Three issues in and things are becoming apparent both to the citizens of Heavenside and the readers of Doktor Sleepless; the good Doktor is not only not quite right in the head but has plans, far bigger plans than anyone ever thought possible. Warren Ellis' much-vaunted return to political science fiction has disappointed some readers expecting the slambang, ninety ideas a page, pace of Transmetropolitan (And if you've not read that, do youself a favour and track it down immediately.) and I'm big enough to admit I was one of them. For a while, it looked like Doktor Sleepless was effectively going to be an ideas dump, a place for Ellis to publish all the things he couldn't quite find a home for anywhere else.

Until issue three. For those of you just joining us, John Reinhardt, Doktor Sleepless, has just returned to Heavenside. A city of the indeterminate future, where Shrieky Girls use their cybernetic enhancements to experience the same sensations, where body modification is the norm and the future hasn't so much arrived as slouched into view, Heavenside is the city on the edge of tomorrow and it's in no hurry to jump over. Reinhardt, who founded the Grinder movement, the people who modify their bodies, returns after years away with a new identity and a new mission; his name is Doktor Sleepless and he is going to give Heavenside the future it deserves. Although not necessarily the future it wants...

However, within four pages of this third issue, a very simple and devastating question has been both asked and answered; who is John Reinhardt? Ellis evokes one of my favourite pieces of paranormal phenomena, the Tulpa or thought-form to create doubt in the residents and readers alike, allowing his character to be in two places at once and for no one to have any idea what the truth, who is who and what the plan really is. It's a brave step and the first real progression the series has seen. However, it also gives the reader a real insight into how the book is going to play out. Whilst Transmetropolitan was frantic, Doktor Sleepless is a gradual ramping up of the strange, an invasion of the future with the Doktor sliding into our lives in much the same way as he invades the lives of Heavenside.

This is neatly demonstrated by the other two vignettes in this issue, the first a beautifully handled journey into the past of Nurse Igor and the second a horrific look at John Reinhardt's guardian and the damage he may have done to him. There's a sense of the people being more important than the place here, of the journey being more important than the destination and crucially, for the first time since the series started, a real sense of direction and pace and confidence. This is a series unlike any other and if you're the least bit interested in science fiction, science, music, philosophy and where those four points meet, you need to pay a visit to the Doktor. Backed up by an wiki where readers are tracking and dissecting the story as it unfolds, this is a future you'll want to be a part of.