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Berg, Knut. Knut Berg was created by the pseudonymous “Vigleik Vikli” and the Norwegian author Jostein Ragnvald Øvrelid and appeared in “Ingeniør Knut Berg På Eventyr” (Nynorsk Vekeblad, 1941) and Ingeniør Knut Berg På Eventyr (1943-1960).

Knut Berg is a two-fisted engineer adventurer modeled on Brick Bradford. Berg is finishing up the construction of a railway in India when he meets the lovely Aima, the princess of Kalimanka, a Lost Race city. Kalimanka is a female-ruled techno-utopia in a remote section of the Tibetan plateau. Unfortunately, the Kalimankans are under attack by their neighbors, the Rutu, and Aima asks Berg to help them. This propels him on a world-spanning set of adventures, in Mongolia, Australia, the Pacific Islands, and Africa, where Berg and Aima find a Lost Race of Egyptians who Berg equips with modern technology. Other adventures follow, including Flash Gordon-style trips to other planets. Berg fights a variety of bad men, including the Mad Scientist Dr. Pang and the Tibetan Yellow Peril Mad Scientist Si Kahn, who uses his “electric eye” to spy on every place on Earth.

* I'm including Knut Berg in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of its historical importance and because of the ideasplosions in Ingeniør Knut Berg På Eventyr. Norway wasn't a hotbed of adventure science fiction in 1941. The best that it could claim were Øvre Richter-Frich's Jonas Fjeld novels, which certainly were influential, but whose influence had faded by 1941. Then along came Jostein Ragnvald Øvrelid and whoever "Vigleik Vikli" was with "Ingeniør Knut Berg På Eventyr" and later Ingeniør Knut Berg På Eventyr, and the Norwegian pulp action/adventure sf tradition was born. Brick Bradford is a helluva model to base a character and a pulp on, and Ingeniør Knut Berg's authors lived up to the high standards of their model. Ideasplosions, fast adventure, clever deployment of pulp sf tropes and plot devices, and a general light-hearted feel of the stories made (and make) Ingeniør Knut Berg a must-read. 

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