[LISTENED TO: October 2021] Three Hearts and Three Lions
Every since I signed up for Chirp audio books, I’ve been able to really indulge my love of Bronson Pinchot as a reader.
I bought this book without knowing much about it. I basically make sure that the books aren’t war books, because I don’t care about that subject, and if it’s not, then I’m on board.
This book was a cool sci-fi fantasy story by an author whom I had heard of but didn’t know anything about. Imagine my surprise to find out that book was initially written in 1953 as a novella and expanded into a novel for 1961! I was especially surprised because there is some serious science a the book opens which seemed far more contemporary.
Holger Carlsen is an engineer. The prologue of the story shows him working in an engineering department and talking about science-y stuff. The story is about Carlsen, but told from a different point of view. Pinchot gets to use a Danish accent for all of his speaking parts.
The narrator talks about what happens as if it is not believable but that he is going to relate the story anyway: “Holger’s tale does not seem altogether impossible to me. Not that I claim it’s true.” He says that Carlsen was generally well-liked and respected. And this is his story.
Carlsen decided to join the Danish resistance in fighting Nazis in WWII. The fighting is going well, and the American forces are known to be coming. But Holger is shot. He wakes up naked in an unfamiliar place.
He looks around. Things seem normal, although he can’t explain his nakedness. He wanders around and finds a horse who is not afraid of him. He also finds a cottage that has clothes which fit him, Things seem off somehow, though, and he genuinely can’t get his bearings.
Soon enough he meets an old woman who claims to be a witch. She speaks a language he doesn’t know and yet he understands her. Through a drawn out discussion and some revelations, he realizes that he is kind of a medieval knight and he sees a shield emblazoned with three hearts and three lions. (more…)
