Christine Summerfield was an artificially created human from a bottle universe who joined Faction Paradox as Cousin Eliza.
Biography[]
As Christine Summerfield[]
The end of the world[]
Christine was created in a bottle universe and named "Christine Summerfield" after Bernice Summerfield and her creator Chris Cwej. Her memories were taken from a "blonde girl" from the 1970s, who had lost her virginity at the age of 15 and had an interest in serial killers like Jack the Ripper and Charles Manson. She was fascinated with the supernatural, often visiting the seer Lady Diamond.
The ritual required named individuals as sacrifices, therefore Chris named each of the clones Christine Summerfield after himself and his close friend Bernice Summerfield. While he was able to kill the first and second clones as planned, the third Christine managed to escape after becoming fully aware of his intent to kill her. She was picked up by the police after being found babbling and screaming in an abandoned building site just before midnight on 27 September, 1970. After being taken to the local police station, Christine met Cwej and started sleeping with him before discovering the truth about the universe she inhabited and her creation. Eventually, Cwej spared this Christine by creating and sacrificing a fourth Christine, allowing the Great Houses' invasion of the Earth in the bottle.
When still in the bottle universe, Christine had recurring nightmares about being trapped in an old house, filled with shadow, which was populated and maintained by a family of dusty skeletons. Though she always tried to escape at the start, she would consistently become lost in the shadows, and by the end of the dream she would have forgotten why she wanted to leave, having become one of the family herself. She always woke up with her fingers in her mouth, checking if she still had lips. (PROSE: Dead Romance)
Escaping the bottle universe[]
Eventually, Christine escaped the bottle and entered Cwej's "real" universe; after being dropped off on Ordifica, she visited colony worlds including Shristostophon, Gardener's World, Hai Dow Seven, Lubellin, Shatner's Climax, and Ultra Caprisis. Christine eventually visited the ruins of the Homeworld, where she wrote most of Dead Romance before heading towards Dellah. At the time, she believed she was 23 years old. (Dead Romance) Christine later sent a letter to Bernice Summerfield, which she received when she took a post at a university on the planet Vremnya. (PROSE: Twilight of the Gods)
Wondering what she would do next, Christine speculated that she could ask the Gods of Dellah if they would help her up into the "next universe up", reasoning that she had "done it before" with Cwej's employers. Indeed, Christine, now called Eliza, would appear to be in the main universe by the War's fiftieth year. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire)
As Cousin Eliza[]
Joining the Faction[]
At some point, she joined Faction Paradox and took on the name Eliza in reference to the character Eliza Doolittle from the film My Fair Lady. However, she remarks that it spoke to her status as a "born victim", because people could call her "Liz", after one of Jack the Ripper's victims. (The Eleven Day Empire) Little Sister Eliza was in the Eleven-Day Empire when Little Brother Porsena joined, and she explained to him that it was only blackened by soot because the original London was. (PROSE: Of the City of the Saved...)
Eliza was initiated as a Cousin in the forty-eighth year of the War in Heaven, on the same day as her close confidante Justine McManus, and chose a sword as her shadow-weapon. (PROSE: Current Affairs: The War, Faction Paradox, AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire, et al.)
Adventures with Justine[]
Eliza and Justine fought the Sontarans during their invasion of the Eleven-Day Empire. Later, when the Great Houses arrived to offer reconciliation with House Paradox, Eliza greeted Lord Ruthven on behalf of Godfather Morlock. (AUDIO: The Eleven Day Empire) Eliza and Justine survived the destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire, and they planned to save the surviving members of the Faction from Lolita. (AUDIO: The Shadow Play)
Having barely escaped the destruction of the Empire, Eliza and Justine took sanctuary with the Order of Saint Francis in Medmenham in 1762. During this time, Lord Sandwich hosted a ball at the behest of the Hellfire Club. During the evening, Sabbath Dei, a member of the Service, approached Eliza at the gaming tables and challenged her to a game of pontoon. Rather than playing for money, however, the two played for information; the loser of each hand would have to give a truthful answer to the winner's question. When Eliza asked who his employer was, Sabbath forfeited the match, advising her to look into the death of Mary Culver. After destroying the Abbey's greenhouse, Eliza discovered that Mary Culver was in fact under the influence of Compassion. Compassion explained that Lolita was trying to conquer 1762 by way of Britain, and Eliza, Justine, and Compassion formed a tenuous alliance to stop her. (AUDIO: Sabbath Dei)
Sabbath, now under the influence of the Great Houses, told Eliza and d'Eon that an army of automata were located underneath Buckingham Palace, before transforming St James's Square into a courtroom for the Great Houses and putting Justine on trial. Before Lolita could seize full control of the automata, however, Sabbath summoned her before the Great Houses, which gave Eliza the opportunity to sabotage the Peking Homunculi and flee before Lolita returned. (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat)
Eliza, Justine, and d'Eon tried to confront the Earl of Bute, but he fled after summoning protection. Sabbath, now under the influence of the Great Houses, told Eliza and d'Eon that an army of automata were located underneath Buckingham Palace, before transforming St James's Square into a courtroom for the Great Houses and putting Justine on trial. Before Lolita could seize full control of the automata, however, Sabbath summoned her before the Great Houses, which gave Eliza the opportunity to sabotage the Peking Homunculi and flee before Lolita returned. (AUDIO: In the Year of the Cat)
Eliza broke Justine out of the Great Houses' prison planet with the help of criminals and newly freed members of Faction Paradox. (AUDIO: A Labyrinth of Histories)
Eliza, alongside Compassion, the Earl of Sandwich, and Sieur D'eon spent time investigating the Great Ape of Posto di Ferragio, which they had suspected to be a Mal'akh. After Justine was summoned by the Society of Sigismondo di Rimini, she soon discovered that the Society knew of the location of race banks and biodata codices that the Faction had left on Earth after the Gregorian Compact in 1752. (AUDIO: Coming to Dust)
Horus and death[]
To prevent Sutekh from gaining control of the Osirian Court, and for lack of a better option, Eliza offered herself up to Anubis to become a vessel for the salvaged biodata of the dead Osiris. Lolita added a drop of her own biodata to the mixture, (AUDIO: Ozymandias) hoping to take over the resurrected Osiris from the inside and control him, intending to use him as a puppet ruler. (AUDIO: Words from Nine Divinities) The process of Osiris taking over Eliza was gradual, with them being stuck in a merged identity with a gradually shifting balance — first Eliza gaining access to Osiris's knowledge and feelings, then becoming an entity who thought of himself as Osiris but still had remnants of Eliza's demeanour and opinions. Recognising that this new being was not quite their former king, the Osirians named the merged entity Horus, a name which, in their tongue, signified the idea of being "between two spheres". (AUDIO: Words from Nine Divinities, The Judgment of Sutekh) Eventually Sutekh proposed a fight to the death with Horus to settle the claim to the throne. Osiris allowed Sutekh to kill him, setting up a time travel trap that ended with both Sutekh and Lolita defeated. To achieve this, Osiris released his hold from "Horus", allowing Eliza to once more be herself in her final moments, and therefore mortal. After saying goodbye to Justine, Eliza walked to her death at the Temple of Geb, posing as Horus and goading Sutekh into permanently killing her; she knew that this was unavoidable, having already witnessed the consequences of this event. (AUDIO: The Judgment of Sutekh)
Psychological profile[]
Personality[]
Born and raised in the twentieth century, Eliza was a relaxed, albeit troubled, Londoner with a noticeable cynical streak and little faith in the Faction's methods. (AUDIO: The Eleven-Day Empire) While she identified with the counterculture movement of the 1960s and 70s, she distanced herself from the hippie label, considering herself more sophisticated and bohemian. Eliza had a wealth of knowledge on science fiction and historic events, regarding herself to be a "modern cosmopolitan woman." (PROSE: Dead Romance) Her corollary within Mujun: The Ghost Kingdom, Kishijoten, was described as a "wisecracking, unsophisticated peasant girl who, as a lower class member, [did not have] 'the blood' to understand the society politics' ways." (PROSE: The Book of the War)
While she was outspoken as wanting to "overthrow the fascist machine", Eliza was ultimately risk-averse by nature and worried about stepping out of line. (PROSE: Dead Romance, AUDIO: The Eleven-Day Empire)
During her time in the bottle universe, Eliza lamented her poor complexion and lack of dress sense. After leaving the bottle universe, however, Eliza acknowledged herself to be "young, smart, pretty, and sarcastic." (PROSE: Dead Romance)
Habits and quirks[]
While, to her recollection, she had smoked weed and tried LSD in her youth, she did not see herself as the type to indulge in psychedelic escapism. (PROSE: Dead Romance) Despite knowing better, she smoked cigarettes. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years)
Skills[]
After being inducted into the Faction, Eliza was history-proofed, which allowed her to perceive changes to history. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years)
Physical appearance[]
Eliza was a young, thin woman with dark hair, dark eyes, pale skin, and cheeks that looked "much too narrow" for her head. While she had once remarked that she had bad skin and acne, she later described herself as "young" and "pretty". She was slightly shorter than the blonde girl whose memories were used in her creation. (PROSE: Dead Romance) She wore makeup on special occasions. (AUDIO: Body Politic)
During her time on the bottle universe Earth, she described her hair as "big", remembering that her friends would question if she would "ever get her hair cut". (PROSE: Dead Romance)
Clothing[]
During her short life on the bottle universe Earth, Eliza wore a T-Shirt, jeans, an belt, and plimsoles. Occasionally, she wore a sweatshirt. When visiting the planet Simia-KK98, Eliza donned a secondhand duffel coat and pair of thick trousers. She regarded herself as being "badly dressed". (PROSE: Dead Romance)
As an agent of the Faction, Eliza wore a "big bone-y" ceremonial mask during diplomatic and ritual occasions. (PROSE: Faction Armour: Some Design Notes, AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years) Like other members of the Military Wing, Eliza wore a unique set of armour during times of battle. ((PROSE: Faction Armour: Some Design Notes, AUDIO: The Shadow Play) However, at some point after the destruction of the Eleven-Day Empire, Eliza lost her mask. (AUDIO: The Ship of a Billion Years)
In her travels with Justine, Eliza attempted to blend in with the native fashions. When visiting 1763 Naples, she sought out period-accurate clothing from a local market, as she was worried she would be accused of looking "like a harlot or a heathen or something". (AUDIO: Coming to Dust)
Behind the scenes[]
- Christine Summerfield was unique amongst the main characters of the New Adventures following the release of Lungbarrow, as she did not meet Bernice Summerfield within the story where she served as the main point of view. While Deadfall, The Mary-Sue Extrusion, and Return to the Fractured Planet were all told almost entirely from the point of view of somebody other than Bernice Summerfield, Benny was still a central character within the stories.
- Upon her introduction in Dead Romance, Christine Summerfield was identified as a cloned human with dark hair based on the genetics of a human prisoner from Dellah. While never expressly identified, the prisoner was implied to be the absent protagonist of the series, Bernice Summerfield, who was under the influence of the All-High Gods while on a mission to rescue her cat. Much was made of the connection between Christine and her seeming namesake, Bernice Summerfield. Throughout the novel, she speculated as to her seemingly unwarranted attachment to the Summerfield bloodline, once remarking that she felt an "urge to go looking for the remains of Bernice Summerfield", whom she later described as "the closest thing [she has] got to family." Likewise, Christine speculated that "when the sphinxes had made everyone inside the bottle, [she] had been inspired by this Bernice person." This speculation was summarily rejected by Chris, who denied any similarity between the two Summerfields. When Christine discovered that she was a clone, Chris responded aggressively before telling her that she was simply "a standard human template."
Character notes by Lawrence Miles[]
Another twentysomething Faction recruit. Born and raised in the twentieth century, so more relaxed than Justine (but probably just as messed-up). London girl. Closer to Justine than anyone else, although that isn't saying much. Seems to have very little faith in the Faction's methods. Goes along with them anyway. Unwilling to risk stepping out of line, despite a noticeable cynical streak.
External links[]
