Doctor Who: Tomb of Valdemar

Past Doctor Adventures #29

by Simon Messingham

Millenia ago, the Vanir ripped a hole in reality and created a gateway to the Higher Dimensions. This resulted in the warping of vast areas of space, and anyone who perceived these Higher Dimensions went insane. The Vanier disappeared into the gateway and all that remains of them is shimmering, golden palace floating in the clouds...The Doctor inadvertently materializes on Ashkellia, where Valdemar's tomb lies. The Doctor must escape imprisonment by Neville, a debauched aristocrat, to save both the universe and himself from the Higher Dimensions.

Genres: Doctor Who, Science Fiction, Fiction, Time Travel, Aliens, Media Tie In, British Literature

288 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published February 7, 2000

Reviews

[Joe Tobin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the fact that the book tried to position itself as being between the two serials that it's between. I appreciated that it spent some time with the idea of Romana getting used to traveling with the Doctor. I definitely didn't appreciate Romana's plot line, which has aged real bad. At one point she talked about having to just "dissociate" herself from what was happening, which is language I believe I have heard in the contexts of abusive behavior. This is not a good choice for any character, let alone a Time Lord that could have been involved in the story in any number of other ways.

I do think it did a solid enough job of depicting Four. I think the main thing for me was that there just wasn't enough story here. The main story beats (waking the hidden god, promise of power, etc etc) were fine, if not super original, but there wasn't enough happening to keep the momentum going. And in theory I'm not opposed to the frame narrative approach, but it felt more like another way to add padding to the proceedings. And if we are to believe the final reveal, it's still not clear (at least to me) why exactly that person would be telling the story to the hunter dudes. It felt like we were supposed to be so distracted/excited by the reveal that we don't worry too much about that.

Look, I'm going to keep reading these. I've said before, I'm not looking for award-winning literature here. If you're a fan of Classic Who, there are worse ways to spend a few days' of reading.

[Gareth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unusual Doctor Who novel in that it is narrated by a character and it uses present tense, Tomb Of Valdemar goes on to integrate the idea of storytelling in interesting ways.

Following the story is a joy, with the Fourth Doctor and Romana feeling vivid and alive and lots of ideas blossoming as it goes. Panicked novelist Miranda Pelham stands out among the guest cast, although it must be said that there are some rather archetypal characters elsewhere, just as the plot can seem a bit old hat. I like it enough to put some of that down to its narrative style and/or the flawed narrator. It’s a weird and wonderful diversion.

[Steven Poore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. Trying to wedge a far-future-gothic-meets-Cthulu Elder Gods romp into a Who season that already contains Stones of Blood is a bit of a stretch. Simon Messingham gives us an oddball framing story, a raving magus, a slimy incel-ish horror boy, and a puritanical witchfinder named Hopkins as well as a palace floating high above a portal to another dimension, but like the incel's grimy attachment to Romana it's all a bit ick rather than truly horrific.

[Jacob Licklider · Rating 4 out of 5]

There is an interesting gimmick in Tomb of Valdemar, something that makes it stand out from a lot of the other Doctor Who books. There is a frame story from a character telling this story to a village of people after the fact. Having a frame story is nothing new for books or even Doctor Who books, but this frame story from Simon Messingham puts Tomb of Valdemar in the present tense instead of the traditional past tense prose of practically every other book. This gives the book a very odd tone. It does feel like you’re sitting around a fire, being told a tale which is sort of what Messingham is going for, but it is also interrupted by the frame story, especially early on and this breaks up the pace of being told a story. These breaks especially become an issue when they do not occur at a chapter break which Messingham could have used as a natural break in the narrative, instead often occurring right in the middle of a page meaning it comes across as choppy and not easy to read instead of a natural interruption which is what Messingham is clearly going for. This is a shame because there is a mystery in what the frame story means, the narrator’s identity is revealed at the very end of the book in a very clever review and the whole idea of the story is called into question. From the first page this is a book where you question if the story is really what happened to the Doctor and Romana after The Ribos Operation, and the final reveal makes you wonder about a lot of things, tying back into Season 16 and into the current arc in the Eighth Doctor Adventures range.

The entire premise involves this entity of the Old Ones, Lovecraftian beings which were in the universe before and are essentially forces of nature, Valdemar. Valdemar was entombed, or so the legends say, and like The Tomb of the Cybermen a team is coming to unearth this tomb to prove the existence of a legend. The Doctor, Romana, and K9 are dragged off their search for the Key to Time by the TARDIS malfunctioning and the Tracer being damaged. Romana knows Valdemar is a myth, an impossibility. This is a story all about a fictional story becoming real and adding that extra lens of the frame story allows Messingham to add some depth to the proceedings. Valdemar is not ever actually seen as a character, but its shadow is felt throughout the book as the party gets ever closer to its release. Tomb of Valdemar becomes a story that has a cosmic entity right off-page looming while human villains play their own machinations: insanity sets in at several points and this is the adventure that almost gets Romana killed. Messingham is very clever in creating a cast that are all stereotypes from the strong female leader to the insane, power hungry villain, and the poor lackey who gets broken at the first opportunity.

K9 is basically a nonentity in this story, being written off pretty early on as Messingham clearly knows that including him would cause problems. The Doctor is captured fairly well for the season that this is supposed to be placed in, but part of that is mired by the fact that the Season 16 Doctor has kind of become a generic Doctor. There are definitely scenes where you can hear Tom Baker in the book, especially in the beginning and the end of the book, but really this is Romana’s book. That’s actually an interesting thing for this one as Tomb of Valdemar is a book which was reprinted in a limited edition Fourth Doctor Time Capsule along with a beautiful statuette, Genesis of the Daleks, Terror of the Zygons, and several other goodies for fans. This is Romana’s book: she’s the one who gets to reflect on her current situation of helping to find the Key to Time. This is the book where she decides to stay with the Doctor throughout the quest, even though that’s a diversion. Mary Tamm’s portrayal shines through Messingham’s prose, and there is a real sense of bridging the first two Key to Time stories and the final revelation about how this story changes Romana is beautiful.

Overall, Tomb of Valdemar may not be the best representation of the Fourth Doctor and Romana era of the show, it does tell an interesting story through an unreliable narrator. A very different approach to metatext occurs than say The Well-Mannered War, but there is a lot here to like which makes it worth the read. 7/10.

[David Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Simon Messingham is definitely one of the more interesting writers of Doctor Who novels. It's the ambition that sets him apart from so many of the others. Tomb of Valdemar is probably his most ambitious Who novel, and for that reason alone most reactions seem to be either love it or hate it. My own feeling is that in this novel Messingham has tried to do too many things and probably should have taken more time than the publishers no doubt gave him to work it all out.

On the level of plot, at least for the main story, there is not really that much unusual. The Doctor and Romana are on their way to track down part 2 of the Key to Time, but get sidetracked by an anomaly onto a deadly planet where a mad cult leader is trying to resurrect an ancient superbeing known as Valdemar. The Doctor is quickly convinced that there is no such thing as Valdemar, but instead there is an ancient gateway or access to some "higher dimensions" that, if let loose, would rewrite the physics of the cosmos. To add to the troubles, the cult leader Neville is an upper-class fugitive from a new workers' revolution, and the ruthlessly dedicated Hopkins, a kind of witch-finder general, is on Neville's trail.

The ambitious part of the novel is the manner of the telling. This is a frame-tale novel in which the main plot is told by someone telling it to someone else. In this case, an old woman identifying herself as one of the chief figures of the adventure, the novelist Pelham, is telling this story to a group of barbarian fur traders on a far away planet. But, she is really telling it to just one fur trader, Ponch, who seems strangely affected by the whole thing. About three quarters of the way through the tale, the old woman dies, and Ponch leaves his life behind to discover the source of his meaningless existence and complete the tale in his own imagination. There are several discussions along the way of this frame tale about the power of storytelling to change people's perceptions, which it seemingly has done for Ponch, who never looks at his world in quite the same way.

One thing that may disturb the reader while going through the story is the level of detail that storyteller Pelham seems to know. There are far too many details that Pelham could not possibly know, especially details about Gallifrey and about what Romana in particular is thinking at any given moment. However, Messingham manages to resolve this problem at the end.

What keeps this novel from meeting its ambition is mainly the difference in quality between the frame story and the inner tale. So, while the attempt seems to be not only to validate the value of storytelling, but also to validate the value of Doctor Who as a storytelling mechanism, an explanation for why so many people keep reading and watching, this message gets undercut by the rather ordinary plot of the inner tale, the only one that the Doctor is actually in. A better Doctor Who story with more direct referentiality to the frame tale would have made the novel's structure more effective in getting across this key message.

Some stray observations: 1) Messingham writes a very good version of Doctor 4, a feat that few other novelists were able to master; 2) As I've said elsewhere, Messingham is very good at writing interior monologue, and quite good at portraying the mental states of deeply disturbed people; 3) The character Redfearn from straight out of two-bit American Westerns has no business being in this novel; 4) There is too much focus on mental powers that can destroy the universe; 5) The villains Neville and Hopkins are too much stock characters, baddies of little particular interest.

So, high marks for the ambition, but some demerits for lack of imagination in some core parts of the novel.

[Preetam Chatterjee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomb of Valdemar is not your average romp through time and space. This is Doctor Who by candlelight, whispered in forbidden tongues across ruined galaxies. Simon Messingham taps into the eldritch side of the Whoniverse, summoning a tale where the laws of physics wear thin, and long-dead gods still stir in the vacuum.

The Fourth Doctor and Romana II arrive in the aftermath of a psychic cataclysm, drawn toward a cryptic region of space known only in myth—Valdemar, a name feared across time. What they uncover is no ordinary tomb but a prison, a trap, and possibly a gate—to something so ancient and terrible it defies logic and memory. Think The Satan Pit cranked up to cosmic eleven.

Messingham weaves in elements of Time Lord history, forbidden Time Academy knowledge, and the Doctor’s own haunted past, giving the Fourth Doctor a rare brush with power he cannot charm, outwit, or fully understand. Romana is at her best here—cool, curious, and intellectually formidable, navigating the gothic and grotesque with her trademark poise.

The villain? Valdemar, an Old God figure that makes Sutekh seem like a warm-up act. He’s less a character than a creeping idea—a being of such magnitude and myth that even the Time Lords dared not speak his name. As the Doctor is dragged deeper into prophecy and paradox, the line between science and sorcery bends until it shatters.

There are necromancers in space, a ship built from whispers and bone, ancient texts encoded in dreams, and entire civilizations lost to memory. The mood is thick, the horror slow-burning, and the writing laced with poetic dread.

This isn't a breezy adventure. It's a metaphysical deep dive, and Messingham doesn't flinch from weighty themes: destiny, entropy, identity, and the fragility of reason in the face of myth. It’s like The Curse of Fenric got an upgrade and then took a semester in the Necronomicon.

In essence, Tomb of Valdemar is Doctor Who as mythic space horror—eerie, lushly written, and brimming with awe. It's a reminder that the Doctor doesn’t just fight Daleks and run down corridors—he wanders the edge of reality, where stories become truth and gods don’t always stay dead.

[Justin Partridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well this ended up being a whole heckuvalottta fun! It’s got weird cosmic horror/Lovecraftian vibes but it’s welded to this really, really sweet superstructure about this particular planet at an indeterminate time period that ITSELF is about the power of stories and how they can influence you even when you don’t realize it.

The key to time stuff is a little odd tho in the hindsight. It doesn’t really add much to it besides how green Romana I is with traveling with the Doctor? I dunno. I had a lot of fun with it regardless.

[James Bowman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has some interesting concepts, and it's a fairly compelling read with a memorable cast. Plus lots of points for featuring the underused Romana I. However, the framing story wound up being a disappointment, just an occasionally confusing distraction (I'm still not sure what happened at the conclusion). And the plot only kicks into high gear when the Doctor does something remarkably stupid (there are hints he was being influenced but it isn't clear to me in the end). Not one of the better Fourth Doctor novels, but OK overall. (B)

[Derelict Space Sheep · Rating 4 out of 5]

42 WORD REVIEW:

Messingham writes in the present tense, and with a framing device fit to discombobulate readers weaned on Terrance Dicks and the like. The result is a fully fledged SF novel that artfully showcases—rather than props itself up on—the Fourth Doctor.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this story with its use of storytelling. The actual tale with the mythical figure from the past was OK, but I preferred the parts on the planet below. The twist at the end was good

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretentious male doctor who writer #74613551

I liked the world building and the Lovecraft influence tho

[Lawrence · Rating 2 out of 5]

https://gnomeship.blogspot.com/2020/0...

[Mekon · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is much about this book that makes little sense. It's told through the words of a narrator in a time and place that seems distant from the action in the book, and a narrator whose reliability might be questioned. Given that the book explores the boundaries of myth and history, madness and sanity, then it's fair to say that any weirdness and inconsistency is simply part of the storytelling. For me, that style of storytelling was just a bit too much. I took a while to get used to the present tense narrative, but when it worked best there was a script like quality to it that led me to imagine the sets and characters gloriously depicted in the conventions of 1970s studio television. The plot was reasonable, and the Doctor gets some very Tom Bakerish quips.

In all, this is a book trying to be cleverer than it actually is and although it doesn't quite hit the mark there's enough playfulness to just lift it above the average.

[Jamie Revell · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Doctor has to prevent Cthulhu rising from R'lyeh.

Well, sort of. It's called 'Valdemar', not 'Cthulhu', and the tomb in which it's sleeping lies beneath a Venus-like atmosphere, rather than the sea. But that's basically the idea, and the parallels are not only intentional, but made explicit from time to time.

Obviously, there's rather more to the plot than that, and there are a number of clever ideas in it, but somehow the sum is less than the parts. Having come off the back of Stross's Halting State, I'm used enough to stories being written in the present tense. Here, unfortunately, it just comes across as pretentious. (Yes, Messingham lampshades that on p. 202, but it doesn't make it any less true).

It does rather improve towards the end, where it becomes clearer what Messingham is at least trying to do, but by then it's all rather too late. Romana isn't quite as convincing as she might be, either - although the Doctor is very well done.

So, while there are a number of good points, they don't really cohere enough for this to be worth more than three stars.

[Jon Arnold · Rating 3 out of 5]

Doctor Who’s great strength is the way it allows genres to crash together to form entertaining mutant hybrids. Messingham combines Doctor Who’s wonky brand of SF with Lovecraftian horror to provide a pleasingly bizarre tale of some very human monsters and madness. The concept of Valdemar itself is cleverer than you’d initially think, neatly avoiding the obvious explanation and instead providing one based on the mania of individuals and crowds. The framing story is a smart idea too, tying into the main tale in a way that doesn’t become clear until close to the end. Not flawless by any means, the main tale is perhaps a touch too straightforward and the grotesques aren’t quite grotesque enough to make this truly memorable. As an attempt to introduce some variety to standard Doctor Who stories though, worth a read.

[Annette · Rating 2 out of 5]

The handful of officially published Dr. Who fiction I've read has primarily lead me to realize how really Good some of my fanfic-writing friends really are. :}
"Tomb" is no exception. Not only does it blatantly rip off the name of Mercedes Lackey's world for no apparent reason (I checked: it does post-date her series by a dozen years), but the plot is silly (hardly unusual for Who genera), the characters badly drawn, the humor lacking, and the prose unimpressive (Characteristics Not shared by the TV series.) I wish the powers that be of the Who franchise would wander around at Teaspoon and contract a few books to the better authors they find there. It would be nice to see some really decent Who-fic in print.

[Travis · Rating 2 out of 5]

A decent treasure hunt story hurt by the author's attempt to come across as really clever and force a 'timey- whimey' story thread through the book that has a weak payoff.

The Doctor and Rommana are nicely written, and I liked the monster but the two story threads don't really mesh together well.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simon Messignham's best Doctor Who novel, without a doubt. An epic tale of mystical, ice cold darkness, with an astonishingly grand depicition of the Key-to-Time-era Tom Baker incarnation of the Doctor...matched only by the equally powerful depicition of the Mary Tamm incarnation of Romana. The final twist will leave you gasping.

[Sunshine Moore · Rating 2 out of 5]

Painful. Why do I keep reading these awful Doctor Who stories? I keep hoping that there will be an enlightening episode shedding light on a beloved character. This one does not and I had to force myself to slog through it to the end. The TV shows are so light and silly, why do the novels try to be serious?

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Doctor and Romana 1 get drawn to a planet. The tracer wont work properly either. Someone is trying to resurrect an old god, and that is not a good idea. There's lots of elements to this story, a palace spaceship, a love struck teenager with major powers and a scientific explanation. The characters are well done, and I liked the idea of the framing story. A good read.

[Simon Curtis · Rating 3 out of 5]

At first glance this is written in a very strange way, a sort of fourth person "The Doctor glances at the screen" almost script like in a way. Once used to it though, the story comes through very well.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good. Tom Baker is always fantastic, and Romana II is undoubtedly his equal. Smart, funny and as sexy as Tom himself.

Read this, if only for the surprise ending.

Loved it... loved it... loved it!

[Mark Swift · Rating 4 out of 5]

A slow starter but a great story. Lovecraft meets The Doctor. A great twist at the end.