The High Crusade (1960) By Poul Anderson

  

The year was 1345 and the English were preparing for yet another attack on the French as part of the Hundred Years War … and then on to the Holy Land! All of a sudden, a flying ship appeared in the sky landing at their feet. They’d never seen anything fly before other than birds and the arrows from their modern crossbows. The English were terrified, and curious.

 

As their leader, Sir Roger, Baron de Tourneville, realized the ship had made no aggressive motions. He slowly made his way toward it. The door to the craft opened and out came several blue-skinned aliens. A communications problem occurred almost immediately, resulting in an alien shooting a “magical” weapon killing a soldier, and then the English archers responded. They rapidly discovered that these blue-skinned “devils” could be killed, and a melee ensued with the English capturing the ship, and killing all but one of the aliens, an engineer. 

While celebrating their victory, Sir Roger realizes this flying machine could be decisive in their battle against the French. But how to operate? They coerced the alien engineer to train them by threatening him.  Then Sir Roger assigned an educated Abbott of the church to work with the prisoner to learn his language. (The friar will be the narrator of the book). 

Cutting to the chase, the engineer agrees to fly them to France and all of the soldiers and their wives, children and supplies are loaded unto the ship.  Once all are aboard, the engineer betrays them by hitting what amounts to an “automatic pilot” control button which will return the ship to Tharison its home planet in another solar system. When they arrive on the alien planet they are informed they will be slaves.  The English rank and file riot, rapidly discovering this alien race with its advanced weapons has forgotten how to fight in hand-to-hand combat. Sir Roger and his forces capture the new planet – considered a victory until they realize they have no way to return.

The story continues through several twists and turns, with allusions to the Fall of Rome, the feudal system, the Holy Roman Empire, and Christian theology.

The year this novel is written, 1960 is important.  It is 15 years after the first use of atomic bombs, three years after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, and nine years before Americans will land a spacecraft on the relatively nearby Moon. The question of the weaponization of space is demonstrably at hand. And one must ask, using this story as a guide, will long range rockets, and now drones, ever completely replace tanks and ground troops?  Will any of us live long enough to know the answer?

Poul Anderson is a writer whose works often appeared first in serialization in the legendary Astounding Science Fiction Magazine (now a subscription website). The High Crusade is the first of four novels collected into the Library of America’s volume titled American Science Fiction: Four Classic Novels, 1960-1966 published in 2019. 

Recommendation:  Good summer read.