The High Crusade

The High Crusade (1960) is a standalone SF novel. The Wersgorix were supreme in their spatial region. The other spacefaring races -- the Jairs, the Ashenkoghi and the Pr?*tans -- were weaker and allowed to retain their planets only upon Wersgorixan sufferance. Yes, the Wersgorix were supreme ... until a scoutship landed in England. In this novel, Baron Sir Roger de Tourneville is preparing for the war against the French in the year of grace 1345. He has gathered a large force of cavalry, men of arms and bowmen, who are camped outside his castle. Then a large shiny object falls slowly out of the sky. The ship is two thousand feet long. Lowering itself onto the boggy soil, it sinks deep into the mud. A hatch opens and a ramp lowers to the ground. A short but brawny creature, with blue skin and a short tail, steps out of the ship and three more follow him. The first creature lifts an object that projects fire, instantly killing one of the soldiers. This blue creature is immediately downed by a clothyard arrow and soon after that the other three bristle with arrows. Sir Roger leads a charge into the huge vessel and the blueskins are slaughtered throughout the ship, at the cost of a dozen human soldiers. The blueskins seem to be little practiced in hand-to-hand combat and many are not even armed. The only survivor is carried out by Red John Hameward, Captain of the archers, who has recognized the need for an informant. Brother Parvus teaches the captive, Branithar, the Latin language and is able to learn something of the ship and its mission. The Wergorix were following their usual practice to searching out suitable planets and subjugating the inhabitants. Unfortunately for them, the humans are not strangers to warfare and not too fearful of the unknown. Sir Roger soon conceives of using the ship as transport to France, thus taking the whole of Ansby village with him. The men, women and children -- including Sir Roger's own family -- load their herds and tools into the ship and then board themselves. Branithar sets the controls and presses a lever to start the journey. Unfortunately, Branithar has set the controls to take them back to Tharixan, the nearest Wersgorixan world. Once activated, the automaton cannot be stopped nor reset. Ansby village is going to the stars instead of France. In this story, the primitively armed English defeat Wersgorixan forces time and again, using raw courage and tactics unfamiliar to the aliens. Sir Roger gains stocks of alien weapons and uses them on their former owners. He even convinces the other spacefaring races in the region to become his allies; it seems that these aliens have little experience in the fine art of diplomacy and intrigue. With the occasional threat of One-eye Hubert -- the Tourneville executioner and torturer -- Brother Parvus gets Branithar to teach the English how to use the alien devices and weapons. While the underlying principles are incomprehensible, the devices

The year is 1345, and Sir Roger de Tourneville is gathering his army in preparation for joining King Edward III's war against France. Suddenly, everything changes when a spaceship arrives to begin the conquest of the Earth. Well, Sir Roger is not one to shy away from any fight, so he immediately attacks! To the great surprise of the aliens (Wersggorix), Sir Roger not only captures their ship, but he launches a crusade against their empire! Does poor Sir Roger and his medieval army stand a chance? In an infinite universe, anything is possible. I first read this book when I was a kid, and I absolutely loved it. Heck, to my surprise, I still find this to be a lively, funny, and wonderfully entertaining read! Poul Anderson was one of the giants of the science-fiction genre, and his book shows off his talents beautifully. If you want to read a good, entertaining piece of science-fiction, than I cannot do better than to recommend The High Crusade to you!

This book is good fun. It is not hard science fiction by any stretch of the imagination, but if you can suspend your disbelief for just a bit you will have a heck of a time reading this. Mr. Anderson's style really hits its stride with this work. In a way it feels like a reversed 'Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court' with the protagonist(s) travelling forward in time rather than backwards. The mixture of drama and satire gives these two works some common ground as well. I am not arguing that this work is as strong as Mark Twain's piece but it at least aspires to be so, and with all the trash out there it is nice to see an occasional gem of imagination.

High Crusade is one of my favorite SF ever, since it is pure mind game. Despite its wicked humor, it asks a serious underlying question: Can high-tech warfare be defeated by clever tricks and basic weaponery? Poul Anderson used funny - but interesting - tactics to make his point: - sophisticated radars and satellites detecting vehicles and missiles launches can be fooled by wooden trebuchets lobbing tactical nukes; - highly trained firearms soldiers can be cut into ribbons by swordsmen at close quarters.It does not require a vast imagination to transpose the funny context of "High Crusade" in our serious world.When I looked at TV at the wounded US soldiers evacuated from Somalia, defeated by rag-tag local militiamen, I had a thought for this book.In Bosnia, the high-tech occidental armies were almost defenseless against snipers using relatively crude weapons. In Kosovo, the Serbian Army managed to fool the Allied coalition using wooden tanks and artillery, preserving most of their land forces intact despite weeks of bombing.Civilizations expect foes to behave - and fight - like themselves. This could prove dangerous. Thanks for the demonstration, Poul.

The High Crusade is pure fun from start to finish. Being written by Poul Anderson (I'm a big fan)means he has studied his history so the background details are correct. I hope that doesn't sound dull; it's just the opposite. Nothing is duller or more jarring to a reader than to start thinking, "This doesn't sound right". The High Crusade is perfect! The story just sweeps you along with its adventure and underlying humor. The humor comes out of the basic situation. A highly advanced but unpleasant group of aliens land in Medieval England. Big mistake. The medieval knights simply clobber the aliens and steal their spaceship. From then on it's medieval knights conquer the universe! Of course there's a personal plot, a marriage that's in trouble and conquering the universe solves that! There's also a wonderful framing device as modern humans go into space and run into their medieval ancestors! Too bad Anderson never wrote a sequel! It's my only criticism. I'd love to see more of this.