Review: Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, by Garth Nix

Review: Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, by Garth Nix

a review by Rich Horton

This is a very enjoyable new collection from Garth Nix, of 9 stories that have appeared in the past 15 years or so (one original to the collection) about the two people mentioned in the title. Sir Hereward is a young man, an expert in artillery, but also the only male born in centuries to the Witches of Har. Mister Fitz is a very long-lived sorcerous puppet, who has worked with the Witches for most of (I suppose all of) his life. He was Hereward's nanny as a child (and then called Mistress Fitz), and now he is Hereward's partner on their clandestine missions. Godlets are creatures from another dimension who have somehow entered Hereward and Fitz's world. Sometimes they are benign, and work to improve the lives of the humans near them. Sometimes they are rather trivial. And sometimes they are "inimical", usually enslaving in some sense the living things near them, to increase their power. The Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World  enjoins the Witches of Har (and possibly other people) to destroy (or return to their original dimensions) these godlets. Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz travel the world, ostensibly as mercenaries, selling Hereward's artillery skills, but in reality perform missions for the Council: missions in which, typically, Sir Hereward distracts the godlet and or eliminates interference by the humans in thrall to it; while Mister Fitz uses his sorcerous powers to deal with the godlet itself.

The stories feature plenty of dark events -- wasted lands, many deaths, including of innocents, many betrayals, and some fearsome monsters. Yet the tone throughout is rather light. The interaction of the two main characters is delightful: Sir Hereward smarter than he acts, but still prone to be distracted by a pretty girl, while Mister Fitz never forgets that he (she) was Sir Hereward's teacher, and teaches him still. 

The stories range across a broad swath of this secondary world. In "Sir Hereward and Master Fitz Go to War Again" the twosome visit a prosperous city threatened by its much poorer neighbors, planning to serve in the city's defense -- until they realize there is a dark reason for the city's relative riches. Alas for Sir Hereward, the very attractive member of the city guard he first duels to a draw is on duty that night ... "Beyond the Sea Gate of the Scholar-Pirates of Sarsköe" takes them along with a fierce and sexy pirate and her crew to the well-hidden tresure of the Scholar-Pirates: a treasure only too well guarded. In "A Suitable Present for a Sorcerous Puppet", a convalescing Sir Hereward happens across a book which tells him the traditional date of "birth" of Mister Fitz -- and in finding him a present finds something much more sinister. "Losing Her Divinity", one of my favorites, it told by a man who chance-meets our heroes on a train, and tells them of his meeting with a certain Goddess. The first person voice of this man is beautifully done. In "A Cargo of Ivories", the twosome's plan to steal a valuable set of ivory statuettes -- some of which are vessels for dangerous godlets -- is complicated by the appearance of a young thief with the same goal. "Home is the Haunter" has the pair transporting a huge cannon across a dry waste, until they reach an apparent refuge, unfortunately the same night as the yearly manifestation of a godlet called the Hag. "A Long Cold Trail" has them chasing an escaped monster that has possessed one of Hereward's great-great-Aunts, who has failed to banish it -- their job is to catch it before it can reach a city and gain energy from all its souls, and their effort is complicated by the foolish intervention of an ordinary man who thinks his magical sword makes him a God-Taker. "Cut me Another Quill, Mister Fitz" features the two of them searching through tax records to track down someone with an anomalous fortune on the theory that that might reveal a dragon and its hoard; though Sir Hereward has little patience with this task and much more interest in getting a glass of wine in the company of a pretty guard. And "The Field of Fallen Foe" is another case where Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz have to clean up a mistake by one of his aunts, and also clean up a dreadful field of dead soldiers, and a questionably proscribed godlet.

These are all very amusing, and clever. My summaries above reveal little of the twists involved: sometimes Mister Fitz and Sir Hereward have a brilliant plan, sometimes they make it up as they go along, sometimes Sir Hereward is ignorant of Mister Fitz's plan. Always, something goes wrong. Sometimes, even, Sir Hereward gets his wish to dally with one or another of the pretty women he encounters. They are series stories, and follow a bit of a template, but in a good way, with variations and plenty of interesting menaces. I enjoyed them all when they first appeared, and enjoyed them as much on this reread. (The last story is original to this volume.) Recommended!