The second Doctor receives possibly his most accurate and sensitive depiction in eight years of this sort of fiction.

"Penis"; I mean, admit it, it’s not a word one really expects to encounter much in Doctor Who. Oh well, okay, maybe in a medical, distant, detached sense? Well, yeah, but extensive utilisation of "whore" might kind of knock that idea on the head...

So we’re pushing envelopes here, and great. Although there lingers a suspicion that some of it might be a bit puerile, little or nothing about Combat Rock is objectionable on any sane grounds of taste. No, seriously, even though it’s all about cannibals, and it’s the rawest and most visceral Doctor Who novel published since, well...

Ah, that’s a good point. One could take any five pages of this novel at random and present them to someone who’s been following recent Doctor Who fiction - whether sympathetically or otherwise - and they’d not even have to finish those before seeking confirmation that "this is by that guy that wrote Rags, isn’t it?" But where Combat Rock scores over its predecessor is in being Doctor Who, which Rags wasn’t. Jamie and Victoria are present, correct and believable, and the second Doctor receives possibly his most accurate and sensitive depiction in eight years of this sort of fiction; so convincingly, beautifully embarrassed by the events to which he must bear witness.

Where Combat Rock fails is in being, well, kind of dull. The unwelcoming jungle setting of Jenggel is nicely evoked, the (generally) unpleasant characters are convincingly drawn - Lewis’s writing has many strengths, even if you couldn’t seriously accuse subtlety of being one of them - but by the time one has reached page 200, it has kind of become obvious that this is a slow tale in no danger of speeding up. It’s one of those stories which makes that annoying mistake of starting in brilliantly gripping mode, then shifting down a few gears for all those pesky remaining chapters.

Although Lewis’s work rejoices a little too much in the bloody and carnal for even my liking, he’s nevertheless a talent who could have much to contribute to Doctor Who. I just hope Combat Rock isn’t as good as it gets.