Given all the recent discussion of Larry Elmore's artwork hereabouts, I was reminded of the cover he did for the Winter 1983 issue of Ares, which featured this illustration of English knights battling the alien Wersgorix from Poul Anderson's The High Crusade. This was an issue published after TSR had acquired SPI and includes a wargame (by David Cook) that re-enacts the events of Anderson's novel.Also in the issue is an original short story by Poul Anderson that serves as a sequel to The High Crusade. What a different world 1983 was! When a story an author like Poul Anderson could not only be found in the pages of a gaming magazine but whose story assumed knowledge of a prior one. Mind you, that was not at all uncommon in the gaming magazines of my youth. Dragon regularly had short fiction in its pages, often by authors as distinguished Anderson, though, as I understand it, this practice largely ceased in the years after I stopped reading it, which, if true, is a shame.
Poul Anderson was a great writer, and to see one of his stories represented by such an artist as Elmore is a bonus.
ReplyDeleteI miss the stories in Dragon as well.
"Also in the issue is an original short story by Poul Anderson that serves as a sequel to The High Crusade."
ReplyDeleteDamn. Has this story been printed anywhere besides this magazine?
I love Anderson's work and The High Crusade is one of his most entertaining books.
I have that very magazine, somewhere at home. I remember not being impressed with the "sequel" story or the game.
ReplyDeleteThe recent Baen reprint edition apparently included "Quest". I am now kicking myself for not getting said reprint edition, especially since the cover looks good.
ReplyDelete