Three Hearts and Three Lions

TLDR:

An iskai from the 1960s!

I loved this from start to finish, I was hooked immediately. This invoked such a sense of nostalgia in me in the best way. It has all the commong fantasy trope, which I think if written now would be a negative, but this book seems to me as one that help reinforce or even create the tropes. This one definitely goes on my must read list for fantasy fans.

D&D Legacy

Three Hearts and Three Lions is one of the most directly influential books on Dungeons & Dragons. Gary Gygax put it first on his list of Poul Anderson books every D&D player should read, and once you know what to look for, you can see why.

• The Paladin — Holger Carlsen, the book’s hero, is basically the paladin class before the paladin class existed. A champion of Law, tougher than he has any right to be against the forces of Chaos, carrying a code of honor and a destiny he didn’t ask for.
• Law vs. Chaos — This is the actual spine of the book, and it’s the same spine Gygax and Arneson built the alignment system on. Holger’s fighting for Law against Chaos, and that’s the exact cosmic tug-of-war the original alignment axis is trying to model.
• The dwarf Hugi — Gruff, practical, no patience for nonsense. You can draw a pretty straight line from Hugi to every grumpy dwarf companion that’s shown up in pop culture since.

My Thoughts

A quick note on the audiobook itself

The narrator is 10/10. Bronson Pinchot performs different voices and accents for each character. The narration enhanced the experience for me.

I started the audiobook on my morning commute and at first I thought there was a foreword and notes about the author at the beginning of the book. I was immediately sucked into the storytelling and when the narrator announced chapter 2 I realized the story had begun and at this point I was locked in. The story starts firmly in reality during WW2 as we learn a little about the main character before he wakes up naked in a magical land.

I am immediately gripped by the imagery, and having never read this one, immediately recognize names and references from other media. It’s pretty crazy actually as I get further and further through the book just how many things that I love, that this clearly influenced. I’m not an expert at warhammer history but its clear this definitely influenced Warhammer as well. This is one of those books that has influenced so many other forms of media that it feels nostalgic reading it.

I don’t want to just write a bs summary, but this is a book about a D&D romp before D&D existed. I do think the ending was weak, but not necessarily bad. I don’t want to spoil it.

Takeaways

In this section I will include a simple bullet point lists of things that I think could be used as inspiration at our tabletops.

• This book explains the Chaos vs Lawful alignment system very well.
• The explanation / way the iskai-ness of this book is explained is done very well. Spoiler Transported hero with no memories, because an evil sorceror summoned him in and wiped his memories to try and get him to do chaotic shit with her instead of be his true self.
• The campaign structure of the hero’s journey is fantastic, it has a realistic flow from different environments with sub adventures all built toward the final goal, but that final goal changes as the hero matures and progresses.
• I love the individual characters, and they would all serve as great NPCs, pretty much every speaking character in this book will work it’s way into a campaign in the future. They are pretty much NPC archetypes.