The broken sword
by Poul Anderson · first published 1954
5mentions
2recommended by
5HN commenters
2018–2025first – last mentioned
40% recommend60% neutral
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…conversion van, or some heavy metal album cover. They're rough, but alive in a way eg. Sanderson can only glimpse. Also, Gloriana was great (very different from Elric). In this vein, Poul Anderson's The Broken Sword is probably my favorite; it's direct and raw, like a bare knuckle punch in the face :).
on “Earthsea – A Rival to Tolkien and George RR Martin (2015)” ↗"Indeed, I’ve probably already spent more time on the historical backstory of Broken Sword here than it deserves..." Not at all. What a great review of a beloved sub-genre. Sometimes I think about re-reading Foucault's Pendulum out of sheer joy at the memory. But then I usually get by with…
on “Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars” ↗"Mortals never sell me their souls. They give them away." -Satan, "The Broken Sword" by Poul Anderson
on “The odd reality of life under China's all-seeing credit score system” ↗…strictly mean children's fairy tales prior to Tolkien. There's plenty of semi-popular prior art where they feature, like the Worm Ouroboros or The King of Elfland's Daughter. Poul Anderson also published The Broken Sword the same year as LOTR, which shows a lot of the same influences as written by a very different author. Tolkien's importance is that the specific kinds of creatures he wrote became the default for virtually…
on “Selling 'Ghost in the Shell'” ↗…was the first instance of an author asking the question, "Can fantasy be written which is not a direct copying of _The Lord of the Rings_?" and it is interesting to contrast it with texts such as _The Broken Sword_ by Poul Anderson (first published the same year as _The Fellowship of the Ring_) and _The Charwoman's Shadow_ by Lord Dunsany (published nearly 3 decades earlier).
on “The Books of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin” ↗