Class - from the Universe of Doctor Who: Joyride

This second Class novel, based on the television spin-off from Doctor Who, has an interesting premise.  What if you found a machine that would allow its users to switch bodies with someone else?  And what if you were able to use this machine to start a business, allowing those willing to pay a high price to use this chance to inhabit another person's body and basically do anything you've ever fantasized but were too afraid to do - such as take ballet lesson...or drive a car at the highest speed possible...or jump off the roof of a school...or set fire to a house while a family is still inside...?

Joyride answers that question when a man down on his luck happens across an alien being who seeks his help - only, instead of helping the alien, he kills him and all of his brethren and turns the alien technology into a profit-making business.  April, Tayna, Charlie, Matteusz, Ram, and Quill get drawn into the mix when one of their classmates is killed when she crashes her car into the front of a store after a wild joyride and another burns down his home while his family is inside - but claims he has no memory of it.

And then Ram wakes up in the body of a middle-aged, overweight man.

Author Guy Adams provides a story that is definitely worthy of the television show, and based on comments made by the characters throughout the story, it is set sometime in the middle of the season - before Ram and April hooked up, yet after their April takes half the heart of the shadow king. I think he captures the characters nicely, particularly the naivety of Charlie, the vileness of Quill, the shyness of April, and the energy of Tanya.  And to say there is only one villain in the story wouldn't quite capture the story - because let's face it: who's the greater villain?  The man who gives you the opportunity to kill others, or the one who actually switches bodies so that he can kill and get away with it?

And quite frankly, not all the body-switchers are pure villains.  The one man, with whom Ram is switched, doesn't actually switch bodies to commit a crime; rather, he switches bodies so that he can finally be himself and experience a life he only imagined but was forced to hide by his family and society's dictates.

Adams tells the story through the eyes of quite a few of the characters, and it's interesting to see how each of them view each other - particularly Quill and Charlie.  Poor Matteusz is barely in the story, which is a shame, as he was one of my favorite characters in the show, albeit underused there, too. I also liked what he did with Ram's character - don't want to give away anything, but suffice to say, this could easily be seen as a turning point for Ram, which could have easily integrated into the television program to show how Ram gradually grows as a character.

Now, the one thing I did not like, and quite frankly it bugged me for more than half the book (until I got so involved with the story that I didn't notice it anymore), is the use of present tense.  I've said it before (with the Curious Cat Spy Club series and the Samantha Wolf series), but what is it with this sudden fad of authors writing their books in the present tense?  For me, I find it awkward to read, and it always takes me a bit to settle into the book, because my mind constantly wants to change every verb into past tense.  Present tense does not make the story happen "now" for me - rather, it is jarring enough that it actually takes me out of the story and forces me to concentrate harder to read it.

With this second book in the series read, that only leaves one more Class book to go (it comes out here in the States in March 2018) - after that, with no more show and no more books, Class reaches the end of its short run. Which is sad, because it was a well-written show with great actors, interesting characters and stories, and a whole world of possibilities.

RATING:  8 pyramid-shaped pieces of alien technology out of 10 for expanding the Class universe just a bit farther and proving these characters have many more stories to tell!