Stories Book Bernice Summerfield Novels Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison Book Audiobook Book Audiobook 1 image Overview Characters How to Read Reviews 2 Statistics Related Stories Quotes Overview Released Monday, January 7, 2002 Written by Jacqueline Rayner Cover Art by Adrian Salmon Publisher Big Finish Productions Pages 207 Tropes (Potential Spoilers!) Pregnancy, Prison Planet Synopsis Don't ever annoy the Fifth Axis. They might throw you into the Glass Prison on Deirbhile — and then throw away the key. Once you're inside, there's nowhere to hide. They can see your every movement. They control you. You're going to be watched for the rest of your life, wherever you go, whoever you are. Even if you're a professor of archaeology. Even if you're a friend of the famous Irving Braxiatel, and you've written several popular coffee-table books. Even if you're pregnant. Even if your baby's due any day now. But, of course, they know all about your baby. And they're planning to take it away. That is, if the loony cultists you're locked up with don't get it first. Read Read Favourite Favourited Add Review Edit Review Log a repeat Skip Skipped Unowned Owned Owned Save to my list Saved Edit date completed Custom Date Release Date Archive (no date) Save Characters Bernice Summerfield Joseph / J-Kibb Irving Braxiatel Jason Kane Adrian Wall Isaac Summerfield II Avril Fenman Peter Summerfield Daglan Straklant Show All Characters (9) How to read Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison: Books Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison Reviews Add Review Edit Review Sort: Date (Newest First) Date (Oldest First) Likes (High-Low) Likes (Low-High) Rating (High-Low) Rating (Low-High) Word count (High-Low) Word count (Low-High) Username (A-Z) Username (Z-A) Spoilers First Spoilers Last 2 reviews 30 April 2025 · 488 words Review by Molly ★★★☆☆ – Good! The Glass Prison is a Jacqueline Rayner novel, through and through. It has a light touch (despite its heavy subject matter), it’s eminently funny, and it’s decidedly more about its characters than its concepts. Make no mistake – despite an eponymous location that smacks of “high concept” as much as a “glass prison”, the ramifications of this odd setting aren’t explored so much as used as a source of emotional turmoil for the characters: Characters which, thanks to Rayner’s effortlessly human style,* are always immediately relatable; never impenetrable. Exploring Bernice Summerfield’s pregnancy and labor, you would expect this novel to be a profoundly angst-inducing affair – and it does seem like something Rayner aims for! But she isn’t an author who writes spiraling psychological narratives: She writes fast-paced, (non-derogatorily) digestible, intuitive stories. When Bernice Summerfield worries whether her baby is truly hers or not (it’s some science fiction mumbo and/or jumbo), you never wonder on which side she’ll come down in the end – though that meshes with the tone of the rest of the book. As nestled in my heart, Jacqueline Rayner is a comfort author. You get a good story, you’re never bored, and you aren’t too challenged. It’s the ultimate refinement of the “popcorn literature” that you expect a licensed novel to be. That’s not to say that she can’t write in a higher register – but I wouldn’t imagine that’s the mission statement here. Rayner writes quintessential Bernice Summerfield – she has a pitch-perfect grasp on her sarcastic, messy character, while assiduously maintaining the reader’s emotional connection to her. Of course, by virtue of her being one of the few female writers who consistently get work in the Doctor Who extended universe, you suffer no risk of running into chauvinism in her writing, and as a bonus, this particular novel centers on a cast of nigh-exclusively female characters – a breath of fresh air. An odd feature of this novel is the passive nature of its plot – Summerfield and her gang are profoundly reactive. You would think a prison break would be an obvious feature of a novel named The Glass Prison, but… it barely is! They seem perfectly content doggin’ it in there. If you, like me, are interested in immersing yourself in Bernice Summerfield as a franchise, this novel is a key inflection point. It chronicles the birth of her son, who goes on to be an important character in his own right, it’s another step in Bernice’s perennial will-they-again-won’t-they-again relationship with her (ex-!!!)husband Jason Kane, and it features a new angle on Rayner’s own pet alien species, the fact-obsessed, tentacle-faced, and deeply tickling (as in amusing, not with their tentacles, I— oh, forget it) Grel. It may also offer you some consolation as to why Bernice Surprise Summerfield’s son has a name as exasperatingly prosaic as “Peter”. * Have you listened to Doctor Who and the Pirates? Molly View profile Like Liked 0 2 April 2025 · 42 words Review by megaminxwin 1 without question the best bernice summerfield story thus far, and a brilliant way to wrap up the second series of audios and books from big finish. it is absolutely brutal in many many places, but it ends so gorgeously as well. fantastic megaminxwin View profile Like Liked 1 Open in new window Statistics AVG. Rating8 members 4.13 / 5 Member Statistics Read 12 Favourited 1 Reviewed 2 Saved 0 Skipped 3 Related Stories Other variations of this story We define a variation as another way of experiencing the exact same story - like an autiobook, a reconstruction or an omnibus edition. Bernice Summerfield The Glass Prison Rating: 4.02 Story Skipped Audio Book Reviews(1) More Actions View Sets Close Related Sets Set of Stories: Bernice Summerfield Add Review Edit Review Skip Skipped Unowned Owned Save to my list Saved Quotes Add Quote Submit a Quote