Valerian, Spatiotemporal Agent: Ambassador of the Shadows. Written by Pierre Christin. Illustrated by Jean-Claude Mezieres. Translation by L. Mitchell. Greenwich, Connecticut: Dargaud Publishing International, Ltd. 1984. (Original French edition by Dargaud Editeur, Paris 1975.) Softcover, color, 48 pages. ISBN# 2-205-06949-7.

(I usually confine my reviews to items published in the current millennium, but this one is clearly labelled a “Classic Review”!)

AUDIENCE: Adults, teens, older kids.

SYNOPSIS: Valerian and Laureline’s current mission is to escort Earth’s aloof ambassador to Central Point and act as his bodyguards during his stay there. Central Point is a sprawling space station lying in a frequently traveled space lane. It was built over thousands of years as different spacefaring races each added their own sectors – much of its past is shrouded in mystery. It’s a tower of Babel in which the different species communicate by video screen from their own sectors. Now it is Earth’s turn to preside over the governing council, and just as the ambassador’s ship is about to reach its destination, he drops a bombshell on Valerian and Laureline: rather than overseeing business as usual, the ambassador plans to use his leadership of the council to take Central Point completely into Earth’s grip. With the technological potential of the Galaxity, some allies among the races of Central Point itself, and “a few winning cards elsewhere” (which turns out to be a fleet of warships from Earth), the ambassador is confident that his coup will succeed.

However, upon landing at Central Point, the ambassador is kidnapped (along with Valerian) before he can even complete the first sentence of his arrival speech. Laureline must track down the ambassador’s captors through both the maze of alien segments comprising the gigantic space station, and the equally convoluted alliances and enmities of the alien species. She is accompanied by a meek protocol official (the only one besides herself left conscious by the kidnappers) and an extraordinary beast called a grumpy converter from Bluxte. The converter looks like a tiny hedgehog with a sour expression. When fed any small item like a coin or a jewel, it can excrete multiple copies of the item. This comes in quite handy for all the bribes Laureline quickly learns are the custom on Central Point.

EVALUATION: The art in this book is rich and splendid. Mezieres has a wide gamut of expression within a single unified style which effortlessly shows us spacescapes, intricate futuristic machinery, and alien life forms. He even gets to draw in the style of Maxfield Parrish when the illusionist race, the Suffuss (who actually look like gelatinous blobs) appear to Laureline as handsome hunks in an idyllic mock-classical backdrop. Some of Mezieres’ rendering is reminiscent of Moebius’s fine line work, but most is a more smooth-flowing brush technique. The characters are detailed yet cleanly rendered, and the minor characters are cartoony or stereotyped enough to impress immediately upon the reader as standard types – like the timid protocol officer or the dictatorial ambassador. The depictions of the minor characters are remarkably vivid given how little we actually find out about some of these characters. In fact, it wasn’t until I re-read the book for review that I realized the ambassador’s name was never mentioned: he was just “the ambassador” all the way through.

The characterization of the two recurring characters, Valerian and Laureline, is given more depth through the plot and dialog. When the ambassador announces his plan to take over Central Point, Laureline is outraged and shows it. Valerian, while not happy about the idea, tries to be a peacemaker between her and the ambassador. It’s intriguing to try to figure Valerian out; from this book alone it’s impossible to say whether he holds any particular convictions about the role of the Galaxity. Is he just a nice guy trying to get along with everyone, trying to see both sides of the issue? Or is he torn between his own convictions and his allegiance to his superiors? (Laureline’s attitudes also clash with Valerian’s more Galaxity-party-line stance in Welcome to Alflolol, in which she actually refuses to speak to him for part of the book.)

The plot is well thought out and intricate but not hard to follow. I liked seeing the different items the grumpy converter was called upon to synthesize for the various inhabitants of Central Point, and the converter’s reaction to each was a cute touch (getting aggressive after creating “blood and guts tabs from Khoul” for the Kamuniks, and
a little frisky after creating aphrodisiac pills for the Suffuss). The “Great Hall of Screens” in which the ambassador finally meets the Governing Council reminds me a little of the Senate of the Old Republic in Star Wars Episode I – stacks upon stacks of representatives of alien species. Of course, this book came long before the movie – before even the first Star Wars movie! – and I think this book stands the test of time.