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Made of Steel was a novella written by Terrance Dicks. It was the second Doctor Who Quick Reads release, and is notable for being the first appearance of Martha Jones in any medium. It predated the release of Smith and Jones by a month.
Publisher's summary
A deadly night attack on an army base. Vehicles are destroyed, building burned, soldiers killed. The attackers vanish as swiftly as they came, taking highly advanced equipment with them.
Metal figures attack a shopping mall. But why do they only want a new games console from an ordinary electronics shop? An obscure Government Ministry is blown up - but, in the wreckage, no trace is found of the secret, state-of-the-art decoding equipment.
When the TARDIS returns The Doctor and Martha to Earth from a distant galaxy, they try to piece together the mystery. But someone - or something - is waiting for them. An old enemy stalks the night, men no longer made of flesh...
Characters
References
- Martha indicates that she is the cousin of Adeola Oshodi, a Torchwood Institute employee who died in TV: Army of Ghosts. This fact was confirmed in the later-released Smith and Jones. It's a bit unclear, therefore, whether the idea originated with RTD or Dicks.
- Despite not having emotions, the Cyber-Leader threatens to kill one of the other Cybermen for questioning an order. Martha speculates that having been recently converted and done so quickly, these Cybermen may have more emotions than normal Cybermen.
Notes
- This was the first BBC Wales-related work to be written by prolific Doctor Who writer Dicks.
- This is the first time the Cybermen have featured in a prose piece since the beginning of the revived series. They would not appear in text again until Plague of the Cybermen featuring the Eleventh Doctor. The Cybermen had, however, featured in past novels such as Killing Ground, Illegal Alien and Iceberg.
- This novella was also released as an ebook available from the Amazon Kindle store.
- Because this novel refers to the events of TV: Smith and Jones, and The Lazarus Experiment, but was released well before either, it slightly spoiled those episodes. This wasn't the first time prose from Dicks had spoiled a televised story; his novelisation of The Five Doctors was also released in advance of transmission.
- The Torchwood episode TV: Cyberwoman also focuses on the issue of Cybermen left behind after the events of TV: Doomsday.
- Despite his distaste for weapons, the Doctor uses a rocket launcher to destroy a Cyberman during the story. However, he shows disgust over having done so.
Continuity
- The events of the book must take place after TV: The Lazarus Experiment as Martha says something about facing mad scientists again.
- Martha is forced to wait outside the TARDIS in the Doctor's absence, placing the events of the book before TV: 42, when Martha receives a key to the TARDIS.
- One of the Cybermen says: "Promises made to inferior species have no meaning". A similar line is said by a Cyber-Leader in The Five Doctors ("Promises to aliens have no validity."), also written by Dicks.
- The Doctor has taken Martha to Mount Vesuvius, though it's not stated explicitly that she experienced the destruction of Pompeii, which would have contradicted the later TV: The Fires of Pompeii in which the Doctor and Donna Noble ended up there.