The High Crusade

The High Crusade, by Poul Anderson, was a Hugo award nominee in 1961. In The High Crusade, the medieval British village of Ansby is visited in 1345 by scouts from an invading alien army. Much to everyone's surprise, Sir Roger de Tourneville and his doughty men-at-arms defeat the scouts and capture the ship. Thinking to use the ship to terrorize and destroy the French and then the infidels in the Holy Land, the English commandeer it, only to find themselves and their entire village whisked away to face the alien army itself.

First of all, this book was a lot of fun, and just flew by in the reading. It was enormously entertaining to read, time and time again, how the Wesgorix underestimated the guile and the strategy of what quickly become the invading English. There is a definite sense at every turn that the aliens got their just desserts, with the tables turned upon them by those the Wesgorix sought to enslave.

The Wesgorix settlement pattern sounds much like an unflattering account of human spread: the Wesgorix seek out planets with the correct conditions and begin settling them; if there are natives, those people are exterminated or enslaved to the Wesgorix. The aliens are insatiable; as soon as a given planet begins to feel crowded, off a scout ship goes to seek another likely frontier. Any other space-faring races in the way are destroyed, or, if it is too troublesome to eradicate them, confined to their current frontiers, with all other new territory taken instead by the Wesgorix. The Wesgorix consider themselves the epitome of civilization and sophistication, and consider all other races beneath them and unworthy of equal, or even honest, negotiations. They rely upon their numbers and their superior firepower to squelch all opposition.

Anderson clearly has a lot of fun setting the English up as the foil to the Wesgorix: the English consider themselves the apex of civilization and believe that the exclusivity of their Christian faith only holds them to treat fairly and honestly with other Christians. Well, to be fair, Brother Parvus clearly thinks good Christian men should be honest with everyone, but Sir Roger de Tourneville thinks that if the Wesgorix will lie and deceive him, they deserve the same in return. And it quickly becomes evident that the Wesgorix have become so dependent upon the threat of their firepower that they no longer remember most ground-fighting tactics, and are continually broadsided when de Tourneville refuses to believe that their defenses are impassable, and then in fact finds the chinks and blows them wide open.

Throw in some traditional plot points for medieval romances, and there you have it. Throughout the book, it seemed to me that the English were very, very lucky to run into alien conquerors who shared so many familiar foibles; it allowed Anderson to praise humanity and make fun of their faults at the same time. As I said before, this was a really fun read, and I enjoyed the "twist" at the end--I won't spoil it, but if you read The High Crusade, you will see it coming!

The last book for 1961 is Theodore Sturgeon's Venus Plus X.