The first two installments in this series are here: Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic, Part I Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic, Part II As I mentioned in the first two articles in this series, I’ve read a LOT of Andre Norton. Here are just a few pics from my collection that I haven’t yet discussed. Most of these have little to do directly with Sword & Planet fiction but they still contain Norton’s patented characters and action. 1. The Last…
Andre Norton’s two-book series Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus (Fawcett Crest, December 1979 and January 1980). Covers by Ken Barr Part I of Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic is here. Two other fun books by Norton that I read between ages 12 and 16 were Judgment on Janus and Victory on Janus. In Judgement, a down and out young man named Naill Renfro ends up on the planet Janus, which is ruled by a group of religious fanatics…
The Zero Stone (Viking, November 1968), Breed to Come (Viking, April 1972), and Galactic Derelict (World Publishing, 1959). Covers by Robin Jacques, László Gál, and Ed Emshwiller Andre Norton (1912 -2005): between ages 12 and 16 I probably read more Andre Norton books than any other author. Our small town library didn’t have a huge selection of SF/Fantasy works but someone in their purchasing department seemed OK with Norton, and that was a happy thing for me. As painful as…
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…
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…
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…
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,…
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…
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…
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…