Search Results for: Andre Norton

The Eclectic 1965 Ace Catalog: Avram Davidson, Philip K. Dick, Samuel R. Delany, and Andre Norton

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Rogue Dragon (Ace Books, 1965, cover by Jack Gaughan) and the back-page Ace paperback catalog As ludicrous as it might sound, I have a few books I bought more than half a century ago and still haven’t got around to reading. This short Avram Davidson novel was one of them, until I dusted it off last night. Looking at the ads in the back of the book — from a time when publishers could do direct mail-order sales — I…

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Voodoo, Sea Monsters, and Rebel Colonies: Rich Horton on Sea Siege/Eye of the Monster by Andre Norton

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Sea Siege/Eye of the Monster by Andre Norton. Ace Books F-147, 1962. 176+80 pages, $0.40. Covers by Ed Valigursky/Ed Emshwiller During the months-long lockdown here in Illinois as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, I know I should be reading the massive TBR pile by my bedside. It’s filled with Nebula award winners, advance proofs of books coming out this fall, and all the new books my friends are talking about. But instead, I want to be reading Ace Doubles. I blame…

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Judith Tarr on The Golden Age of Andre Norton

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Covers by unknown, Gino D’Achille, and Paul Alexander I’ve been enjoying Judith Tarr’s detailed and enthusiastic Andre Norton reread over at Tor.com. So far she’s covered…. whew, so many novels I’ve lost count. 70? 75? Seriously, it’s a lot. The fact that there’s a science fiction writer with 70+ novels worth talking about is astonishing in itself. Andre Norton was a genre onto herself in her heyday, roughly 1952-1998, but very little of her work remains in print. But that…

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Andre Norton Wrote Scarface

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Andre Norton wrote Scarface. No, no. Not the Al Pacino gangster classic directed by Brian De Palma. I mean the 1948 pirate novel, whose full title is Scarface, being the story of one Justin Blade, late of the pirate isle of Tortuga, and how fate did justly deal with him, to his great profit. Scarface was published early in her career. Like, very early. It was her fifth novel, written four years before her first science fiction novel, Star Man’s Son,…

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Witch World by Andre Norton

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This isn’t merely an excercise in cross-promotion (it is that, just not only that), but also a chance to redress a failing in my reviews of Andre Norton’s Witch World books. Neither here at Black Gate nor back at my own site, Stuff I Like, have I ever actually written about the first book in the series, Witch World. Now that I’m a “special guest” on the just released episode of the Appendix N Book Club podcast about the book, I believe I have a responsibility…

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Birthday Reviews: Andre Norton’s “The Gifts of Asti”

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Andre Norton was born on February 17, 1912 and died on March 17, 2005. She began publishing with “People of the Crater,” using the pseudonym Andrew North (reprinted in 2003 in my anthology Magical Beginnings). Over the years, she published numerous short stories and novels, including the various stories of the Witch World cycle. She also published the first Dungeons and Dragons tie-in novel, Quag Keep, set in Gary Gygax’s World of Greyhawk. In addition to her own novels, she…

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Frontier Guard, Robot Ships, and Rascal Traders: Rich Horton on Space Service, edited by Andre Norton

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Andre Norton is one of the most revered science fiction writers of the 20th Century. True, much of her work is out of print these days, and she seems to have more or less fallen out of favor with modern readers (except Fletcher Vredenburgh, naturally), but there are still plenty of SF fans who credit her with their introduction to science fiction. Many readers don’t know that Norton made a name for herself as an editor before she became acclaimed for her…

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Lore of the Witch World by Andre Norton

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By the western wall of Klavenport on the Sea of Autumn Mists — but you do not want a bard’s beginning to my tale, Goodmen? Well enough, I have no speak-harp to twang at all the proper times. And this is not altogether a tale for lords-in-their-halls. Though the beginning did lie in Klavenport right enough. — from “Legacy from Sorn Fen” I’ve written before that Andre Norton’s Witch World books is a series I avoided for way too long. There were two…

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Andre Norton: Are Her Men Really Women?

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It’s been my experience that Andre Norton is extremely popular among women of my generation, those who grew up reading SF when there were few women writing, and even fewer female protagonists. When I was looking at Norton’s Witch World last time, I found myself wondering whether this popularity was due to how Norton feminized her male protagonists, making them easier for female readers to relate to. By feminizing, I mean that Norton gives her male protagonists the same kind…

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The Women of Andre Norton’s Witch World

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I don’t think there is any one today who doesn’t know that Andre Norton was really Alice Mary Norton, which makes her portrayal of female characters more interesting than it would be otherwise. Much of her fiction was written prior to the politicization of the feminist movement (or at least widespread public awareness of it) so it isn’t surprising that in many respects her characters reflect the traditional, male-centric, social attitudes that we would expect from that time period. In…

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