The Unbound Universe: The Very Dark Thing

"Please don't joke about the unicorns."

Writer: Una McCormack

Format: Audio

Released: August 2016

Series: New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield 3.03

Featuring: Unbound Doctor, Bernice

Synopsis 

Tramatz is an idyllic world – the rivers hum to themselves, unicorns prance through the emerald forests, and, at the very corner of your eye, is a horrible secret.

Verdict 

The Very Dark Thing was a great story to continue my way through The Unbound Universe third series of the New Adventures of Bernice Summerfield! This felt a little different than the first two stories in the series and that overlapping theme of war was felt in a big way here. The empire of Tramatz was consumed by a war and hearing how there was no choice but to use a super weapon by the Captain Idratz and Lieutenant Aramatz to seemingly put an end to it. They weren’t exactly thrilled by their actions but it showed the devastation and dire situation that they did indeed launch it. We moved from there to Admiral Effenish who arrived on Tramatz for their surrender. She was demanding that they accept their terms of surrender or be destroyed. We’d started things rather downbeat! Megatz was a really strong character and I liked how through her we learned about the unicorns that were hurting people and how she actually preferred the crystal monsters. The fact she could hear the thoughts of others and didn’t understand why people said things they weren’t feeling was excellent. The concept of a unicorn attack was intriguing and couldn’t be considered so ridiculous given this story occurs in the Unbound Universe. The Doctor conversing with her was good and it was rather horrific that nobody had a solution to the current situation. The Doctor had been on the planet for weeks now and that meant Benny was outraged when she finally entered the scene in the audio. Nothing had been achieved! The river singing was fascinating and that explained why the Doctor hadn’t made progress. It was mind consuming. Megatz witnessing a unicorn attack that resulted in a girl dying was shocking and I liked how that established that Tramatz was a society of people looking the other way. The world being bombarded but still getting no response was really angering Effenish to the extent that she deployed a threat of reaper bombs. They sounded pretty frightening. Benny appealing to take this seriously was good as nobody was noticing that the entire world was nearly annihilated! Finding out that the Doctor and Megatz couldn’t hear the threats was great stuff that explained quite a lot. Finding out that the Doctor and Benny had come to investigate the titular very dark thing was interesting but I’m not sure enough information was ever fully explained about it. It sounded like a void ship to me! The fact Megatz had never seen it before was terrific and she really had to concentrate on the corner of her eye to fully visualise it and see it did exist. Benny calming a unicorn down was good fun but discovering that they were actually war machines was not! They were engineered to find a way through the chaos of post-war which I really liked. The attack squad led by Effenish falling under the spell of the humming river was brilliant and provided more than one humorous comment. The moments at the research station where Megatz learned the truth of her people in the war was powerful stuff as she discovered that the reality weapon was detonated. The Doctor going to Effenish was good and I loved that she didn’t accept that they couldn’t hear her warnings or threats. She was consumed by war. Finding out that Idratz and Amaratz were actually Megatz’s parents was a fantastic revelation as we saw the echo in time of them letting the weapon off.  It was good that with the Doctor’s influence Effenish was having second thoughts on using the reaper bombs because there was no telling just what they would do. The conclusion worked well in having Megatz switch off the super weapon which saw the whole system shut down so people would understand now what had happened with the war. She got to send a message to Effenish which rounded things out nicely. Gallario punching Neave as he was angered by Effenish’s inaction was a humorous way to conclude things! Overall, a really strong adventure. 

Rating: 8/10