The High Crusade Quotes

“I am told that our chroniclers' practice of inventing speeches for great persons whose lives they write is unscholarly.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“Poul is gone, now, more’s the pity — he was a neighbor of mine out here in California, and a friend for more than forty years — but his books live on, and I’m happy to see his lovely High Crusade coming into a new incarnation now. —Robert Silverberg, April 2010”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“I must have first read The High Crusade in my early teens, and in memory, the book is fun, with the English villagers and nobles conquering the galaxy after they’ve taken over an alien space ship that landed in their village. The Baron, Sir Roger, merely intended to catch a quick ride to the wars in France, then go on to the Crusades in Jerusalem, but one thing led to another.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“The trouble of the Wersgorix was that they had gone too far. They had made combat on the ground obsolete, and were ill trained, ill equipped, when it happened. True, they possessed fire-beams, as well as force shields to stop those same fire-beams. But they had never thought to lay down caltrops.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“CHAPTER I Archbishop William, a most learned and holy prelate, having commanded me to put into English writing those great events to which I was a humble witness, I take up my quill in the name of the Lord and my patron saint: trusting that they will aid my feeble powers of narrative for the sake of future generations who may with profit study the account of Sir Roger de Tourneville’s campaign and learn thereby fervently to reverence the great God by whom all things are brought to pass.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“The interesting thing is that Poul’s novel seems just as fresh and brisk and lively today as it did to those of us, grizzled gray-beards now, who pounced on it when it made its first appearance in Analog.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“he was aboveboard. It was not his fault that God always favors the English.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“Afterward he said ruefully: “I fear we’ve managed ill. Now the way home is indeed lost.” “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “Where you are, there is England.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“Sorcery cannot harm good Christians.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“In celebration of this new edition, and of fifty years of grand adventure, I suggest we all pick up the book, turn to the first page, read until we laugh, then stick in a bookmark and go to the refrigerator for a beer. Preferably a Carlsberg, one of Poul’s favorite brews. Don’t drink a beer for every laugh. That would be excessive. But a swig per chuckle, and you’re on your way to a fine evening spent in the company of a great writer, a man whose highest calling was to thoughtfully entertain.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“Did a spirit of swirling cloaks and clashing steel float over Berkeley for six years, conjured by The High Crusade, with its imaginative juxtaposition of well-grounded history and high-flying imagination? Although not a direct inspiration (that was the “Last Tournament,” an event which took place in Scotland in 1839) surely the novel’s idea of having a sense of fun with history while remaining true to basic facts influenced the shape of the SCA. And my father was an early and enthusiastic member, earning a knighthood for his fighting and additional awards for his poetry, and spent many happy hours in what is called the Current Middle Ages.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade

“Sometime in 1959 my father walked downstairs from his attic office at our house on Grove Street in Berkeley with the completed manuscript for The High Crusade. It’s not called Grove Street anymore and he and the house are both gone now, but the book remains. This rollicking romp of medieval mayhem first appeared in Analog magazine as a serial, as many SF novels did in those days. The issue with the first installment (July, 1960) had a cover by Richard Van Dongen, showing knights in chain mail standing in front of a space ship, the blurring of SF/history boundaries mimicking the blurring of the magazine’s logo as the blue letters saying Astounding receded and the bold red letters saying Analog moved forward.”
― Poul Anderson, The High Crusade