Fool’s Gold by Hank Quense

Fool’s Gold by Hank Quense is a novella that blends space opera, Cthulhu mythos, and Norse mythology with a satiric flavor.

Fafner, an immortal alien criminal sentenced to a postapocalyptic Earth for crimes committed in several galaxies, is bored. Mime is another alien criminal, whose brother, Albrich, has found the lost Rhinegold, which he is working into the Chip, an interstellar communication device, and into the Helm, a device capable of looking into the future. Fafner, intent on stealing the devices, tricks Mime into telling him the location of Albrich’s secret lab.

Meanwhile, as Wotan watches Midgarth change over the centuries and feels the ravages of aging, he laments the loss of the Rhinegold, which has kept him and his ilk young and powerful. He bids Loki to recover it, but he cautions him to use persuasion rather than theft, because the Rhinegold has a curse for those that steal it.

Elsewhere, Brunhilde the Valkyrie, while watching the battlefield for heroes to take to Valhalla, ponders the nature of love and the mortal warriors’ capacity to love and die with a woman’s name on their lips. Events conspire to exile her to Midgarth, and once there, inside a circle of fire on a mountaintop, she awaits a hero to wake her.

Told from the point of view of at least seven characters, this 26,000-word novella contains a cast large enough to populate a novel, which might be a little overwhelming for some readers. Some of them, like Siggy, the son of Siegmund and Sieglund, seemed two-dimensional, and I think this piece would have benefited from some cutting. On the other hand, I found Brunhilde, with her mortal desires, easy to identify with. Fool’s Gold is essentially Brunhilde’s story, although this only becomes evident at the end.

The themes of mortality and love explored here are not new, but there’s enough deviation from the tropes on which the novella is founded upon, along with the satiric elements, to make this piece fresh. I found Fool’s Gold to be an entertaining adventure.

Publisher: eTreasures Publishing (Nov. 2008)
Pages: 95
E-book price: $3.95
CD-Rom price: $6.99