Combining Norse myth and legend, English and World myth, with historical fact and setting, this tells a legendary tale economically and with a fable-like tone.Īdventurous and entertaining as well, the only reason I can think that it has been less successful than its English cousins is that where Lewis and Tolkien created fantasies rich in detail but were clearly (especially Lewis) a Christian allegory, Anderson’s book is more purely mythic and leans more heavily on the animistic perspective and stands outside the Christian house looking in.Īnderson tells of an epic battle between elves and trolls, with the Aesir and Frost giants looking on, and of a tragic hero caught on the chessboard in between. Written four years after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and published the same year as Tolkien’s The Fellowship of the Ring, Poul Anderson’s The Broken Sword is a fantasy masterpiece. * Future history of the Polesotechnic League Several of his novels were published posthumously. Poul Anderson died of cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens' Advisory Council on National Space Policy. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. He was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's Flashing Swords! anthologies. Anderson was the sixth President of Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972. They had one daughter, Astrid, who is married to science fiction author Greg Bear. He received numerous awards for his writing, including seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.Īnderson received a degree in physics from the University of Minnesota in 1948.

Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories. Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century.

Poul anderson's the broken sword