It is easy to remember books featuring Odin and the Aesir in diverse forms. However, I was reminded of Anderson's understated use of another aspect of Norse myth.
Operation Chaos, like its inspiration, Heinlein's
Magic Inc, had climaxed with an expedition to Hell, where Valeria Matuchek's parents rescued their kidnapped baby daughter. In a far less dramatic chapter of
Operation Luna, Valeria's mother visits Yggdrasil to consult the oracular severed head, Mimir, who regularly advises the Aesir. Ginny and her guide, a dwarf, see the path trodden by Odin when he descends Yggdrasil to visit Mimir but they neither meet nor want to meet the Hanged God.
I remembered this as I was rereading Mike Carey's
Lucifer which also mixes mythologies - Michael and Lucifer fight above Yggdrasil, Fenris Wolf attacks the angelic city etc. Also, the Nine Worlds featured in a recent Thor film. The myths live as fiction.
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