Conrad Stargard
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Conrad Stargard is the protagonist and title character in a series of time travel novels written by Leo Frankowski. In them, a Polish engineer named Conrad Schwartz is sent back in time to the 13th Century where he has to establish himself and cope with various crises including the eventual Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe in 1241.
The character of Conrad has at times been described as a Mary Sue, and some aspects of the novels can be looked at as authorial wish-fulfillment. In response to this criticism in an early draft of the first book, Leo Frankowski modified the character to have the opposite traits as himself, such as Conrads socialism and devout Catholicism[1].
The series originally consisted of four books, with a fifth released shortly later to wrap up loose ends. They are:
- The Cross Time Engineer
- The High Tech Knight
- The Radiant Warrior
- The Flying Warlord
- Lord Conrad's Lady
all originally published by Del Rey Books, and recently being released by Baen Books.
A later sequel, Conrad's Quest For Rubber is set in the same world/timeline as the original series but does not feature Conrad as its main protagonist.
Another book of Frankowski's, Conrad's Time Machine is set in the same universe as the original series and is only loosely related, having to do with the invention of the time machine with which Conrad ends up in the 13th century.
In late 2005, Frankowski self-published Lord Conrad's Crusade with Conrad Stargard as the protagonist.
The Conrad Stargard books clearly belong to the subgenre started by Mark Twain's classic A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, in which a modern person goes back in time and anachronistically introduces various modern technical innovations and social institutions centuries sooner than happened in our history.
General Plot Overview
Unlike Twain's Yankee - who ultimately failed and saw all his efforts come to naught - Conrad Stargard is eminently successful in creating a new timeline in which a technologically-advanced Poland becomes the dominant power in Thirteenth-Century Europe and Stargard himself is the most powerful man in Poland (though he chooses not to dethrone the King).
One crucial difference is that in the depiction of the staunchly atheist Twain, the Catholic Church is dead-set against the interloper from the future and all his works, and it is the clergy which ultimately plays a major role in his downfall. Conversely, immediately upon his arrival in the past, Conrad Stargard meets and befriends a sympathetic Franciscan - who later on rises fast in the Church hierarchy, parallel to Stargard's own climb to eminence, and who ensures that the Church would welcome the time-traveler's New Order (and gain some considerable advantages to itself in the process).
[edit] The Cross Time Engineer
The main character Conrad Stargard is a Polish engineer from the year 1986. After getting drunk and falling asleep in a time machine, he is transported back in time to the year 1231. Conrad, passingly familiar with Poland's history realized that in 10 years the Mongols will arrive and kill most of the population of Europe. After befriending a local monk, and a failed attempt at becoming a scribe, he takes a job as a bodyguard to a merchant. Due to his skill at arms and mercy in saving the infant of bandits he had slain, he impresses the local Count, Lord Lambert. It is discovered at this point that Conrad's "amazing warhorse" and "superb weapons" were all planted by his uncle who invented the time-machines and wished to help Conrad. However due to causality, Conrad cannot be simply removed from the past, but he can be 'assisted'. After improving the local Duke's industrial base, Conrad is eventually granted land on which he can build his industrial base to defend Poland with.
[edit] Conrad's Quest For Rubber
This book is from the point of view of a new character Josip Sobieski. Josip is a young man enrolled with Conrad's "Explorer Corps" whose purpose is to explore new lands in order to find new materials for Conrad's modernization of Europe (mainly rubber). This book primarily revolves around Josip's explorations in both the Arctic Circle and the Amazon River.
