Lewis, Mick

AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:

1 out of 5

(1 book)

Doctor Who: Combat Rock

A Past Doctor Adventure featuring the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton) and his companions Jamie and Victoria.  Attempting to engage in some innocent tourism on a jungle-covered island, the Doctor and his companions instead find themselves caught between an oppressive government military force and the ruthless freedom fighters opposing it.  Worse still is the sudden and mysterious outbreak of savagery and primitivism among the locals, which leads them back into horrific ancient traditions.

Ask yourself if what you want to see from a Doctor Who novel is a scene where a missionary is presented with the severed head of another missionary and then force-fed the brains or a scene where one of the Doctor's companions is forced to watch as a friend is roasted and eaten by cannibals.  If the answer is 'Yes', then you my friend are one sick son of a bitch.  This book is a veritable orgy of violence, cruelty, torture, rape and dismemberment.  It is a story where every faction the Doctor and his friends encounter are utterly monstrous; be it the genocidal government, the psychotic rapist mercenaries, the brutal cannibalistic natives or the rebels who behead one of their civillian captives.

Now you might think that this is all a critique by the author on the horrors of jungle warfare (there's a definite South East Asia vibe to the setting) or the cruelty inherent in colonialism, but the problem is that this book doesn't seem particularly critical of all the violence and sadism.  In fact, it revels in it.  I found the book to be nasty and mean-spirited and can't imagine anyone actually enjoying reading it (but then, I never understood why torture-porn films like 'Saw' and 'Hostel' are so popular either).

1 out of 5

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