156 pages
Published 1947
Read from December 8 to December 18
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
In the remote future of 1985, there are still lost worlds. Brian Raft works in an experimental clinic deep in the Amazonian jungles, until a strange and seemingly inhuman man arrives, steals a mysterious medallion from a dying pilot, and escapes upriver with one of Raft’s protégés. Raft pursues the pair into the mountains, and stumbles into a realm of cat-people and titanic trees.
Valley is interesting as a bridge between the early twentieth century Lost World motif and the later twentieth century trope, “a weird thing came from space and altered a spot on Earth around it.” An asteroid impact created the titular Valley, packing in enough “life energy” to accelerate metabolic processes in all lifeforms. In the thirty or so years since some random dude triggered the metabolic process, millions or billions of subjective years have passed for creatures in the Valley.
The summary is the most interesting thing about this book. As can be expected from a story of this date, there’s an awful lot of chatter about race and racial types and “degeneration.” That brings it down a lot. Also spoiling it for me: it just doesn’t pay off on its concept. There are a couple cool scenes, including an encounter with a garden of sensuous delights that nearly pleasures Raft into defeat, something I’d love to recycle / improve upon in a Sword & Sorcery story. But that’s about it.
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