Three Hearts and Three Lions (Poul Anderson)

Three Hearts and Three Lions
The Holger Danske series, Book 1
Poul Anderson
Open Road Media
Fiction, Fantasy
*** (Okay)

DESCRIPTION: Danish by birth, Holger was a decent but generally unremarkable sort of man, an engineer of middling competency when the author knew him in America. When Nazi Germany threatened his homeland, he felt called to return and help the underground movement against the invaders... and it was there, under fire, that a most extraordinary thing happened to him.
One moment, Holger was on a dark beach trading gunfire with Nazi soldiers. The next he wakes naked in a wild woodland unlike any he has seen in Denmark before. Nearby is a giant of a black warhorse and a full kit of armor - all sized for him - along with a shield bearing the device of three hearts and three lions. As disorienting as all of this is, it can hardly prepare him for what he finds when he stumbles across a lone cottage in the forest... and the old woman within, speaking a strange tongue that he somehow understands and can speak himself, performs what is undeniably a magical summoning right before his eyes.
Somehow, inexplicably, he has been transported to another Earth, one very much like elder-day Europe but where magic, demons, faeries, trolls, and other beasts and beings from old tales and folklore are very much real. In the neverending wars between the forces of good Law and the forces of evil Chaos, Chaos seems to be gaining the upper hand... a victory that would see the end of sunlight and happiness and humans who do not serve the darkness. In his quest to find out where he is and how to get home, Holger learns that he may be the one who can save this world or destroy it.

REVIEW: Poul Anderson is one of the big names in the genre, his works still considered classics. He also wrote for a different audience and era, unfortunately, and the age shows here.
The story has strong roots in old European folklore, particularly the tales of Charlemagne and other early Christian heroes, as Holger finds himself in a world, and a role, straight out of a bardic epic. As an engineer from mundane Earth, he often tries to rationalize the rules of this new world and its magic, which comes across as trying to use logic and science to "prove" that there is indeed a (Christian) God and an implied Devil, whose endless wars are played out through proxies on the mortal planes. In his journeys, he faces deception and temptation and traps. He falls in with a swan maiden, the obligatory teenaged innocent girl who exists in these stories to be a shiny bauble, a prize for the righteous warrior to claim (for all that Holger valiantly resists her because she's too fragile and innocent and young - he repeatedly describes her with childish terms and emphasizes her youthful appearance, her being half his age, even as he barely suppresses his lust, which is its own level of cringe - and he's too righteous a hero to dally with a local when he may be leaving for his home world at any time... then he gets stupidly jealous over others paying attention to her), while any woman with power and agency is automatically an agent of evil (in this case, the notorious Morgan le Fay of the Arthurian cycle... who still can't bring herself to do personal lasting harm to him, because he's just that great of a guy). He also travels with a local forest dwarf, whose accent was so thick in the audiobook narration I could barely understand half of what he said. Things happen from pretty early on (though Anderson takes a little too long actually getting to the portal world), and the story does indeed have the feel of an old Christian fantasy, but it all starts to feel a bit contrived and hollow, orchestrated by higher forces. Holger's frequent dropping of mundane Earth terms and tricks into the world of slack-jawed yokels is also by now a tiresome trope, though it was likely fresher when the book was originally released in 1961. The ending feels particularly contrived, especially to a nonbeliever reader.
On the plus side, Three Hearts and Three Lions succeeds at evoking the spirit of the classics, and there's a decently spirited old-school adventure in there. On the minus side, I just found that adventure too dated and too saddled with heavy-handed religious messaging (and cringeworthy sexism) for me to enjoy.

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