Savour that title! Was there ever a Doctor Who book with such an identikit name, one quite so portentous, so foreboding, so redolent of, well, of Doctor Who than that? It reeks of long-dormant evil, of misguided megalomaniacal fools who don't know when to leave well enough alone, ignoring the Doctor's advice and attempting to summon those ancient, long-forgotten powers, spoken of in terms using too many Unnecessary Capital Letters, back to life. Well, it does to me anyway.

Those notions manifest as an expeditionary force to the legendary land of Ashkellia, intent on resurrecting the Dark God of Ancient Times, Valdemar. But the Doctor, taking time out from his quest for the Key To Time, knows that the chances are, the legendary creatures never existed.

For half its length, Tomb of Valdemar is as good as anything published under the Doctor Who name of late. Written entirely in the present tense, the early passages feel like an extended prologue - but given time for the reader to acclimatise, the narrative voice imbues the novel with an intriguing tone of detachment unlike anything since Eye of Heaven. Presumably this is difficult to sustain, indeed there are occasional moments of obviously-rushed clumsiness, but such intermittent creaking is a mild concern. Less frequently but more annoyingly, the narrator interrupts her story to present critiques of the unfolding tale - these smug sections are only intermittently amusing, and create the impression that the author is enjoying himself too much and trying to pre-empt his critics. Humour is more effectively presented in author and narrator's disdain of self-pitying youth and self-indulgent decadence - and by employing occasional threats to subvert the reader's expectations of Valdemar, the author also demonstrates understanding that a novel such as this can touch on science fiction concepts, so long as it doesn't lose sight of the fact that Doctor Who isn't really about science fiction.

Ultimately, though the story changes direction at the midpoint - in effect reaching a climax halfway through, the latter half being an over-extended coda - the style and momentum of the first half just about sustain it.