Sci-Fi Vikings

Today's theme is inspired by yet another request made to my Tumblr: Someone out there is looking for "an old image from a book cover of a group of 'Space' Vikings leading their horses of a ramp of a space-ship. It was from a science fiction analog or almanac book from the 70's i think."

Vikings, along with Pirates and Romans, are among the early 1900s pulp adventure story-fodder that a lot of elements of science fiction evolved out of, so it's not hugely surprising that a handful of golden-age science fiction tales looped the Vikings back into their stories of alien planets or time travel.

A couple of my favorites are from Analog magazine, although I couldn't find any with horses walking down a spaceship ramp, as cool as that image sounds.

Here's the March 1967 cover by John Schoenherr, featuring what seems to be a standard-issue historical Viking, until you notice the subtle product placement. It's for The Time-Machined Saga, by Harry Harrison, about a film company that goes back in time to film the real-life Leif Erickson to save a little money on production costs.

Frank Kelly Freas has a similar Viking cover for the October 1969 issue, featuring skis. It's illustrating The Yngling, by John Dalmas, which is set in the 29th century during a post-apocalyptic dark age that, among other things, brings back Vikings.

One of my followers suggested this cover by Karel Thole for a 1978 Science Fiction Book Club edition of an anthology that includes Alfred Coppel’s novella “The Rebel of Valkyr.” According to the follower, it "involves Viking-esque people who transport their horses in a starship’s hold."

Horses in a spaceship sounded like a match for the story, so I looked up all the other books and magazines that “The Rebel of Valkyr” showed up in. The only other decent result was this old-school uncredited cover for the Fall 1950 issue of Planet Stories.

The only other lead that turned up for the original request was the suggestion that it might have been medival knights all along, rather than vikings, and the cover may have been for Poul Anderson's The High Crusade. Here's one uncredited 1978 contender.

There are a lot more fascinating sci-fi vikings across cover art history, however, from the time-slipping longboat on Ron Walotsky's 1991 cover to Tim Sullivan's The Martian Viking –

– to this 1976 Frank Kelly Freas artwork, for Piers Anthony's But What of Earth?, featuring what looks like a viking construction worker.

H. Beam Piper got right to the point when he titled his novel Space Viking, and it has a few amazing covers featuring its futurist spacefaring marauders. Here's Ed Valigursky's 1963 cover.

An early-career Michael Whelan did a better job capturing the Viking vibe, for his 1977 cover.

But Melvyn Grant's 1978 UK cover outdoes both of them, with a colorful badass version that might just be my favorite Melvyn Grant artwork ever. Not only is the scene immersed in that swirling yellow fog, but the helmets perfectly nail the viking-spacesuit dicotomy.

Sci-fi vikings also crossed over into board games, with the 1981 "Star Viking: A Game of Interstellar Raiding and Plunder" title.

The Traveller RPG has some "Star Viking" branded materials as well (which seem to be separate from the board game of the same name).

I also love this 1979 illustration, "Ocean Planet," by David A Hardy, featured in his book Galactic Tours. It's a completely alien world, so these ships aren't vikings, but they're certainly reminiscent.

Finally, though, I'd be remiss not to end on the best Viking of them all: The program that landed two probes on Mars in 1976. Here's one of those probes, depicted by John Berkey himself.