Eve, and ends at the stroke of midnight. Mention is made of a flight to Stella Stora, which was first referenced in Terror of the Vervoids and is cited in Benny: Present Danger (p93).

  [920] This is the background to the Monoid race seen in The Ark. They appear to have some contact with humanity long prior to that story, however: The Doomsday Weapon (the novelisation of Colony in Space) cites the Monoids as a race that humanity encountered during its expansion into space, and The Pirate Loop references them as a slave race akin to the Ood.

  [921] At least a year prior to Benny: The Tartarus Gate.

  [922] Dating Benny: A Life in Pieces (Benny collection #5) - The collection was published in December 2004, which all things being equal would place it between Benny: The Relics of Jegg-Sau and Benny: Masquerade of Death in 2604. However, Benny’s diary and other notations date these stories to 2605. Morton is murdered on 23rd of September, 2605 (extrapolating backward from the anniversary of his death, p150), and Benny’s diary claims that she and Jason return to the Collection on the last day of his trial, “14/11/05”.

  [923] The pulp entertainment Aventures de la Frontière Nouvelle is presumably a translation of the Adventures of the New Frontier series often cited in New Adventures by Dave Stone.

  [924] Benny: A Life in Pieces

  [925] Dating Benny: The Goddess Quandary (Benny audio #6.4) - The cliffhanger leads into Benny: Parallel Lives, set in 2606. This audio was released after Benny: The Last Museum, but as that story leads into Braxiatel’s departure in Benny: The Crystal of Cantus, The Goddess Quandary and its related stories must come first.

  [926] Dating Benn
y: Parallel Lives (Benny collection #6) - The book’s introduction claims that “it is now 2606”, which is in keeping with it variously being stated that Peter (who was born in 2600) is now “five” and “nearly six”. The odd man out is Clarissa Jones’ statement that it’s been “nearly two years” (p4) since the Axis occupation when it’s actually been more like four. In “Jason and the Pirates” - providing a word of its unreliable narration can be believed - mention is made of Oinky Pete, a Piglet Person, presumably the same race that’s extinct in Burning Heart (set in 3174).

  [927] Benny: Something Changed. Benny says that, relatively speaking, she owned Wolsey for twelve years.

  [928] Dating Benny: The Lost Museum (Benny audio #6.3) - The blurb specifies the date and month. The last page of Benny: Something Changed specifies that The Lost Museum comes next in sequence.

  [929] Dating Benny: The Crystal of Cantus (Benny audio #6.5) - According to Benny: Parallel Lives (p10), Benny spends “two weeks” trailing Clarissa and Peter to Atwalla 3. If she spends the same amount of time returning, most of January must be consumed with her in transit. While it’s just possible to imagine that Benny: The Lost Museum takes place in January as stated, Jason says that The Crystal of Cantus occurs nearly a week later, so it must now be February.

  Benny mentions the realisation that the Cybermen have tombs dotted all over the galaxy as part of established history, confirming that her native time is after the Cyberman audio series. Mention is also made of the Garazone Bazaar from The Sword of Orion. The Crystal of Cantus would appear to be the Coronet of Rassilon (The Five Doctors), provided to Braxiatel by his younger self on Gallifrey.

  [930] Dating Bernice Summerfield Series 7 (Benny: The Tartarus Gate, audio #7.1; Benny: Timeless Passages, audio #7.2; Benny: The Worst Thing in the World, audio #7.3; Benny: Collected Works, collection #8; Benny: The Summer of Love, audio #7.4; Benny: Old Friends, collection #9; Benny: The Oracle of Delphi, audio #7.5; Benny: The Empire State, audio #7.6) - Series 7 continues onward from Series 6 (which ends in February 2606) and finishes shortly prior to the opening episodes of Series 8 (which can be definitively dated to October 2607). Unavoidably, then, a single season’s worth of stories must be spread out over a 20-month period.

  It’s not entirely clear when the switchover from 2606 to 2607 occurs. Benny: Collected Works is less helpful than other collections in making this call, as its stories are set over the course of a year, straddling both 2606 and 2607. Nor is trying to put the year in tandem with the year of release entirely helpful - The Summer of Love came out in October 2006, and yet must occur in 2607. The best compromise is to date the first two stories of Series 7 to 2606, and place The Worst Thing in the World in 2607, in accordance with a “last year” remark made regarding events in the Drome in Benny: The Wake.

  In accounting for some of Benny’s time in 2006, she spends at least a month being held captive in The Tartarus Gate. She also spends two weeks in transit to reach Kerykeion (and presumably the same amount to return home) in Timeless Passages.

  [931] Benny destroys the cyborg by bringing its present and future selves into collision, evidently invoking the Blinovitch Limitation Effect.

  [932] Benny: Collected Works. The malfunctions begin “months” prior to Benny: The Summer of Love. It’s not said how Braxiatel went into the past without his TARDIS to become the Stone of Barter (Benny: The Empire State).

  [933] Dating Benny: The Summer of Love (Benny audio #6.4) - The story does, apparently, take place in summer, with references to the heat.

  [934] Benny: The Summer of Love, and similarly noted in the epilogue to Benny: Collected Works.

  [935] Dating Benny: Old Friends: “Cheating the Reaper” / “The Soul’s Prism” (Benny collection #9a, 9c) - The two “modern-day” novellas in this collection occur between Benny: The Summer of Love and Benny: The Oracle of Delphi, and the back-cover blurb says that it’s “late 2607”. Benny now looks “nearly 40”.

  [936] Dating Benny: The Empire State (Benny audio #7.6) - Benny seems to spend a few days digging up the Stone, and then as many as eight in the new Empire State itself. Benny ends The Empire State intending to travel back to the Collection, only seems to lose about a week in transit in the following story, and arrives in time for Benny: The Judas Gift, which occurs in the third week of October 2607. So, The Empire State very probably occurs in the same month.

  [937] Dating Bernice Summerfield Series 8 (Benny: The Tub Full of Cats, audio #8.1; Benny: The Judas Gift, audio #8.2; Benny: Freedom of Information, audio #8.3; Benny: Nobody’s Children, collection #10; Benny: The Two Jasons, novel #9; Benny: The End of the World, audio #8.4; Benny: The Final Amendment, audio #8.5; Benny: The Wake, audio #8.6) - The stories that compose Benny Series 8 unfold in the space of roughly three months. The Judas Gate dates itself to 23rd and 24th October, 2607, and the other stories can be extrapolated from that (see the individual entries for more). In The Tub Full of Cats, Maggie reiterates the year as “2607”, which translates to “818” in the standard modern calendar.

  [938] Dating Benny: The Judas Gift (Benny audio #8.2) - The exact dates are given via headline news and a recording that Bev makes. Events said to have occurred in “the last year” include alien pollen and time jumps (Benny: The Summer of Love) and gravitational shifts (Benny: Collected Works).

  [939] Benny: The End of the World

  [940] Benny: The Final Amendment. It’s not explicitly said, but Bernard is presumably Clarissa Jones’ father.

  [941] Dating Benny: Freedom of Information (Benny audio #8.3) - A modest amount of time passes during the Draconian occupation of the Collection. Benny has been in hiding for five days when the story opens, and the Draconians lock her up for three more. Jason makes mention of Draconian troops shooting some civilians “the other week”. Also, Hass disabled his radiation-neutraliser “weeks” ago, presumably the amount of time since Braxiatel returned to the Collection and could plot with Hass in person. All signs are, then, that it’s now November - especially as some time must be allotted between this story and Benny: The End of the World, which finishes in December.

  [942] Dating Benny: Nobody’s Children (Benny collection #10) - The stories are set after Benny: Freedom of Information, and lead into Benny: The Final Amendment. The unnamed “institute” with a fondness for the name Victoria is probably Torchwood.

  [943] Dating Benny: The End of the World, Benny: The Final Amendment and Benny: The Two Jasons (Benny audios #8.4 and #8.5, Benny BF novel #9) - These three stories run roughly concurrent to one another. Both The End of the World and The Final Amendment say that the Stonehauser Medical Facility was destroyed “two months ago” (in Benny: The Judas Gift, set in October), so it’s now December. A small glitch exists in that Jason refers to Peter as a “half-Killoran eight year old”, when he’s seven at most.

  The fact that Benny only here learns about The Jason Kane Show - now in Season 15 (which isn’t to automatically say that it’s been running for fifteen years) - suggests that the Braxiatel Collection and Earth are some distance from one another, and news from Earth doesn’t reach the Collection very much. Even so, it’s quite the conceit that nobody at all, not once, has ever mentioned it to her.

  The epilogue to The Two Jasons claims that Mira and the Jason-clone stay together for some decades, and that the Jason-clone eventually returns to Earth, has sex with President Summerfield and is informed that the remains of the original Benny have been found. However, it’s hard to say (especially in light of President Summerfield’s death in Series 10) whether this is canon or just some bit of fancy on writer Dave Stone’s part.

  Mention of the owner of London probably denotes Marillian from Benny: The Sword of Forever. The White Rabbit pub, here seen off Earth, appears in Big Finish stories such as The Harvest and UNIT: The Longest Night.

  [944] Dating TW: “Overture” (TWM #25) - The year is given.

  [945] Dating Benny: The Wake (Benny audio #8.6) - Benny gets notification of Jason’s death at the end of B
enny: The Final Amendment, and the story picks up (albeit in flashback) upon her return to the Collection. An unspecified amount of time passes with her displaying normality at the Collection while she pieces together Braxiatel’s actions, and it’s almost certainly 2608 when she takes Peter and leaves. In support of this, her visit to the Drome (Benny: The Worst Thing in the World) is cited as being “last year”. Braxiatel says that Jason’s clones have been “taken care of” - although whether this includes the one who ran off with Mira in Benny: The Two Jasons isn’t specified.

  The Wake heavily cements ties between the Doctor Who New Adventures and the Big Finish Benny range, enacting scenes from Theatre of War and Happy Endings (Benny: The End of the World similarly enacts a scene from Death and Diplomacy), and mentioning Heaven, and the defeat of the Hoothi (Love and War).

  [946] Dating Bernice Summerfield Series 9 (Benny: Beyond the Sea, audio #9.1; Benny: The Adolescence of Time, audio #9.2; Benny: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel, audio #9.3; Benny: The Diet of Worms, audio #9.4) - Following Benny’s departure from the Collection, the Benny range defaults back to being a number of stand-alone stories, and there is little reason to suppose that Series 9 doesn’t occur over the course of a year (mirroring the passage of real time). Also, starting with Series 9, Big Finish decided that the Benny stories, for simplicity’s sake, would occur exactly six hundred years in the future - a helpful yardstick (even if the policy later ended with the Benny: Epoch boxset).

  The novella collection Benny: The Vampire Curse was released between Benny Series 9 and 10 in November 2008, and the main contemporary story within (“Predating the Predators”) dates itself to June 2609. Reconciling this against Bev’s comments in (Benny: Glory Days), however, suggests that “Predating the Predators” takes place within Series 10, not beforehand.

  [947] Benny: The Adolescence of Time, Benny: The Adventure of the Diogenes Damsel. The unpublished Holmes stories are mentioned in Benny: The Diet of Worms, although it’s unclear when Watson had time to write the Diogenes Damsel manuscript, unless it pertains to Benny’s work with Mycroft prior to their confrontation with Straxus. Alternatively, it’s possible that Benny acquired these documents during her later meeting with Watson in 1914 in Benny: Secret Histories: “A Gallery of Pigeons”.