Forgotten Books: A Yank at Valhalla - Edmond Hamilton

I’ve been a fan of Edmond Hamilton’s science fiction novels and stories for more than fifty years now, starting with the Starwolf series he wrote for Ace in the mid-Sixties, the paperback reprints of his Captain Future pulp novels, and the stories of his that were included in Isaac Asimov’s great anthology BEFORE THE GOLDEN AGE. It’s entirely possible that I read some of the Superman stories Hamilton wrote for the comic books, too, but I’ve never really looked into that part of his career.

Recently I read a 1973 Ace Double edition of one of Hamilton’s science fiction novels that appeared originally in the January 1941 issue of the pulp STARTLING STORIES. That’s my copy of the paperback in the scan. Just the title is enough to make my blood start to pump a little faster: A YANK AT VALHALLA. That certainly sounds like an epic.

And it kind of is. The narrator is Keith Masters, a two-fisted scientist/pilot who is part of a scientific expedition to the Arctic. The ship which carries Masters and his fellow scientists to these polar climes has dropped anchor, and the group trawls the sea floor to see if they can come up with anything interesting. What would you call an ancient golden cylinder covered with Old Norse runes? What could possibly go wrong with finding something like that and hanging on to it?

Well, if you’re Keith Masters, your rocket plane (the only real indication that this yarn is set in the future) could be blown off course by a violent, mysterious storm while you’re exploring. And you could find a hidden land beyond a mysterious barrier where there’s an island called Asgard off the coast of a continent known as Midgard. And there’s a rainbow bridge called Bifrost spanning the gap between the two, a big guy named Thor who carries a hammer, a wise ruler called Odin, a beautiful shield maiden, two feuding races, the Aesir and the Jotuns, and an evil scientist named Loki who has been imprisoned for centuries along with his giant wolf Fenris and the equally giant Midgard Serpent. Any guesses what rune-covered artifact will free Loki and unleash Ragnarok on the world?

Snark aside, that summary isn’t as much of a spoiler as you might think, because everything in it is established pretty quickly. In fact, that’s really the only weakness in A YANK AT VALHALLA. Keith Masters adapts to the bizarre situation in which he finds himself a little too easily for it to be believable. “So . . . I’m in Asgard having adventures with the Norse gods. Sure, why not?”

But this novel was written for the pulps, after all, where the motto was action, action, and more action, and A YANK AT VALHALLA delivers on that in fine fashion. This is a Front Porch Book for sure, the kind of thing I would have raced through on a lazy summer day, sitting in a lawn chair on my parents’ front porch with a glass of iced tea beside me.

In addition to that, though, Hamilton actually comes up with the plausible (or at least, plausible-sounding) explanation for the existence of Asgard and the Norse gods. I’ve always liked Hamilton’s scientific speculation. Some of it may be far-fetched, but you can tell he put some thought into it, and he was one of the best at combining such speculation with swashbuckling action.

So, does the twilight of the gods fall on Asgard because of the mortal Keith Masters? You’ll have to read the book to find out. I don’t imagine it’s difficult to find in the paperback edition, and there’s actually an e-book version available, so it’s not completely forgotten. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and if you enjoy action-packed, big-idea science fiction, I think there’s a good chance you might, too.