Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) is a book. A dystopian book. It has words in it and chapters and paragraphs. A classic of 20th century literature, it doesn’t hold a candle to the far superior Rave New World (1991).
Published at the peak of the Madchester dance scene in early 1990s Manchester, the work is 500 long pages of drug-fuelled raving—from page 1 to 500. Just endless raves. That’s it.
Ravers would, famously, “read” the book whilst out of their minds on ecstasy, with the book eventually banned in 2001 and slapped with an ASBO (anti-social behavioural order). The ban was lifted in 2015 and retrospectives on the novel consider it to be one of the worst books of all time.
Totalitarianism and PARTY TIME (🥳🍾) in Rave New World
“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their raves.”
This book follows the life of 19-year-old Bozzer, set in mid-1990 Madchester. The Haçienda nightclub is in full flow and Bozzer likes taking drugs, dancing until he’s heavily dehydrated, and skipping work.
He dreams of opening his own nightclub and calling it Pisshead, but he’s too out of it to ever get his plans together. Especially when, one night, he meets the girl of his dreams—Loretta. This 19-year-old blonde makes him go gooey at the knees (although, unknown to Bozzer, that’s also one of the side effects of taking so much ecstasy) and the pair begin dating.
A side story that then develops is one of hellish, outright totalitarianism.
Although living in a fascist state, Bozzer drowns all that out with pills and not paying his bills. He devotes himself to the rave and, in so doing, finds a better conceit in himself.
“Raves can be like X-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You rave and you’re pissed.”
Critics of Rave New World have noted the book often plagiarises sentences and aphorisms from Brave New World. As above, but below with Huxley’s work.
“Words can be like X-rays if you use them properly—they’ll go through anything. You read and you’re pierced.”
The author of Rave New World died of a pork pie overdose in September 1992, so the Huxley estate hasn’t pursued legal action against his cadaver. His name was John “Smozzer” Smithson and he was 45.
And to be fair to him, his book is enjoyable. Even if it doesn’t make any sense.
As the narrative lurches forward, Bozzer’s fate is sealed when a giant Reni hat is constructed over the city of Manchester. This fashion statement traps him, and Loretta, within the confines of the city where all he can do for the rest of his days is rave, rave, rave, and rave some more.
Literary Critiques of Rave New World
Many pompous literary critics have waded into the meaning behind Smozzer’s book. Archer McJeffreyson III, writing for The Posh Bastard in a 1995, stated:
“One notes that; within the confines of working-class skulduggery; one must opine over the machinations that one is, ergo; propitious, to whit, of modus operandi and the milieu cognizant and salient to the mellifluous baritones pertaining to the medley of the dance.”
In a more recent consideration, a reporter for The Daily Disaster tabloid stated in January 2025:
“The book is a bit shit, to be honest, but it did rekindle my love for pork pies, which the main character eats often (despite the noted effects of constipation he soon encounters).”
The book enjoyed a resurgence of interest in 2020 onward and also bolstered sales of Reni hats considerably.
However, as of 2025 the work is out of print and/or in use as the paper wrapping for fish & chips orders used at chippies around the Manchester, Greater Manchester, and Lancashire areas.
