Cool Stuff I Have Read Recently

The Man Who Came Early by Poul Anderson. I mentioned this book in reference to other time travel stories about people who end up back in time and have to muddle through as best they can. Usually in these stories, the folks from the future have a decided advantage over the primitive screw-heads of the past. "The Man Who Came Early" doesn't.

The story centers around an American soldier from 1955 (the story was written in 1957) who is stationed in then-modern day Iceland and who ends up back in Saga Era Iceland. The story is told from the POV of one of the Icelanders who finds him and is told about four years after the event. Suffice to say that the modern American doesn't fit in so well in 8th century Iceland, due to a lack of cultural understanding and of any useful skills (or at least what the locals think of as useful skills).

Poul Anderson is one of my favorite classic SF&F authors. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism and his love of the past shows through in this story (and in other works like his fantasy novel, The Merman's Children). Anderson has the ability to really put you in the place of the story. "The Man Who Came Early" is one of those wonderful historical stories that keeps its sense of place while also being accessible to the modern reader.

( Confessions of a Prairie Bitch (possible triggers); The Help and Lion's Blood below )