The late great Poul Anderson has received unexpected and positive recognition from the 2025 Worldcon, set for Seattle.
Partly in honor of the previous Seattle Worldcon in 1961, the Worldcon blog has paid tribute to Anderson’s novel The High Crusade, a 1961 Hugo finalist.
Titled “Fantastic Fiction: Knights versus Aliens: The High Crusade by Poul Anderson,” the blog article has some very nice and interesting things to say about the novel and Anderson.
“Science fiction often begins with a question of “what if”? And in 1960, Poul Anderson asked just such a question: What if aliens attempting to invade the Earth encountered a troop of medieval knights? And what if the knights won the ensuing struggle? This is the premise of The High Crusade, one of the most offbeat and entertaining science fiction novels of the early 1960s,” writes Cora Buhlert on the Worldcon blog.
“Nowadays, Poul Anderson is remembered as much for his pioneering fantasy novels The Broken Sword and Three Hearts and Three Lions as for his science fiction, but in 1960 he was considered mainly a science fiction writer and his fantasy works were viewed as odd passion projects. The High Crusade allowed Anderson to combine his interest in planet-spanning space opera and medieval adventure into a remarkably coherent whole,” Buhlert writes.
Anderson’s novel also gets high marks for its humor.
“Even more than 60 years after it was first published, The High Crusade remains an incredibly entertaining romp. Poul Anderson isn’t normally considered a funny writer, but The High Crusade is very funny in places, whether it’s the story’s narrator, the exasperated monk Brother Parvus trying to teach Latin to the alien Branithar and trying to figure out if he has a soul (a concept Branithar does not understand), or the English soldiers burning down “a house, a pig, and serf” while experimenting with the aliens’ rayguns.”
“Even the epilogue offers a chuckle,” Buhlert observes, “where the feudal space empire established by Sir Roger finally makes contact with an Earth spaceship a millennium later and the local baron asks the Earth captain if they finally managed to liberate the Holy Land, whereupon the Israeli captain replies “yes.”
A PROMETHEUS-WINNING FAVORITE
It’s nice to see such recognition for Anderson, who has received more Prometheus Awards – 6 – than any other author (with the exception of Robert Heinlein, who has posthumously won nine) and is one of only four authors recognized with a Special Prometheus Award for Lifetime Achievement.
Besides winning the Prometheus Award for Best Novel in 1995 for The Stars Are Also Fire, Anderson has had four of his works inducted into the Prometheus Hall of Fame: Trader to the Stars (in 1985), The Star Fox (in 1995), “No Truce with Kings” (in 2010) and “Sam Hall” (in 2020.)
Anderson’s novel Orion Shall Rise, selected as a Hall of Fame finalist last year, has been nominated again for the Hall of Fame. The finalists are expected to be announced later in December.
The Seattle Worldcon, with Prometheus Best Novel finalist Martha Wells as one of its guests of honor, will take place Aug. 13-17, 2025 in Downtown Seattle.
“Have you read The High Crusade? Bring your thoughts and memories to Seattle. Or maybe impress us with your High Crusade-inspired cosplay. Let’s continue the discussion in Seattle,” Buhlert writes.
For more information, visit the Seattle Worldcon website.
IF YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE ABOUT THE PROMETHEUS AWARDS:
* Prometheus winners: For the full list of Prometheus winners, finalists and nominees – including the annual Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame) categories and occasional Special Awards – visit the enhanced Prometheus Awards page on the LFS website, which now includes convenient links to all published essay-reviews in our Appreciation series explaining why each of more than 100 past winners since 1979 fits the awards’ distinctive dual focus on both quality and liberty.
* Read “The Libertarian History of Science Fiction,” an essay in the international magazine Quillette that favorably highlights the Prometheus Awards, the Libertarian Futurist Society and the significant element of libertarian sf/fantasy in the evolution of the modern genre.
* Watch videos of past Prometheus Awards ceremonies (including the recent 2023 ceremony with inspiring and amusing speeches by Prometheus-winning authors Dave Freer and Sarah Hoyt), Libertarian Futurist Society panel discussions with noted sf authors and leading libertarian writers, and other LFS programs on the Prometheus Blog’s Video page.
* Check out the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Facebook page for comments, updates and links to Prometheus Blog posts.
* Join us! To help sustain the Prometheus Awards and support a cultural and literary strategy to appreciate and honor freedom-loving fiction, join the Libertarian Futurist Society, a non-profit all-volunteer association of freedom-loving sf/fantasy fans.
Libertarian futurists believe that culture matters. We understand that the arts and literature can be vital in envisioning a freer and better future – and in some ways can be even more powerful than politics in the long run, by imagining better visions of the future incorporating peace, prosperity, progress, tolerance, justice, positive social change, and mutual respect for each other’s rights, individuality, and human dignity.
