poul anderson three hearts and three lions

Published in 1961 and based on a novella from 1953, Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions is an entertaining picaresque novel in which Holger Carlsen, a Danish football-playing engineer gets knocked out during a skirmish with German soldiers during WWII and regains consciousness in an alternate world based on medieval French legends, in which the forces of Chaos (represented by Faerie and its evil supernatural and human allies) are gearing up for a big offensive in their eternal war against the forces of Law (represented by the Empire and its Christian paladin heroes and other good allies). Really, don't miss this one!Ī Christian Alternate World Amnesiac Hero Romp Honestly, I could listen to this storyteller all day! This is a classic from the Golden Age of Fantasy, and the narrator is golden. The other accents and voices are distinctive and each evokes a particular sense of that character. In this book, the hero's slight Danish inflection is done perfectly. I've listened to several of his audiobooks, and he just flabbergasts me with the range of his characterizations. See what I mean? Clever.) That said, I have to say that Bronson Pinchot is completely phenomenal. (See, for example, his analysis of the source of the curse on the Giant's gold. His empirical understanding of things that look magical are clever. I like the scientific-nerd-in-a-magical-environment. I like that there are many different encounters with many different challenges instead of one huge mega-battle.

I like the slowly revealing details of the quest as the hero recovers memories. It's a great story, a stand-out among many of the same genre from the same time. This was a favorite book of mine many (MANY) years ago, and I was interested in remembering why I liked it so much.

Poul anderson three hearts and three lions