Andrew Liptak has written a fine series of pulp and classic SF retrospectives SF at Kirkus Reviews over the last few months. In his latest, which he introduces at his website, he looks at the often-neglected YA novels of the great Andre Norton: Norton wrote largely for what we now call the YA audience: teenagers, with fantastical adventures throughout numerous worlds and times. She was also largely ignored or dismissed for writing ‘children’s literature’, which is a shame, because it’s…

Read More Read More

I came too late to science fiction and fantasy to catch Andre Norton’s true heyday in the 50s and 60s, when she published over two dozen novels — including early classics like Star Man’s Son (1952), Star Rangers (1953), Star Gate (1958), The Time Traders (1958), The Beast Master (1959), Witch World (1963), Three Against the Witch World (1965), and Year of the Unicorn (1965). True, she continued to publish books steadily throughout the 70s, 80s, and even the 90s…

Read More Read More

When I was growing up in the seventies, the most represented science-fiction author in the children’s section of my local library was Andre Norton. Her books took up more shelf space than either Robert Heinlein or Isaac Asimov. Maybe the children’s librarian was a fan. And then there were the Andre Norton books on my father’s bookshelf. As cool as the cover of Daybreak – 2250A.D. looked, I never read it. For the next forty years, I managed to avoid…

Read More Read More