BASIC PLOT
The Doctor and Leela find themselves in Kaldor City, where the deadly robots are once again being programmed to kill. Can the dead genius Taren Capel really be involved?

DOCTOR
Fourth.

COMPANIONS
Leela.

MATERIALISATION CIRCUIT
Pg 11 Inside a storage hold, Kaldor City (time unknown).

PREPARATORY READING
This is a direct sequel to the Robots of Death.

CONTINUITY REFERENCES
Pg 1 "The vast machine which is Storm Mine Four crawls across the trackless wastes of the Blind Heart." We start with a summary of The Robots of Death. There are lots of flashbacks and the like. I haven't noted every reference.

Pg 4 "No one could do it, not with all the facilities of a fully equipped laboratory at their disposal, and certainly not on a moving storm mine using nothing more elaborate than a standard laserson probe." The Robots of Death.

"'I don't think Taren Capel ever existed,' Roatson commented. Carnell smiled. 'If he didn't exist then it would be necessary to invent him.'" The Deadly Assassin.

Pg 5 "By altering voice recognition systems they manage to turn his hellish creations back on Taren Capel himself." The Robots of Death.

Pg 23 "Of course Conan Doyle knew the answers to begin with" Evolution.

"It reminded him of an undersea dance he had once seen performed as a religious rite by an amphibian species on a planet he never did manage to identify properly." Uncertain reference. The closest is probably The Underwater Menace, but that took place on Earth.

Pg 38 "You have those creepy metal men here?" The Robots of Death (but see Continuity Cock-Ups).

Pg 40 "That robot had even gone undercover as a Dum, designated D84" The Robots of Death.

Pg 44 "They told him he had a robot sidekick when he went undercover on Storm Mine Four" D84, The Robots of Death.

Pg 46 "Body language? Where did that thought come from? At some stage he had been trained to interpret non-verbal signals." The Robots of Death.

Pg 59 "With the sonic screwdriver and a penknife he located the trigger terminals and reversed their polarity." Fury From the Deep et al; The Sea Devils et al.

Pg 83 "Nothing was beyond a Federation puppeteer in possession of all the relevant variables." Not a Doctor Who reference, but Carnell is actually a character from Blake's 7 (the episode Weapon) in a rare crossover.

Pg 87 "She reminds me of that Taren Capel character." The Robots of Death.

Pg 102 "There could not be another place where they had creepy metal men and someone called Taren Capel." The Robots of Death (but see Continuity Cock-Ups).

Pg 160 "Poul was undercover. It had to be Taren Capel."

Pg 180 "I think our friend Poul is suffering from a combination of Grimwade's syndrome and what used to be called post-traumatic stress." The Robots of Death.

Pg 236 "As the robot turned to meet her she activated the drill and drove the lucanol-tipped bit hard into the centre of its forehead." A robot with a tool embedded in its head is very reminiscent of The Robots of Death.

Pg 242 "'It was the robots,' Uvanov said. 'They went on a killing spree.'" The Robots of Death.

Pg 249 "Speaking personally, I'm not keen on being trapped in a confined area with killer robots. I tried it once. I didn't like it." The Robots of Death.

Pg 273 "This will all be put down to the ARF, the Tarenists, freak weather conditions, whatever seems conveniently plausible." The Claws of Axos.

OLD FRIENDS AND OLD ENEMIES
Kiy Uvanov, Lish Toos, Ander Poul and various Vocs, Dums and Supervocs (all from The Robots of Death).

There's also a robot that thinks it's Taren Capel, even though he's dead.

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW ENEMIES
Padil (aka Sel Pitter), Carnell, Layly Landerchild, Diss Pitter, Tani, Fatso Rull.

CONTINUITY COCK-UPS

1. Cover image: The Voc's eyes have felt in them. This is actually from the set, where those robots with red eyes had felt placed in the eyes and the special effect overlaid. So why is the felt shown here?
2. Pg 38 "You have those creepy metal men here?" Except in The Robots of Death it was "creepy mechanical men".
3. Pg 102 "There could not be another place where they had creepy metal men and someone called Taren Capel." The phrase "creepy mechanical men" is said twice in The Robots of Death, just as this phrase is said twice here.

PLUGGING THE HOLES [Fan-wank theorizing of how to fix continuity cock-ups]

1. It's a very short intermediate stage before the red takes hold.
2. Leela has been learning that mechanical things are made of metal.
3. Leela has been learning that mechanical things are made of metal.

FEATURED ALIEN RACES
Pg 75 Cyborgs. (Robots that look humanoid.)

Pg 117 Dums, Vocs and Supervocs.

FEATURED LOCATIONS
Pg 14 Storm Mine 7.

Pg 80 Kaldor City.

IN SUMMARY - Robert Smith?
As a sequel, it's so-so. The robots barely feature, as Boucher is more interested in the new cyborgs than he is the old ones. And while they're around, we never really get the sense that they're as fundamental to the society as we need to. There's a lot of political posturing, which is fine, but the payoff is delayed and delayed and delayed... until an insane rush in the final few pages. Better pacing would have helped. On the bright side, Leela is great when she has stuff to do (which isn't as often as it should be) and Poul's flashbacks and breakdown here are fantastic, drawing on the original in a way that's effective and makes good use of the sequel nature. The Doctor is also present.