Revolution Man

One of the problems with doing these books as a sort of semi-monthly serial is that you have situations where an event in one book is merely setting up things that will become more important later, or at least have bigger repercussions. That itself isn't the problem, it's nice to get a set of continuity and that this is all going somewhere instead of just being a series of unlinked random adventures that the TARDIS crew is having, each without any bearing on the other. I like the idea of a progression . . . maybe not quite in the style of the current TV show where each season appears to have one major arc that sets up the season finale, but subplots and foreshadowing are cool with me. The problem with that is that you don't know if something weird or vague happening is setting you up for further chaos down the line or it's just the author needing one more go-round on the editorial train. This book may be a good example of that. It starts out promising enough: an anarchist is roaming around the sixties carving a giant "R" in the sky, in monuments, causing all kinds of mischief. He's calling himself the Revolution Man and appears to be screwing things up rather nicely. Needless to say, the Doctor and team swoop in to try and stop him. Unfortunately it's not really that simple. The events appear to be caused by an alien drug (or flower or something) that was introduced into this world . . . people who take it seem to become capable of telekinetic abilities, among other things. With it, the Revolution Man is really messing up the time-line by causing disasters and whatnot that weren't supposed to happen. This is one of those stories where setting it in some other time than the sixties might have been a good idea. Because try as they might, the disasters that are caused by the drug are so big that you know the author has no choice but to hit the big reset button by the end and put all the toys back where they started, while it may be daring and radical for history to be changed, I doubt the BBC is going to go for it. That aside, the meat of the story is actually fairly interesting. With the addition of Fitz, the crew is much more interesting, with Sam and the Doctor being the veterans and Fitz trying to figure out where exactly he fits in. His banter with Sam is generally amusing and they're starting to have a brother/sister relationship that's rather nice. For once, the Doctor seems to be caught flat-footed, while he may once again instantly know the type of drug that he's encountering (I prefer the moments when he has no idea what the heck is going on, as opposed to being a big galactic almanac) it really doesn't seem all that crucial. The team bounces all through the sixties, mirroring the decline from hopeful free love to the reality that being nice wasn't really going to make the world do what you want, for once making Sam's strident non-conformist/pacifist/whatever stance not totally annoying. But in the end it's just too darn

Another well done Eighth Doctor novel that, for me really captured the spirit of the 60's and the Revolution. This story works well in ways that multiple-companion stories didn't work on the TV: both Sam and Fitz go off on there on and half experiences separate from the Doctor that are both fascinating and advance the plot in move exciting ways than if they were just standing around asking: What's that Doctor? Well written and interesting to the last page. A+

This story is not your parents Dr. Who, but it's still is very good. This story creates some very interesting scenarios that our "friends" have never experienced. It was so unusual that I couldn't put it down.

At last, someone has written a Doctor Who novel set in the sixties that actually feels like it was set in the sixties! Revolution Man uses the time period as an integral part of the story, rather than just a quaint setting. Full of colorful, globe-trotting locales, intricate plot twists, and exciting characters, Revolution Man may be Paul Leonard's best Doctor Who novel yet. And the emotional hoops he puts the regular characters through are unpredictable and demand to be followed up on in later books.