The High Crusade, by Poul Anderson

The last two books I read sucked, so THE HIGH CRUSADE by the late Poul Anderson was a pleasant contrast.

The book begins in an English village in 1345. The local lord, Sir Roger, is gathering his men to join King Edward III for the Hundred Years’ War in France.

And as his men prepare to leave, a spaceship lands outside the village. An alien emerges and vaporizes one of the villagers, quite certain that the primitives will scatter in terror of his superior technology.

Needless to say, things do not go according to plan.

After a short battle, Sir Roger and his men find themselves in control of the alien spaceship. Sir Roger gleefully plans to take the ship to France, defeat the perfidious French in the name of the King, and then take the alien ship on to Palestine to liberate the Holy Land from the Saracens once and for all.

Things quite promptly get out of hand.

I really liked THE HIGH CRUSADE, in part because of its constant action and keen characterizations, and in part because it gleefully overturned one of my least favorite cliches in fiction. Namely, the idea that the medievals were ignorant and stupid, hobbled by superstitions, unlike we oh-so-clever 21st century Americans. If you were to drop a 14th century peasant into 21st century Chicago, he would adapt much more quickly than a 21st century graduate student dropped into 14th century England. Sir Roger and his men prove this to dazzling effect.

I quite recommend THE HIGH CRUSADE, and definitely will be reading more Poul Anderson as I find the time.

-JM