A bit hard to follow plot-wise at points, but an incredible character study of my personal favorite character in all of Doctor Who: Ace McShane.

Paul Cornell immediately establishes himself as THE Ace writer here, a title that he definitely keeps up as time goes on. Cornell's Ace feels like the most natural development of her character from the TV show -- she's action-oriented and tends towards impulsivity, but is tempered by her kindness, virtue, and intelligence. She's a perfect foil to the Doctor, sharing many of his feelings and emotional experiences (particularly in relation to both of their pasts) while handling them in wildly different ways, bringing them head to head. They're a powerful match here in particular.

Much of Ace's arc here -- having her experience stripped away, her past altered, and finally her entire life replaced with sanded-down, perfect, painless version before reclaiming her self-knowledge and rising up, victorious -- really resonated with me as a queer fan. It brought me to tears at a couple points, which hardly ever happens. Ace's name is a tool of self-determination for her. She's Dotty to the childhood bully that nearly destroys her entirely, she's Dorry when she's been stripped down and reupholstered as a perfect, popular girl, and when she rises up again, bloody knuckled and wreathed in flame and victorious, she's Ace again, the name she picked for herself. Her clothes as well (her jacket of course) show her taking back her power and identity, going from pink sweaters and ungainly stilettos to her own boots and anorak.

She reclaims her identity at the same time that she regains control over her gender presentation. This isn't the really the main plot of the book, but it is the heart of it. It's the thing that allows her to help the Doctor (another character who picked their name for themself...) to save himself, and to become a better version of himself, which in turn allows him to defeat Ishtar once and for all.

Cornell sets the standard for Ace's characterization in this series -- a standard that is sadly rarely met. Revelation should, quite honestly, be considered one of the most successful queer empowerment stories in all Doctor Who media, whether created intentionally or not. This one earns an 8/10 from me.