Andre Norton
Encyclopedia
Andre Alice Norton, née Alice Mary Norton (February 17, 1912 – March 17, 2005) was an American
science fiction
and fantasy
author (with some works of historical fiction
and contemporary fiction) under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston. Norton published her first novel in 1934, and was the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master Award
from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977, and won the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award
from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
(SFWA) association in 1983.
. Her parents were Adalbert Freely Norton, who owned a rug company, and Bertha Stemm Norton. She began writing at Collinwood High School in Cleveland, under the tutelage of Miss Sylvia Cochrane. She was the editor of a literary page in the school's paper called The Collinwood Spotlight for which she wrote short stories. During this time, she wrote her first book—Ralestone Luck, which was eventually published as her second novel in 1938, the first being The Prince Commands in 1934.
After graduating from high school in 1930, Norton planned to become a teacher and began studying at Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University
. However, in 1932 she had to leave because of the Depression and began working for the Cleveland Library System
, where she remained for 18 years, latterly in the children's section of the Nottingham Branch Library in Cleveland. In 1934, she legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton, a pen name she had adopted to increase her marketability, since boys were the main audience for fantasy. From 1940 to 1941, she worked as a special librarian in the cataloguing department of the Library of Congress
, involved in a project related to alien citizenship. The project was abruptly terminated upon the American entry into World War II
.
In 1941, she bought a bookstore called the Mystery House in Mount Rainier, Maryland
. The business failed and she returned to the Cleveland Public Library until 1950. Then she began working as a reader for publisher and editor Martin Greenberg
at the Gnome Press
company, where she remained until 1958, after which she became a full-time professional author.
Norton's first published science fiction, the novella "The People of the Crater," appeared in Fantasy Book in 1951, under the "Andrew North" byline. Her first fantasy novel, Huon of the Horn, was published by Harcourt Brace under her own byline in 1951. Her first science fiction novel, Star Man's Son 2250 A.D., appeared in 1952.
She became a prolific novelist in the 1950s, with many of her books published for the juvenile market, at least in their hardcover editions. She published more than a dozen different sf novel series, but her longest, and longest running project was the "Witch World" sequence, which began as a set of six novels as paperback originals from 1963 to 1968, then grew, beginning in the 1970s, to include several dozen volumes, including collaborations and shared-world anthologies.
Norton was twice nominated for the Hugo Award
, in 1964 for the novel Witch World
and in 1967 for the novelette "Wizard's World." She was nominated three times for the World Fantasy Award
for lifetime achievement, winning the award in 1998. Norton won a number of other genre awards, and regularly had works appear in the Locus annual "best of year" polls.
She was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA)
, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy
authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's
Flashing Swords!
anthologies.
In later years, as Norton's health became uncertain, she moved to Florida in November 1966, and then to Murfreesboro, Tennessee
. From February 21, 2005, she was under hospice care. She died at home on March 17, 2005, of congestive heart failure.
Her final complete novel, Three Hands for Scorpio, was published on April 1, 2005. She was collaborating with Jean Rabe
on the sequel to her 1979 novel Quag Keep, the Greyhawk
novel Return to Quag Keep, when she died. Return to Quag Keep was completed by Rabe and published in 2006.
On February 20, 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
, which had earlier honored her with its Grand Master Award in 1983, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award
, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult literature
market, beginning in 2006. While the Andre Norton Award
is not a Nebula Award
, the eligibility requirements and award procedures are the same as those for the Nebula Award
s.
Often called the Grande Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy by biographers such as J.M Cornwell and organizations such as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
, Publishers Weekly
, and Time
, Andre Norton wrote novels for over 70 years. She had a profound influence on the entire genre, having over 300 published titles read by at least four generations of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers. Notable authors who cite her influence include Greg Bear
, Lois McMaster Bujold
, C. J. Cherryh
, Cecilia Dart-Thornton
, Tanya Huff
, Mercedes Lackey
, Charles de Lint
, Joan D. Vinge
, David Weber
, K. D. Wentworth
, and Catherine Asaro
.
continued her association in many readers' minds with young adult fiction, although she became a best seller to adults.
In most Norton books, whether science-fiction or fantasy, the plot takes place in the open countryside, with only short episodes in a city environment. Protagonists usually move about singly or in small groups, and in conflict situations they are more often scouts, spies or guerrillas rather than regular soldiers in large military formations.
As could be expected of such characters, they tend to be resourceful and capable of taking independent initiative. In some books, protagonists are introduced already in possession of such characteristics. In others the protagonists (often young) are thrust into situations where they must develop them quickly, and invariably succeed at it.
Many planets in the books are Earth-like places, where humans can live without special protection, and have extensive flora and fauna which are described in considerable detail and often have substantial bearing on the plot. Airless planets and ones with unbreathable atmospheres are sometimes mentioned in passing, but are virtually never the main scene of a Norton book (an exception is Night of Masks). In many of her books, especially her mid-period and later fantasies, such as most of the Witch World series, there are settings described similarly, with ancient stone highways left by unknown civilizations, flanked by half-fallen walls overgrown with vines, and often studded with tall pillars topped by mythical shapes. These vistas are universally presented as almost vibrating with magical power. Another common setting, in both fantasies and science fiction, is of a room filled with alien super-scientific equipment, often where something evil (such as experimentation on humans or other living creatures) has gone or is going on.
A common theme in the books is the presence of sympathetically presented feudal and tribal cultures. In several books Native American
tribes and their various analogues are given a chance to be more successful than they were in actual American history. (Norton often told friends that she was proud of her little bit of Native American ancestry.) Nonhuman creatures and cultures are usually presented sympathetically, with human protagonists sometimes supporting them against oppressive human authorities. In contrast, several books present technological and mechanized cultures as negative or even positively evil.
With her 1965 book Year of the Unicorn (third in the High Hallack spinoff of her Witch World series), she used a young woman as the protagonist, which was at the time uncommon for American works of fantasy.
An important role in Norton's books is often given to animals — both ordinary terrestrial ones, such as cats (with whom she had much personal experience — see List of fictional cats#Andre Norton) and exotic fictional ones, whose characteristics are meticulously worked out. Many of Norton's animals are highly intelligent without being anthropomorphic, acting as virtually full partners to the human protagonists and in many books forming telepathic links with them.
Some background elements, such as the use of "Credits" as a unit of currency and of the lethal "Blasters" and the non-lethal "Stunners" as the main hand-weapons, are common to many of Norton's science fiction books, even when they are not set in precisely the same future.
A fictional board and counter game called "Stars and Comets" appears in many Norton science fiction books. However, only fleeting hints of the rules are revealed. Counters styled as either "stars" or "comets" move across the board taking opponents' pieces. The rules of movement and capture seem to be very complex allowing hidden strategies and sudden reversals of fortune. It may be that there are both elements of skill and chance. Often, it is not the game being played itself which features, but references to it as an analogy of some plot situation. Its use helps to reinforce the alien culture being portrayed, and also gives the reader a sense of continuity between books portraying differing people and places.
Equally, an interstellar refugee camp turned slum of dubious reputation called the Dipple provides the starting point for a number of planet stories, as the number of desperate young people seeking any escape from its poverty is high.
Star Man's Son (a.k.a. Daybreak 2250 A.D.), the story of a young man's quest through a post-apocalyptic landscape, has been retold endlessly, in print and in film, though Norton never received proper recognition for developing this theme.
She also developed the concept of traveling through alternate worlds in The Crossroads of Time. In the Time Trader series, she explored Celtic Europe, and Ice Age America, synthesizing of anthropology, archeology, and hard science fiction, and this series must also be seen as a pivotal exploration of time travel, as a method of fictionally exploring lost cultures. The second book in the Time Trader series, Galactic Derelict, features the use of recovered alien technology, to enable human travel to the stars, and this theme is also very recurrent, with definite features developed by Andre Norton.
The facility, named after one of the continents in Norton’s Witch World series, was home to over 10,000 texts, videos and various other media. Attached to the facility were three guest rooms, allowing authors and scholars the chance to stay on-site to facilitate their research goals.
The facility was opened on February 28, 1999, and operated until March 2004. Most of the collection was sold during the closing days of the facility. The declining health of Andre Norton was one of the leading causes of its closing.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
author (with some works of historical fiction
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
and contemporary fiction) under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston. Norton published her first novel in 1934, and was the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master Award
Gandalf Award
The Gandalf Awards, honoring achievement in fantasy literature, were conferred by the World Science Fiction Society annually from 1974 to 1981. They were named for Gandalf the wizard, from the Middle-earth stories by J. R. R. Tolkien. The award was created and sponsored by Lin Carter and the...
from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977, and won the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award
Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award
The Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award is an award given by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America. It is awarded to a living author for lifetime achievement in science fiction and/or fantasy. Officially, it is not a Nebula Award though it is awarded at the Nebula ceremony...
from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
(SFWA) association in 1983.
Biography
Alice Mary Norton was born in Cleveland, OhioCleveland, Ohio
Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
. Her parents were Adalbert Freely Norton, who owned a rug company, and Bertha Stemm Norton. She began writing at Collinwood High School in Cleveland, under the tutelage of Miss Sylvia Cochrane. She was the editor of a literary page in the school's paper called The Collinwood Spotlight for which she wrote short stories. During this time, she wrote her first book—Ralestone Luck, which was eventually published as her second novel in 1938, the first being The Prince Commands in 1934.
After graduating from high school in 1930, Norton planned to become a teacher and began studying at Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University
Case Western Reserve University is a private research university located in Cleveland, Ohio, USA...
. However, in 1932 she had to leave because of the Depression and began working for the Cleveland Library System
Cleveland Public Library
The Cleveland Public Library was founded in 1869 and is located in Cleveland, Ohio. It operates the Main Library on Superior Avenue in downtown Cleveland, 28 branches throughout the city, a mobile library, a Public Administration Library in City Hall, and a library for the blind and physically...
, where she remained for 18 years, latterly in the children's section of the Nottingham Branch Library in Cleveland. In 1934, she legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton, a pen name she had adopted to increase her marketability, since boys were the main audience for fantasy. From 1940 to 1941, she worked as a special librarian in the cataloguing department of the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
, involved in a project related to alien citizenship. The project was abruptly terminated upon the American entry into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
In 1941, she bought a bookstore called the Mystery House in Mount Rainier, Maryland
Mount Rainier, Maryland
Mount Rainier is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States. The population was 8,498 at the 2000 census. Bordering Washington, DC, Mount Rainier got its start as a streetcar suburb. According to local tradition, surveyors from the Pacific Northwest named the town, giving the...
. The business failed and she returned to the Cleveland Public Library until 1950. Then she began working as a reader for publisher and editor Martin Greenberg
Martin Greenberg
Martin Greenberg is an American book publisher and editor of science fiction anthologies.-Biography:Greenberg married in 1941. He was in the U.S...
at the Gnome Press
Gnome Press
Gnome Press was an American small-press publishing company primarily known for publishing many science fiction classics.The company was founded in 1948 by Martin Greenberg and David A. Kyle. Many of Gnome's titles were reprinted in England by Boardman Books...
company, where she remained until 1958, after which she became a full-time professional author.
Norton's first published science fiction, the novella "The People of the Crater," appeared in Fantasy Book in 1951, under the "Andrew North" byline. Her first fantasy novel, Huon of the Horn, was published by Harcourt Brace under her own byline in 1951. Her first science fiction novel, Star Man's Son 2250 A.D., appeared in 1952.
She became a prolific novelist in the 1950s, with many of her books published for the juvenile market, at least in their hardcover editions. She published more than a dozen different sf novel series, but her longest, and longest running project was the "Witch World" sequence, which began as a set of six novels as paperback originals from 1963 to 1968, then grew, beginning in the 1970s, to include several dozen volumes, including collaborations and shared-world anthologies.
Norton was twice nominated for the Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
, in 1964 for the novel Witch World
Witch World
The Witch World by Andre Norton is a long series of fantasy novels set in a parallel universe where magic works and, at the beginning of the series, is exclusively performed by women. The series combines many traits of high fantasy and sword and sorcery. It begins with what is now called the...
and in 1967 for the novelette "Wizard's World." She was nominated three times for the World Fantasy Award
World Fantasy Award
The World Fantasy Awards are annual, international awards given to authors and artists who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in the field of fantasy...
for lifetime achievement, winning the award in 1998. Norton won a number of other genre awards, and regularly had works appear in the Locus annual "best of year" polls.
She was a member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA)
Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America (SAGA)
The Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America is the name of a literary group of American fantasy authors active from the 1960s through the 1980s, noted for their contributions to the fantasy subgenre of heroic fantasy or "Sword and Sorcery."...
, a loose-knit group of Heroic Fantasy
Heroic fantasy
Heroic fantasy is a sub-genre of fantasy which chronicles the tales of heroes in imaginary lands. Unlike stories of sword and sorcery, heroic fantasy narratives tend to be intricate in plot, often involving many peoples, nations and lands. Grand battles and the fate of the world are common themes,...
authors founded in the 1960s, some of whose works were anthologized in Lin Carter's
Lin Carter
Linwood Vrooman Carter was an American author of science fiction and fantasy, as well as an editor and critic. He usually wrote as Lin Carter; known pseudonyms include H. P. Lowcraft and Grail Undwin.-Life:Carter was born in St. Petersburg, Florida...
Flashing Swords!
Flashing Swords!
Flashing Swords! was a series of fantasy anthologies published by Dell Books from 1973 to 1981 under the editorship of Lin Carter. It showcased the heroic fantasy work of the members of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America , a somewhat informal literary group active from the 1960s to the...
anthologies.
In later years, as Norton's health became uncertain, she moved to Florida in November 1966, and then to Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Murfreesboro is a city in and the county seat of Rutherford County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 108,755 according to the United States Census Bureau's 2010 U.S. Census, up from 68,816 residents certified during the 2000 census. The center of population of Tennessee is located in...
. From February 21, 2005, she was under hospice care. She died at home on March 17, 2005, of congestive heart failure.
Her final complete novel, Three Hands for Scorpio, was published on April 1, 2005. She was collaborating with Jean Rabe
Jean Rabe
Jean Rabe is a fantasy and sci-fi author and editor who has worked on the Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, and BattleTech series, as well as many others.-Career:...
on the sequel to her 1979 novel Quag Keep, the Greyhawk
Greyhawk
Greyhawk, also known as the World of Greyhawk, is a fictional world designed as a campaign setting for the Dungeons & Dragons fantasy roleplaying game...
novel Return to Quag Keep, when she died. Return to Quag Keep was completed by Rabe and published in 2006.
On February 20, 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
, which had earlier honored her with its Grand Master Award in 1983, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award
Andre Norton Award
The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, named to honor prolific science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton , is a yearly juried award presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to the author of an outstanding young adult science fiction or...
, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult literature
Young adult literature
Young-adult fiction or young adult literature , also juvenile fiction, is fiction written for, published for, or marketed to adolescents and young adults, roughly ages 14 to 21. The Young Adult Library Services of the American Library Association defines a young adult as "someone between the...
market, beginning in 2006. While the Andre Norton Award
Andre Norton Award
The Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy, named to honor prolific science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton , is a yearly juried award presented by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America to the author of an outstanding young adult science fiction or...
is not a Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
, the eligibility requirements and award procedures are the same as those for the Nebula Award
Nebula Award
The Nebula Award is given each year by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America , for the best science fiction/fantasy fiction published in the United States during the previous year...
s.
Often called the Grande Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy by biographers such as J.M Cornwell and organizations such as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America
Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, or SFWA is a nonprofit association of professional science fiction and fantasy writers. It was founded in 1965 by Damon Knight under the name Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc. and it retains the acronym SFWA after a very brief use of the SFFWA...
, Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly
Publishers Weekly, aka PW, is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers and literary agents...
, and Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, Andre Norton wrote novels for over 70 years. She had a profound influence on the entire genre, having over 300 published titles read by at least four generations of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers. Notable authors who cite her influence include Greg Bear
Greg Bear
Gregory Dale Bear is an American science fiction and mainstream author. His work has covered themes of galactic conflict , artificial universes , consciousness and cultural practices , and accelerated evolution...
, Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold
Lois McMaster Bujold is an American author of science fiction and fantasy works. Bujold is one of the most acclaimed writers in her field, having won the prestigious Hugo Award for best novel four times, matching Robert A. Heinlein's record. Her novella The Mountains of Mourning won both the Hugo...
, C. J. Cherryh
C. J. Cherryh
Carolyn Janice Cherry , better known by the pen name C. J. Cherryh, is a United States science fiction and fantasy author...
, Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Cecilia Dart-Thornton
Cecilia Dart-Thornton is an Australian author of fantasy novels, most notably the Bitterbynde Trilogy.-Biography:Cecilia Dart-Thornton was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia, graduating from Monash University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in sociology. She became a schoolteacher before...
, Tanya Huff
Tanya Huff
Tanya Sue Huff is a Canadian fantasy author. Her stories have been published since the late 1980s, including five fantasy series and one science-fiction series. One of these, her Blood Books series, featuring detective Vicki Nelson, was adapted for television under the title Blood...
, Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes Lackey
Mercedes "Misty" Lackey is a best-selling American author of fantasy novels. Many of her novels and trilogies are interlinked and set in the world of Velgarth, mostly in and around the country of Valdemar...
, Charles de Lint
Charles de Lint
Charles de Lint is a Canadian fantasy author and folk musician. He is also the chief book critic for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction....
, Joan D. Vinge
Joan D. Vinge
Joan D. Vinge is an American science fiction author. She is known for such works as her Hugo Award-winning novel The Snow Queen and its sequels, her series about the telepath named Cat, and her Heaven's Chronicles books.-Biography:...
, David Weber
David Weber
David Mark Weber is an American science fiction and fantasy author. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio. Weber and his wife Sharon live in Greenville, South Carolina with their three children and "a passel of dogs"....
, K. D. Wentworth
K. D. Wentworth
Kathy Diane Wentworth , known as K. D. Wentworth, is a science fiction author. She got her start winning the Writers of the Future Contest in 1988, and then later won Field Publications' Teachers as Writers Award in 1991. She currently is the editor for the Writers of the Future Contest...
, and Catherine Asaro
Catherine Asaro
Catherine Asaro is an American science fiction and fantasy author. She is best known for her books about the Ruby Dynasty, called the Saga of the Skolian Empire.- Biography :...
.
Recurring motifs
Norton started out writing juvenile historical fiction and adventure, and then moved into fantasy and finally science fiction. Again and again in her works, alienated outsiders undertake a journey through which they realize their full potential; this emphasis on the rite of passageRite of passage
A rite of passage is a ritual event that marks a person's progress from one status to another. It is a universal phenomenon which can show anthropologists what social hierarchies, values and beliefs are important in specific cultures....
continued her association in many readers' minds with young adult fiction, although she became a best seller to adults.
In most Norton books, whether science-fiction or fantasy, the plot takes place in the open countryside, with only short episodes in a city environment. Protagonists usually move about singly or in small groups, and in conflict situations they are more often scouts, spies or guerrillas rather than regular soldiers in large military formations.
As could be expected of such characters, they tend to be resourceful and capable of taking independent initiative. In some books, protagonists are introduced already in possession of such characteristics. In others the protagonists (often young) are thrust into situations where they must develop them quickly, and invariably succeed at it.
Many planets in the books are Earth-like places, where humans can live without special protection, and have extensive flora and fauna which are described in considerable detail and often have substantial bearing on the plot. Airless planets and ones with unbreathable atmospheres are sometimes mentioned in passing, but are virtually never the main scene of a Norton book (an exception is Night of Masks). In many of her books, especially her mid-period and later fantasies, such as most of the Witch World series, there are settings described similarly, with ancient stone highways left by unknown civilizations, flanked by half-fallen walls overgrown with vines, and often studded with tall pillars topped by mythical shapes. These vistas are universally presented as almost vibrating with magical power. Another common setting, in both fantasies and science fiction, is of a room filled with alien super-scientific equipment, often where something evil (such as experimentation on humans or other living creatures) has gone or is going on.
A common theme in the books is the presence of sympathetically presented feudal and tribal cultures. In several books Native American
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
tribes and their various analogues are given a chance to be more successful than they were in actual American history. (Norton often told friends that she was proud of her little bit of Native American ancestry.) Nonhuman creatures and cultures are usually presented sympathetically, with human protagonists sometimes supporting them against oppressive human authorities. In contrast, several books present technological and mechanized cultures as negative or even positively evil.
With her 1965 book Year of the Unicorn (third in the High Hallack spinoff of her Witch World series), she used a young woman as the protagonist, which was at the time uncommon for American works of fantasy.
An important role in Norton's books is often given to animals — both ordinary terrestrial ones, such as cats (with whom she had much personal experience — see List of fictional cats#Andre Norton) and exotic fictional ones, whose characteristics are meticulously worked out. Many of Norton's animals are highly intelligent without being anthropomorphic, acting as virtually full partners to the human protagonists and in many books forming telepathic links with them.
A fictional board and counter game called "Stars and Comets" appears in many Norton science fiction books. However, only fleeting hints of the rules are revealed. Counters styled as either "stars" or "comets" move across the board taking opponents' pieces. The rules of movement and capture seem to be very complex allowing hidden strategies and sudden reversals of fortune. It may be that there are both elements of skill and chance. Often, it is not the game being played itself which features, but references to it as an analogy of some plot situation. Its use helps to reinforce the alien culture being portrayed, and also gives the reader a sense of continuity between books portraying differing people and places.
Equally, an interstellar refugee camp turned slum of dubious reputation called the Dipple provides the starting point for a number of planet stories, as the number of desperate young people seeking any escape from its poverty is high.
Star Man's Son (a.k.a. Daybreak 2250 A.D.), the story of a young man's quest through a post-apocalyptic landscape, has been retold endlessly, in print and in film, though Norton never received proper recognition for developing this theme.
She also developed the concept of traveling through alternate worlds in The Crossroads of Time. In the Time Trader series, she explored Celtic Europe, and Ice Age America, synthesizing of anthropology, archeology, and hard science fiction, and this series must also be seen as a pivotal exploration of time travel, as a method of fictionally exploring lost cultures. The second book in the Time Trader series, Galactic Derelict, features the use of recovered alien technology, to enable human travel to the stars, and this theme is also very recurrent, with definite features developed by Andre Norton.
High Hallack Library
The High Hallack Library was a facility that Andre Norton was instrumental in organizing and opening. Designed as a research facility for genre writers, and scholars of “popular” literature (the genres of science fiction, fantasy, mystery, western, romance, gothic, or horror), it was located near Norton’s home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.The facility, named after one of the continents in Norton’s Witch World series, was home to over 10,000 texts, videos and various other media. Attached to the facility were three guest rooms, allowing authors and scholars the chance to stay on-site to facilitate their research goals.
The facility was opened on February 28, 1999, and operated until March 2004. Most of the collection was sold during the closing days of the facility. The declining health of Andre Norton was one of the leading causes of its closing.
External links
- Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America obituary
- Bibliography Highly detailed bibliography containing Publisher listings, Cover-art, Non-Fiction Items and more.
- Bibliography at SciFanSciFanSciFan is an online database for fans of science fiction and fantasy books.The site provides detailed bibliographies, linking books together into series' where appropriate and, in turn, grouping series by universe...
- Audio books of Andre Norton at LibriVoxLibriVoxLibriVox is an online digital library of free public domain audiobooks, read by volunteers and is probably, since 2007, the world's most prolific audiobook publisher...
- Work of Andre Norton at HolyeBooks.org - purchase books here