Book Review: The High Crusade

Book Review: 'The High Crusade' by Poul Anderson

3 / 5 Stars

'The High Crusade' first was published in 1960 in hardcover by Doubleday. That same year it was serialized in Astounding / Analog. It has been issued in mass-market paperback format since 1962. My copy of the novel was published by Berkley Books in March, 1978, with the cover artist uncredited.

The novel opens in 1345 in the English countryside. Sir Roger de Tourneville of Ansby has assembled his soldiers for participation in King Edward the Third's campaign in France. As the troops await orders and occupy themselves with drinking, wenching, and squabbling in Ansby's muddy streets, suddenly a spaceship descends from the sky. Blue-skinned, humanoid aliens - known as the Wersgorix -  step out of the airlock and immediately try to intimidate the assembled throng. This proves to be a mistake, as the English archers respond........and the aliens are cut down. 

In due course, assisted by the first-person narrator, Brother Parvus, Sir Roger takes possession of the craft, piles his soldiers, their wives, and livestock on board, and orders the alien pilot, Branithar, to fly all of them to France. This is to be the first step on Sir Roger's crusade to introduce the beneficence of English rule to those otherwise disinclined to accept it.

Although forced to operate the ship under duress, Branithar is not stupid, and he sets the autopilot for the star system ruled by the Wersgorix Federation. Once Sir Roger, Brother Parvus, and the noblemen of Castle Ansby realize what has taken place, it is too late to intervene and the party finds themselves set down on Tharixan, an Earth-like planet where the Wersgor hold the populace in thrall. 

The remainder of the novel relates the adventures of Sir Roger and his compatriots as they confront the Wersgor, who are dumbfounded that a tribe of medieval humans should have the audacity to defy the Wersgor's military capabilities. But as the aliens are to discover, beneath his primitive exterior, Sir Roger has a cunning and calculating mind, one that will serve him well in the conflict with the Wersgor forces on Tharixan. Well enough, to eventually mount a challenge to the Federation itself........

Poul Anderson was one of the more capable science fiction and fantasy authors of the postwar era. While Anderson wrote for a living and certainly was prolific, he was as good as, if not a better, prose writer than many of his contemporaries (such as Isaac Asimov, Murray Leinster, Clifford Simak, and Keith Laumer, among others) and 'The High Crusade' is a competent example of sci-fi on the cusp of the New Wave.  

In a novel that only is 167 pages in length, Anderson keeps his characterization concise, his dialogue believable, and the action flowing. The novel is in many ways a satirical / comedic portrayal of technologically superior aliens stymied by the craftiness of the enterprising Terrans, but it does have moments of pathos that keep it from getting overly glib.

The verdict ? 'The HIgh Crusade' retains its status as one of the better sci-fi novels of the early 1960s and while I wouldn't necessarily recommend searching it out, if you're in a secondhand book shop and see a copy, it's worth picking up.