Garth Nix, in his informative Introduction, tells the origin story of Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz. Nix, like many of us, is a fan of Fritz Leiber’s Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series of stories of adventurers. Some of that Leiber magic shows up in these stories.
The second story, “Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarskoe
–my favorite–features a female pirate and some brutal warfare. Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz travel as mercenaries in a feudal world. But their real secret mission is to protect the Earth from malicious godlets who threaten it. Mister Fitz is a puppet with sorcerous powers.
I reviewed the earlier Subterranean Press collection of Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz stories (you can read my review here. The new edition adds seven more stories to the three in the previous collection. Great stories for Summer Reading! GRADE: A
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Introduction — ix
Map: The world of Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz — xii
Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz go to war again — 1
Beyond the sea gate of the scholar-pirates of Sarsköe — 39
A suitable present for a sorcerous puppet — 81
Losing her divinity –97
A cargo of ivories — 119
Home Is the haunter — 140
A long, cold trail — 195
Cut me another quill, Mister Fitz — 231
The field of fallen foe — 261
Acknowledgements — 283
Credits — 285
Not really my kind of fantasy, though I have read the type when in the right mood.
Have a great time in San Diego!
My (possibly unfair) impression of Nix is of a lightweight, but if he’s clever enough, I should give him a further try. People tended to mistake Ron Goulart and Richard Lupoff thus…
I like fantasy less than science fiction, but always willing to give an author a try. Maybe I will run into something by him at the book sale.
Tracy, I have about six or seven Garth Nix books waiting to be read. I really enjoyed these quirky Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz stories!
Rather OT but I didnt want to go back to Georges post in 2021:
Have you heard about the big problems of Philips CPAP devices?
https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/safety-communications/update-certain-philips-respironics-ventilators-bipap-machines-and-cpap-machines-recalled-due
Its all over the US media.
Wolf, I have a RESMED CPAP machine. But Art Scott had a Philips CPAP machine which Philips replaced after all the problems with that model. Now, Philips has settled for over $400 million in damages.