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Tomb of Valdemar Author: Simon Messingham Review Tomb of Valdemar is a book set in the midst of the series long Key to Time adventures the Fourth Doctor had with the first incarnation of Romana. Starting just after the first segment of the Key to Time has been recovered, The Doctor and Romana are forced into a diversion from their main goal, and accidentally have to stop the potential destruction of the universe. Tomb of Valdemar starts with an old lady travelling to an inn at the heart of a small, primitive village of trappers who gather furs for the mysterious guild sleds that kill any trappers who come in under quota. The old lady sarts to tell a story, one of The Doctor who, with his companion Romana, have damaged the tracer used to find elements of the Key to Time, and find themselves on Ashkellia. There they find Miranda Pelham, an author who has written many books about a dark god, Valdemar. The Doctor and Romana have stumbled into the discovery of the Tomb of Valdemar, and are taken to a palace suspended above the tomb. There, a cult is found led by Paul Neville. The cult consists of members of the old aristocracy and are hunted by the new protectorate in the form of agent Robert Hopkins. Neville manages to get the Doctor to ignite the power of the palace they are in, and through much wrangling eventually find that the palace was built by the Old Ones who found Ashkellia to be a particle accellerator and Valdemar merely to be the higher dimensions. This is warping the minds of anyone aboard, and the Doctor finds an antedote which is given to Pelham and himself before Neville destroys the remainder. Their perception is restored, and in peril Pelham activates her remote transmat beam and are taken back to the ship of Hopkins, who is nearby. Hopkins then moves towards the palace and attacks, but the cult have since been transformed into unspeakable creatures while Neville, Romana and his altered psychic Human creation Huvan have gone back down to the tomb. At this point, the old story teller, now only telling her story to one trapper called Ponch dies, but Ponch recounts the rest of the story from his instincts. The Doctor and Pelham find a transmat to get back down to the Tomb. Huvan has now discovered that he has all the power, not Neville and wisdom shines through eventually the higher dimensions are stopped, while a creature is created of two warring people, Neville and Hopkins, Pelham decides to stay with the creature left guarding the gateway to the higher dimensions and Huvan is taken away by the Doctor and Romana. Ponch then realises that he knew the end of the story as he was there. He is then found by Romana, now alone and regenrated after 'dying' telling the story before, and he decides to go with Romana in her TARDIS. The idea of a story within a story is certainly not a new idea, but one not explored that often within the Doctor Who universe. Quite why Simon Messingham, or maybe it was the editorial team, decided to tackle this book in this way. To me, the outlying story leads to some quite messy passages that really detract from the overall tale of a Doctor Who adventure. If we take the events that surround the Doctor and Valdemar as a story on its own though, the book is enchanting. Not often can Doctor Who novels really be described as 'page turners', but in this case it really is. The suspense is held throughout, and Messingham really does manage to get the reader engaged in the scenes. What this book does really well, is capture the essence of Tom Baker playing The Doctor. This is really not an easy thing at all, as Tom Baker is somewhat of an enigma to capture on a page. His natural Effervescence is so difficult to convey in words, that in most cases authors miss it by varying degrees. Messingham does wonderfully here though, really seeming to understand how to make the character come alive. Messingham is not quite as successful with Romana, being played as she would be here by Mary Tamm. He does miss the character slightly, but not far enough that it really detracts from the story. The other characters work to a greater or lesser degree. Neville and Huvan are very successfully written, but quite what the author thought he was doing with Redfearn is beyond me, and Kampp seems to be such a stereotypical SS interrogation agent that he is out of place. Pelham seems to be a bit of a mixture, and comes accross OK. The real beauty of this book is in the way the author captures the reader. Even when considering the story wrap-around, you can really imagine many of the scenes as they are very well depicted. Many of the scenes appear to be reminiscent of actual Doctor Who scenes, both from before the book was published and after. For example, the tomb itself conjours up the imagery seen in The Satan Pit, one of the Tenth Doctor stories aired long after this book was written. The palace evokes images of many stories of the Tom Baker era such as the Vampires tower in The State of Decay. This imagery is blended with the excellent way in which Messingham has captured the character of Tom Baker grabs the reader. Overall, Tomb of Valdemar is a very good story that manages what many other books do not, in that it captures the character of the Doctor excellently. In this case, Tom Baker really does leap off the page in the way you would expect. The fact that the story is slightly messy in places manages to annoy somewhat, but the majesty of the rest of the tale overcomes these shortcomings to leave what is a marvellous book, well worthy of repeat reading. Rating:  |