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First published in 2466, Down Among the Dead Men was Professor Bernice Summerfield's first published book. It detailed the young archaeologist's experiences excavating an Ice Warrior site at Mare Sirenum on Mars. (PROSE: Theatre of War, The Dying Days) Though it was a best seller, and was a great help to her in obtaining employment at St Oscar's University on Dellah, Benny sometimes had mixed feelings about it — describing it, at one point, as a book that "everyone bought, but no one read." (PROSE: Oh No It Isn't!) Other readers were kinder: St Oscar's student Theo Tamlyn thought it was "one of the few readable textbooks he'd encountered". (PROSE: Dry Pilgrimage)
A revised edition was published in 2593 by St Oscar's University Press, Dellah. (PROSE: Walking to Babylon) This revised edition was called Down Among the Dead Men Again. (PROSE: Seeing I, AUDIO: Buried Treasures)
After the novel became a best-seller, Benny's publishers wanted her to write a sequel. She kept on putting it off, for instance by spending her time writing an essay entitled "Devil Gate Drive: The Influence of The Descent of Inanna on Twentieth-Century Popular Culture". (PROSE: Walking to Babylon)
The Eighth Doctor asked Compassion if she had ever read Down Among the Dead Men. (PROSE: Coldheart)