By Mézières & Christin
Publisher: Cinebook
ISBN: 9781849181785
I’d have been quite at home reading Valerian and Laureline within the pages of something like 2000AD twenty-five years ago, but sadly that was never to be. It seems a shame that it’s only now getting a fair showing in the English-language market, especially when you spy within its pages elements that have gone on to inspire and influence a generation of science fiction stories.
In Ambassador Of The Shadows Valerian and Laureline are tasked with escorting Earth’s ambassador to a vast space station known as Point Central, situated at a busy point within the galaxy at which many species cross paths. It has grown in a haphazard manner over a vast period of time, with many other worlds joining the cluster and swelling its size. It is now Earth’s turn to preside over the council that governs Point Central, but it isn’t until the ship is on it’s final approach for docking that the ambassador explains to Valerian and Laureline of his radical and unorthodox plan.
No sooner have they landed than they are attacked and the ambassador kidnapped, with Valerian taken to when he attempts a rescue. This leaves Laureline with just her wits and a strange, tiny creature capable of reproducing matter to track down Valerian and the Ambassador somewhere in the vast complex. Unfortunately for her, most of the represented planets reside in areas shut off from the outside, with almost all the communication between species being via video screens, so Laureline must find a way to navigate the entire sprawling space station, and learn fast how to deal with the odd customs and difficult demands of the aliens she meets.
This is a story driven by Laureline to the point that it’s almost a solo adventure, and that’s no bad thing. All of the species are analogous of humans to some extent but I suppose that’s necessary to propel the story forward – my personal favourite were the Groobos, vast marine creatures of dinosaur proportions.
Of the six volumes so far all the stories have been very different in their setting and style which allows for a rich and varied read which I suspect will keep the tales fresh for sometime to come.
And if you liked that: Volume 7 is available soon.
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