Open Sources Resources

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 249 pages
• Publisher: BBC Books (January 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0563538457
• ISBN-13: 978-0563538455
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces

Pity the eyes of the Doctor Who fan. In November of 2001, the BBC published THE ADVENTURESS OF HENRIETTA STREET - a book written in such a small font that it’s currently being used as a calibration device for electron microscopes. After numerous readers were spotted literally bleeding from the eyes due to excess squinting, reports of blindness spread throughout fandom faster than casting rumors about Ken Dodd. “The BBC,” up-in-arms fans demanded, “will have to do something about this state of affairs! No more janus thorns! No more tiny print! No more making our eyeballs bleed! Have pity on our orbs of sight! Give us something soothing to look at!” And in their wisdom the BBC, upon hearing these pleas of mercy from our optically challenged fans friends (of which this humble reviewer counts himself as a fully paid up member), decided to follow ADVENTURESS with a new book from Paul Magrs. A new book about poodles. A new book with a bright pink cover, featuring a bright pink poodle reclining on a yellow sofa, holding a cigarette and a yellow water pistol. In case there were any optic nerves that hadn’t spontaneously combusted upon initial viewing of this cover, there is also a giant reflective Doctor Who logo on the front, that screams to anyone who will listen about how there are now one hundred BBC Doctor Who Novels in existence (I can only assume that a cover claiming that this is the one hundredth book since the BBC took the license away from Virgin didn’t go over terribly well in the board meetings). So, in case you missed anything, there’s a bright, shiny, reflective gold logo glowing on top of a screamingly bright pink cover published right after November’s Hold-The-Book-Very-Close-To-Your-Head fest. Why does BBC range editor Justin Richards hate my eyes so?Personally, I think the cover is one of the most killingly funny things I’ve even seen on the front of the book in a very long time. On the other hand, I have absolutely no wish to persuade that of anyone who happens to think that it is the most garish and ugly work that they’ve ever seen in their life (I would probably only mention the fact that they seem to be completely missing the point). The extreme pinkness of the cover is something that someone is going to either love or abhor and there’s absolutely no reason to try to dissuade a person from their opinion on that. While fans will forever be divided on that subject, the book itself is quite a lot of fun. It is the epitome of romp. It is the embodiment of camp. It is the quintessence of silliness. It’s great.

For those readers who thought that all books following THE ADVENTURESS OF HENRIETTA STREET would end up being massively heavy books, have no fear. MAD DOGS is possibly one of the lightest books that the Doctor Who range has ever produced. The novel is so light that while I put the book aside during breaks in reading, if it was not for the weight of the bookmark that I shoved into its pages, I would be in eternal fear of the novel being caught on a stray current of air and floating away to some unknown destination. (For any overly sensitive review-reader who is worried about the fate of my copy now that the bookmark has been removed from MAD DOGS’ innards need fret no more. My copy is now resting comfortably on my bookshelf next to a copy of ADVENTURESS, and the gravitational pull of that tome will keep MAD DOGS securely anchored to the Earth for many many years to come.)

In addition to be a delightfully quick book to read, it’s also a terribly funny one. MAD DOGS is one of the few Doctor Who stories where virtually every joke or bad pun creates a laugh. Not a book to be taken seriously, it succeeds largely because it’s written in such a fun and quick style. Paul Magrs’ prose style is incredibly engaging; it’s Terrance Dicks with a real sense of poetry. While some books get humor all wrong by dwelling too much on the outrageousness of the situational comedy, MAD DOG quickly moves from one insane setup to another. There are some wonderfully described passages that will have you chuckling to yourself for weeks. It’s fluffy, but it’s not insultingly so. It’s vaguely clever enough that I certainly didn’t feel that I had wasted my time on something inconsequential. It’s amazingly entertaining, and while I wouldn’t want to read an entire series of books like this, as a one-off it succeeds magnificently.

MAD DOGS works as a great standalone romp through the weird and wacky world of Who. If you’re someone who doesn’t like your Who to be horribly serious at all times, then in all likelihood you’ll adore this one. But then, you probably realized the lack of inherent seriousness present in the text when you threw your hands over your face to protect yourself from the intense radioactive blast of a cover.