| TOMB OF VALDEMAR by Simon Messingham |
| Story ? Synopsis: The TARDIS is thrown off course by a wave of chronometric energy from the higher dimensions. It leaves K9 in a frazzled state, so the Doctor has to foreswear the search for the Key to Time, and check it out. They land on Ashkellia, a world linked to the legend of Valdemar. They rescue Miranda Pelham, writer, from the remains of her team. They use her bathyscaphe to return to the place she started from. They find themselves in a castle, where Paul Neville is in charge. He has organised this trip to find the lost tomb of Valdemar, but is stalled because the energies in the castle are inoperative. Romana meets a puzzled young man called Huvan, who is bullied by others, but is Neville's pet project, a top telepath. Believing that Neville cannot open the tomb anyway, the Doctor brings the power back on. He is put back in a cell, where Romana helps free him and Pelham. During a ceremony to access the power of Valdemar, the Doctor interrupts, and Huvan kills someone. Leaving Romana to stay with him, the Doctor goes with Pelham to try and find how to keep Valdemar imprisoned. But Neville finds them and ejects from the castle. Luckily, they are teleported to the nearby ship of Robert Hopkins, who has hunted Neville for years. He wants to kill the Doctor, but knows he might fail to catch Neville if he does. Hopkins launches a party to investigate the castle, but it's practically empty. Neville has taken Romana and Huvan back down to Ashkellia in the bathyscape. The Doctor and Pelham use a transmat, which is also eventually how Hopkins makes it. The Doctor catches up with Neville at the entrance to the tomb. Neville and Hopkins launch into a fight, and fall into the tomb. The Doctor tries to persuade Huvan not to try and free Valdemar, but he fails. Huvan enters the tomb with Romana. The Doctor realises he and Pelham can safely enter. There, they find a version of the castle, and a huge alien, an Old One, the elusive Valdemar, who is sleeping. The Doctor realises Valdemar kept himself away here deliberately. When Romana rejects Huvan's desires, the Doctor persuades him that his only option is to create a new life for himself. Valdemar asks Pelham to stay with him. The Doctor and Romana return to the TARDIS and the quest for the Key To Time. |
| Review:- Ancient evil, power-mad lunatics, romance... the usual. The quest for the Key to Time is summarily interrupted by forces beyond normal comprehension. The Doctor is forced to put the quest on hold whilst he and Romana try to figure out the problem. K9 is soon a victim of the effect, and more await them. Their swift rescue of Miranda Pelham and trip up to the castle sets on a path leading to maniacs, degenerates and the deluded. There, they meet Paul Neville, one of the key characters, who has used Pelham in order to find the elusive Valdemar, which he believes will allow him access to immense power. He has a stooge, Huvan, whom he is going to use to access the lost god, but whom he treats with little respect. His downfall is inevitable, mainly through his nemesis... Robert Hopkins is a good counter to Neville. Identified at one stage as the 'Finder', he clearly is meant to echo Matthew Hopkins, the infamous Witchfinder General. Indeed, this Hopkins is a puritanical miseryguts, but also power-mad and clumsy. At least his staff have some grasp of how better to operate than he does. Huvan is a disturbed young man, abused by Neville and in some sense, retarded by science. He forms an attachment to Romana, which she cannot reciprocate. He turns out to be as important as Neville believes, but manages to prove stronger than his master. His ultimate fate ties in with the framed narrative, which tells a strange tale of fur-trappers and their grim life, broken by an old woman telling a weird story. This does at least give an added depth to events. Pelham is an explicable person, whose books have brought her wealth and happiness, which is harshly taken away from her, and who then spends her life running from destiny. She does at least find a unique way out. There are other characters, but none as vital. The spoiled young rich children meet suitably grisly ends, whilst Redfearn, the marksman who talks like Elvis Presley, proves a brief amusing diversion. But the Doctor and Romana are the centres of the story, with the latter struggling to keep her sanity in the face of madmen, and the former desperate to stop the release of Valdemar. His final success in persuading Huvan to make the right choice provides a just note for the end of the story. As an aside, the idea of a hugely-powerful creature at the bottom of a lift, and those above trying to investigate it, recently came to prominence in The Impossible Planet/The Satan Pit, although I imagine it's hardly the first time the idea has been used. Overall, it's a good book, nicely written. |
| Disclaimer: I own a copy. |