Three Hearts of Lions

While running from the Nazis in occupied Norway, Holger Carlson is struck unconscious, and awakens in an alternate Earth. In this Earth, it is still the medieval period, and the forces of Law and Chaos are locked in a life and death struggle. Lawful humans seem to believe that Holger is a great knight-errant, who will carry the battle to the Chaotic elves. This wonderful fantasy book was written one year before Tolkien's Lord of the Rings (and 16 years after The Hobbit), and was a major influence on the original Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game. It is a great adventure, and quite a view into the early history of modern fantasy literature. This is a great book, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Although Poul Anderson (who died in early 2001 after a long, distinguished career) wrote the majority of his books in the science fiction genre, he also turned out excellent work in fantasy as well. His best in this vein is the astonishing, but hard to find today, THE BROKEN SWORD. But he personally preferred this more light-hearted romp, THREE HEARTS AND THREE LIONS, first published in 1953. It a fun and incredibly clever look into the nature of fantasy itself, as a rationalist from the 20th century is plunged into a fantasy world, where he finds his scientific knowledge and straight-forward approach actually help him, not hinder him.Chapter after chapter is filled with clever devices, funny characters, and exciting action. (The idea for D & D trolls was borrowed from this book, by the way.) The ending is a surprise as well -- not quite what you would expect considering the tone of the rest of the book, and yet completely appropriate and raises the book beyond mere light entertainment.I recommend this book to any fantasy lover (it had a huge effect on many other authors, especially Michael Moorcock and his Elric novels), but I especially think that young adults who are just discovering fantasy literature will absolutely fall in love with this book: charm, humor, action, a great hero, a speedy read, and something to think about at the end. What more could you ask for?

"Three Hearts and Three Lions" by Poul Anderson is a wonderful tale of a 20th century man who must fight chaos and evil in land full of magic and oddities in order to keep his dream alive. I personaly found my self lost in this book of high adventure as unimaginable events unfolded before my eyes. A great book for the first time "fantasy" reader, and for the experienced as well.

The thing I've always liked about Anderson's forays into fantasy, is that he manages to maintain that hard edge of reality throughout the work. Anderson's characters don't stumble around fairy land tripping over magic junk that they're going to happen to need in the next chapter like in some of the feebler fantasy on the market. Anderson gives his hero all the discomforts associated with running around in armor, the confusion of a modern character stuck in a parallel universe that he is having trouble making sense of and yet, manages to make a detailed, sociologically believable parallel universe without resorting to some of the cheaper tricks you too often see in sword and sorcery stuff. When something happens, it makes sense, even if it's fantastical at the same time. Anderson knows his sociology, history and his physics quite well. He's one of the brightest practitioners of the science fiction/fantasy art form and way under-appreciated. This is one of my favorites! Tom Kin