The High Crusade

As suggested in the previous post, I have started to reread Poul Anderson's The High Crusade (New York, 1968). Knowing, as we do, that there is a framing sequence, we reread the opening page of the text, then the concluding two pages.

The opening passage is generic sf. The captain of a spaceship sits with a port "...open to alien summer night..." (p. 7) and is addressed by a "sociotechnician" - not a "psychotechnician," although they too address society, not just individual psychology. We are to understand that there have been advances in both the spatial and the social sciences. Nothing on p. 7 tells us that these are human beings. A surprise ending might have revealed that they were aliens. However, pp. 159-160 make clear that they are from Earth. In fact, the captain is:

"...Captain Yeshu haLevy, who was a loyal citizen of the Israeli Empire..." (p. 160)

- a likely story but not meant to be taken seriously since it serves only as a joke of sorts.

Implicit here is yet another thousand year future history. However, the main action of the novel has been off Earth and among the first generation of involuntary exiles.