This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Poul Anderson’s The High Crusade in the pages of Astounding magazine (later to be known as Analog that very year). In celebration, Baen Books is releasing an anniversary paperback edition on Tuesday, September 7th, with appreciations from some of science fiction’s greatest names.
Tor.com will be posting these appreciations throughout Monday and Tuesday of this week, courtesy of Baen Books. These appreciations originally appeared at WebScription, where you can also sample the first few chapters of The High Crusade.
I bought the Astounding (it was in the process of changing its name to Analog, so both names are on the cover) with the first installment of The High Crusade on the newsstand. I didn’t have a subscription to the magazine; I’d read a couple issues, but nothing in them had really blown me away.
I was a working-class fourteen-year-old. I loved SF, but cost was a real factor in my decisions.
The cover of a knight standing in front of a forest of spaceships got my initial fifty cents. I read the installment and immediately subscribed to the magazine. I didn’t care whether it was called Astounding or Analog: if it occasionally ran stories like The High Crusade, it was worth my money.
Read More »
