"Nerds are still capable of telling stories about friendship or self-actualization or rebellion against oppression, but fantasy in particular is so deeply occupied with kings and wars and high politics that the inability to come to terms with why those things matter leaves the genre empty."
My favorite telling of how jarring it is to displace a king, even a bad king, is Shakespeare's Richard II. I've only seen the Hollow Crown production, so that's what I'm going with, but they made the scene where Richard is dispossessed of his crown excruciating. And the production in no way believes he's a good king or even a tolerable one! But you get such a clear sense that the king that follows cannot be king in the same way, and that removing a bad king badly breaks something.
The other good example of how different a king might be than "the one who is currently in charge" comes in Macbeth, when Edward the Confessor never appears on stage, but he is curing scrofula nearby off stage when Malcolm is in England, and it's Malcolm's reverence for/awe of Edward that establishes he might be able to restore his nation, not just remove Macbeth.
Alan is discussing this part of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell
"Lascelles laughed. 'Far be it from me, Mr Childermass, to disparage your quaint country sayings. But surely it is one thing to pay lip-service to one’s history and quite another to talk of bringing back a King who numbered Lucifer himself among his allies and overlords? No one wants that, do they? I mean apart from a few Johannites and madmen?'
'I am a North Englishman, Mr Lascelles,' said Childermass. 'Nothing would please me better than that my King should come home. It is what I have wished for all my life.'"
And the idea that the more attenuated our idea of kings, the harder it is to engage with who God tells us He is. (I've heard this point made much more often in the context of people with bad fathers may have such a hard relationship with the concept that they don't know how to know God as father.)
What a delightful review. Thanks for reminding me of how great this book is. I haven’t read it for years but now I need to dig it out of storage and give it to my sons to read. Thanks.
If you liked the high crusade you would love the New World Order - essentially aliens with modern tech invade cromwellian england, with the focus being on what it means to be godless and what virtue is.
I read this book completely by chance. Library of America had a sale on books and I picked up the four volume 1950's and 1960's Sci Fi collections. I have since pushed it on a number of people (And I seldom read science fiction). But it is just good story telling with a highly entertaining cast and story arc. Interesting tidbit about SCA, had no idea.
Excellent book. I read it in high school in the 1970s. The idea that aliens would not be prepared for extremely aggressive locals is the same theme as The War of the Worlds. Except in High Crusade it is humans not germs. The idea that going ashore on a new planet presents unknown unknowns. And the way the Medieval people take over is an example of flexibility on methods while holding true to basic principles. That lesson is always timely. I wonder if I still have my copy ...
and submitted a story set during these earlier horse-optional times. I too get really sick of faux-medieval fantasy, which is the default so often. I agree that it is an alienation issue. Sometimes people read "to make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange," but these days (given the world) people more often seem to be reading for comfort, to confirm what they already think and feel and believe. I'm guilty of it myself. How many isekai animes have I watched on Hulu this week alone?
But anyway . . . always thought THE HIGH CRUSADE would make a great tabletop RPG.
"Nerds are still capable of telling stories about friendship or self-actualization or rebellion against oppression, but fantasy in particular is so deeply occupied with kings and wars and high politics that the inability to come to terms with why those things matter leaves the genre empty."
My favorite telling of how jarring it is to displace a king, even a bad king, is Shakespeare's Richard II. I've only seen the Hollow Crown production, so that's what I'm going with, but they made the scene where Richard is dispossessed of his crown excruciating. And the production in no way believes he's a good king or even a tolerable one! But you get such a clear sense that the king that follows cannot be king in the same way, and that removing a bad king badly breaks something.
The other good example of how different a king might be than "the one who is currently in charge" comes in Macbeth, when Edward the Confessor never appears on stage, but he is curing scrofula nearby off stage when Malcolm is in England, and it's Malcolm's reverence for/awe of Edward that establishes he might be able to restore his nation, not just remove Macbeth.
One more citation on baffled relationships to kingship: https://blog.ayjay.org/the-return-of-the-king-2/
Alan is discussing this part of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell
"Lascelles laughed. 'Far be it from me, Mr Childermass, to disparage your quaint country sayings. But surely it is one thing to pay lip-service to one’s history and quite another to talk of bringing back a King who numbered Lucifer himself among his allies and overlords? No one wants that, do they? I mean apart from a few Johannites and madmen?'
'I am a North Englishman, Mr Lascelles,' said Childermass. 'Nothing would please me better than that my King should come home. It is what I have wished for all my life.'"
And the idea that the more attenuated our idea of kings, the harder it is to engage with who God tells us He is. (I've heard this point made much more often in the context of people with bad fathers may have such a hard relationship with the concept that they don't know how to know God as father.)
What a delightful review. Thanks for reminding me of how great this book is. I haven’t read it for years but now I need to dig it out of storage and give it to my sons to read. Thanks.
If you liked the high crusade you would love the New World Order - essentially aliens with modern tech invade cromwellian england, with the focus being on what it means to be godless and what virtue is.
I read this book completely by chance. Library of America had a sale on books and I picked up the four volume 1950's and 1960's Sci Fi collections. I have since pushed it on a number of people (And I seldom read science fiction). But it is just good story telling with a highly entertaining cast and story arc. Interesting tidbit about SCA, had no idea.
Excellent book. I read it in high school in the 1970s. The idea that aliens would not be prepared for extremely aggressive locals is the same theme as The War of the Worlds. Except in High Crusade it is humans not germs. The idea that going ashore on a new planet presents unknown unknowns. And the way the Medieval people take over is an example of flexibility on methods while holding true to basic principles. That lesson is always timely. I wonder if I still have my copy ...
Ooo, footnote. I just finished this book, which talks a lot about the Yamnaya, and the multiple streams of evidence now coming to bear on them.
https://slate.com/culture/2025/05/english-language-origin-proto-indo-european-laura-spinney.html
and submitted a story set during these earlier horse-optional times. I too get really sick of faux-medieval fantasy, which is the default so often. I agree that it is an alienation issue. Sometimes people read "to make the strange familiar, and the familiar strange," but these days (given the world) people more often seem to be reading for comfort, to confirm what they already think and feel and believe. I'm guilty of it myself. How many isekai animes have I watched on Hulu this week alone?
But anyway . . . always thought THE HIGH CRUSADE would make a great tabletop RPG.