Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Stories of the Witch-Knight and Puppet Sorcerer by Garth Nix

Title: Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: Stories of the Witch-Knight and Puppet Sorcerer

Author: Garth Nix

Genre: Fantasy

Publisher: Allen and Unwin

Published: 22^nd August 2023

Format: Paperback

Pages: 368

Price: $32.99

Synopsis: New York Times bestselling author Garth Nix’s collection of all eight stories – plus a never-before-published story – featuring Sir Hereward and his mysterious companion Mister Fitz, gathered in one magical volume for the first time ever!

Sir Hereward: the only male child of an ancient society of witches. Knight, artillerist, swordsman. Mercenary for hire. Ill-starred lover.

Mister Fitz: sorcerous puppet, loremaster. Practitioner of arcane arts and wielder of sorcerous needles. 

Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz: godslayers. Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, charged with the location and removal of listed extra-dimensional entities, more commonly known as gods.

Together, they are relentless travellers in a treacherous world of magic, gunpowder, and adventure.

From the award-winning author and bestselling creator of the Old Kingdom series and The Left-handed Booksellers of London comes this must-have fantasy collection for fans and those about to discover the witch knight and his puppet sorcerer for the first time.

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Sir Hereward is the only son and male born into an ancient society of witches – an anomaly in their society, he has grown up with Mister Fitz, a sorcerous puppet. Sir Hereward is a knight and a swordsman – someone that you hire for mercenary needs, and unlucky in love. Mister Fitz, his long-time companion, knows the arcane arts and is handy with sorcerous needles. Together, they are godslayers, traveling the world as Agents of the Council of the Treaty for the Safety of the World, using their skills and Mister Fitz’s knowledge of the lore of their world and godlets to defeat the gods trying to harm the world. They use magic and gunpowder on their adventure to slay the gods they are hunting.

Each story stands alone as its own adventure, and little bits about Sir Hereward and Mister Fitz, their histories and their origins is revealed throughout each one carefully. Whatever is revealed in a story is necessary for the plot, so nothing is bogged down in repetitive information, and the stories are driven by action and character development in amongst the captivating plots that reveal what their world is like – a medieval-esque world tinged with magic and filled with adventure.

I liked that each story was its own contained world and narrative, but it also formed part of a larger world. Various themes reverberated around each story, allowing for the characters to become well-rounded. The focus on Sir Hereward ad Mister Fitz, and their interactions with a range of peripheral characters everywhere they went to hunt gods made the stories rich and diverse, filled with varied experiences and identities, but with hints of traditions that were drawn from history, mythology, and a range of other areas to create a rich and vibrant world. These stories had the same sense of fantasy and mystery as Garth’s other work, and in some ways, I think the stories could all potentially take place in the same universe or adjacent universes. To me, it felt like there would be crossover between these stories and this world, and some of the others that Garth has created. They all stand on their own delightfully as well, and I really enjoyed these stories. They took me to a different place and world, making my imagination work.

As always, it was tinged with the same humour I have come across in Garth’s other novels, marking it out as a definitive Garth Nix book, bringing short stories that have been published individually throughout the years in a range of publications together. I liked it this way because it felt as though each story built on the previous ones and pulled everything together, even though each was its own contained narrative. These short stories worked for me because there was always a resolution of some kind whilst still being open-ended enough to allow for interpretation about what might have happened next, and this was effective. I think fans of Garth Nix will enjoy this and I hope other readers enjoy it as well.