Rags by: Mick Lewis

 

Rags is a terrible novel.  It is 251 pages of Mick Lewis attempting to analyze Doctor Who, punk rock, the Jon Pertwee era, and the 1970s as a whole and completely misunderstanding how much of any of those things worked or became popular in the first place while coating the entire book in some of the most egregious violence and gore to feature in a Doctor Who novel.  After reading Rags, I have come to the conclusion that fans who claim the BBC Books are less edgy than the books by Virgin Publishing have not read any of the New Adventures or Missing Adventures or have read Rags.   This is not the first time that the content of a Past Doctor Adventures novel has included more violence, racism, and sexual assault than any of the books by Virgin Publishing.  This is also a book that while there are small ideas here that work: a villain that’s a representation of death is a good idea, but as with everything about this book it has been done elsewhere better.  Do you want a deconstruction of the UNIT family?  Blood Heat has you covered.  Do you want an exploration of punk in Doctor Who?  No Future does that and has it in spades.  What about a story set in an isolated British village with some folk horror undertones?  The Daemons.  Are you looking for a deconstruction of the Third Doctor and his relation to authority?  Watch any Jon Pertwee led Doctor Who serial.

 

Rags is also a book where the prose itself is nearly unreadable.  It’s incredibly basic and Lewis thinks using various slurs and cursing basically every other page.  There is a character who is referred to not by name in the narration but overwhelmingly as “the Chinese Girl”.  The rest of the characters don’t have character, they’re just violent and angry at the world while Lewis seems to think that’s what defines punk.  The Doctor is barely in the middle portion of the novel as the violence ramps with every page.  I mentioned The Daemons in the previous paragraph and that is the closest thing to what Rags is in terms of plot and even structure, but without the Master or really any character.  The Doctor is cruel, Jo is a complete ass to everyone around her, people vomit maggots and take glee in doing so.  This book deserves only as much effort in reviewing it as Mick Lewis had in writing it.  2/10.