For my first book choice of 2024 I’m returning to one of the most versatile of Fantasy Writers – Garth Nix. I recommended Clariel, one of his gripping Old Kingdom series, back in September 2015 but the Old Kingdom is just one of this Australian author’s invented worlds. Now I’m recommending Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz (2023) a collection of nine Stories of the Witch Knight and the Puppet Sorcerer. This is most easily available in hardback or as an ebook. Eight of the stories have previously been published in magazines or anthologies but the ninth is new. They illustrate Nix’s unique interpretation of the Sword and Sorcery genre. Not many Fantasy heroes go on quests accompanied by their Nanny…
Hereward and Fitz are frequent travellers across seas, deserts and mountains and through exotic lands such as the Empire of the Risen Moon, the Jessar Republic and Zhe-Zhan Jungee, all of which can be seen on Mike Hall’s beautifully drawn map. On the face of it, young Sir Hereward is just a wandering mercenary accompanied by a self-motivated puppet of the type usually employed as entertainers. Hereward is a fine swordsman and an artillery expert but Fitz appears to be armed with nothing more sinister than a sewing kit. In reality, Hereward is a rare male Witch of Har born to a clan dedicated to the destruction of dangerous extra-dimensional entities, and Mister Fitz is a powerful sorcerer who wields deadly needles.
Hereward and Fitz act as secret agents for the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World and have access to a list of extra-dimensional entities (more usually known as deities) who are known to be harmful to humanity. Sometimes they encounter such deities accidentally, as in the story Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz Go to War Again, when they realize that the seemingly benevolent god of a prosperous city is actually sucking the life out of surrounding regions. Sometimes they are on specific missions to seek out and destroy prescribed deities, as in A Cargo of Ivories, in which Hereward and Fitz have to deal with a professional thief, an unexpected basilisk and an excitable pygmy moklek as well as a set of ivory godlets.
One thing to note straight away is that though Nix sometimes writes for children, as in his dazzlingly inventive The Keys to the Kingdom series, Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz is intended for adult readers. I would classify all of the stories as Dark Fantasy and some tip over into Horror. In Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarskoe for example our heroes have to deal with a ferocious pirate-queen who delights in eating the corpses of her enemies, while in Home is the Haunter they encounter a sinister order of priestesses involved in human sacrifice to the infamous Hag of the Shallows. There is also a vein of adult humour centred on the perils of getting too close to seductive goddesses (as in Losing her Divinity) and on the general disaster zone that is Sir Hereward’s love life as he lusts after a series of unsuitable females. Nix also has fun parodying the American Miranda Warning. Each time they are about to destroy a deity, Hereward and Fitz have to put on special armbands and recite a formula about their authority to banish or exterminate godlets.
These entertaining stories are packed with wildly improbable adventures in atmospheric settings and have colourful casts of warriors, pirates, thieves, sorcerers, witches, priestesses, deities and monsters but what makes them specially attractive to Fantasy connoisseurs is Nix’s deep knowledge of the history of the Sword and Sorcery genre. Nix’s dangerous deities can be traced all the way back to the darkly humorous stories of Lord Dunsany (see his 1905 collection The Gods of Pegana and my Fantasy Reads post of June 2012 on Dunsany’s short stories). The perilous people and places encountered by Hereward and Fitz have much in common with Jack Vance’s Dying Earth stories (see Fantasy Reads June 2013) and Nix’s pair of mismatched heroes could be taken as a tribute to Fritz Leiber’s famous Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser (see my Fantasy Reads July 2014 post on Swords and Deviltry).
Nix’s modern version of Sword and Sorcery has plenty of strong female characters though few of these formidable women would make ideal role models. His puppet-sorcerer has the unusual ability to change gender as required. When Hereward was growing up he needed a maternal figure in his life so the puppet became his nanny, Mistress Fitz. Once Hereward was old enough to go on missions Mister Fitz continued to serve him as tutor and protector. Another literary influence on Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz seem to be the Jeeves and Wooster stories of P.G. Wodehouse. Hereward is brave and well meaning but not the brightest of young men. In one story (Cut Me Another Quill, Mister Fitz) Hereward fails to notice that he has been set up as bait for a dragon who prefers young men to young maidens. As with Bertie Wooster, the most terrifying females in Hereward’s life are his aunts (see A Long, Cold Trail). Fitz takes the Jeeves role of the servant who is far smarter than his master and actually in charge.
Like Pinocchio, Fitz is a mainly wooden puppet who can move without strings. With their pumpkin-sized head, crudely painted features and oversize hat Fitz seems a comical creature who is frequently underestimated. Personally I find all kinds of automata very creepy and needle-wielding mission-dedicated Fitz is way more scary than the young knight. However this miniature Terminator has absorbed some human characteristics during their long life and has developed a mind and a moral compass of their own.
Nix’s stories aren’t entirely light-hearted since Hereward and Fitz sometimes face difficult and painful decisions when they encounter innocent people serving bad deities or even the occasional proscribed deity who doesn’t seem to deserve extermination. There is real poignancy in Hereward’s situation. Regarded as a freak because of his gender Hereward has been rejected by his mother and forbidden from returning home. The only affection he has ever received has come from Fitz. The puppet-sorcerer may often find Hereward irritating but there is clearly an unbreakable bond between them. Love has many different forms in Fantasy fiction. I wish all my readers a Happy New year – especially if you decide to go adventuring with Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz.
Geraldine