Let's Bungle in the Jungle

One of the most gruesome Doctor Who novels out there. Second, perhaps, only to Falls the Shadow which I recall being more unrelenting in its sadism.

The tale begins mercilessly as a power rifle toting fellow approaches a brown-skinned woman washing her "primitive crockery" in a stream as her infant child looks on. She refuses to submit to his interrogation and her poor child gets shot in the head.

Our TARDIS crew lands on the planet Jenggel, more specifically, on the island of Batu. Before long, they find themselves in the middle of a colonial dispute. The Indoni, denizens of Batu, have decided to get in on the colonizing game and have taken over the neighboring island of Papul. Unsurprisingly, the Papul don't take kindly to this and a rebel group called the OPG has formed to throw off the chains of their oppressors. The OPG is led by the enigmatic Kurtz. Er, Krallik.

To further complicate things, the Indoni President, Sabit, has hired a band of mercenaries called the Dogs of War to take out the OPG. The Dogs are id and thanatos writ large as they whore and kill their way across Papul showing not one iota of mercy towards anyone.

Our heroes are in constant peril whether it be from the rebels, the Dogs, or cannibals who live deep in the jungle. Victoria gets sidelined early on when she is taken captive and becomes nothing more than a pretty face that the Dogs drag along with them. Jamie is well drawn here - a man of action as well as a stranger in a strange land. The image of him wandering a jungle full of creepy crawlies in a kilt is rather funny. Plus, he hits on a woman at a bar early in the story. Quite the ladies man.

Just as with his companions, the Doctor is dragged along by events and does not drive them. He talks and negotiates but doesn't do much jiggery-pokery. He lies in wait until the end.

There are definite Apocalypse Now/"Heart of Darkness" vibes here while the Dogs brought the soldiers in Predator to mind. With the cannibalism and a scene where one of the Dogs watches a movie called Zombie Flesh Eaters, a real movie, that whole cannibalism exploitation genre of the late 70s comes to mind with titles such as Cannibal Holocaust.

I think Lewis did some fine world building here. It's a fun exotic jungle scenario and it starts off with a Val Lewton horror feel but quickly transcends that with some serious killing and gore. So I like the setting and I like how Lewis handles the various factions at each other's throats. Of course, with a lot of characters and sub-plots, the TARDIS crew is often times relegated to the background.

I enjoyed the setup, I got anxious when our heroes were in peril, and found a lot to like about Combat Rock. My main gripe is the Dogs of War. The psychopathy and violence that they display are of cartoonish proportions and their brutality and sadism wore on me. Perhaps amusing or novel at first, it wore me down. Considering there's a sentient fungus on Papul that can do some very funky stuff, I feel that the story would have been more interesting had the jungle and its mysteries been exploited more instead of subjecting the reader to yet more sheer savagery. But I suppose Lewis was going for the exploitation movie feel here.