The science fiction map is vast and expansive, a giant tome that many have struggled to contain and define. It extends not only to known planets of our own solar system — Mars, for example, which was colonized by Burroughs and Kim Stanley Robinson — to entire sub-universes as big as our reality. Asimov’s Foundation series occupies a vast swath, as does Robert Heinlein’s Future History. But none has quite as huge and separate domain as Andre Norton. With over a hundred books to her credit (accurate reports vary in total) and one of the only women to have an award named after her (the Nebula’s Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy), and first woman to be SFWA Grand Master, Andre Norton inspired a generation of women writers and opened up universe after universe for our exploration.
I was the happiest girl in the world when my children’s librarian, who knew I read EVERYTHING, casually asked me one day if I’d read Andre Norton. The next moment I recall quite vividly. Two shelves at the Boulder Public Library, two whole shelves, filled with nothing but paperback and turtleback books by Andre Norton. No one else in the library, in either the children’s or adult section, had as much shelf space as Andre Norton. Her books were slim and there were TONS of them – ragged, tattered, and with that 1950’s pulp smell. I knew these books were written by a woman, despite the gender neutral name. I just thought she was French. And then the librarian told me she didn’t even have them all!
That day, my friends, an epic quest was born. A noble goal that I have spent forty years attempting to achieve – a complete collection of every book Andre Norton ever published. I am failing, of course, as one should at least a few times during an epic quest, but I persevere. I think I’m at 60 or so.
Born Alice Mary Norton in 1912, she used the pseudonym “Andre” as neutral name so that she could write about either gender in a male dominated domain. She started off writing historical novels, but fortunately for me, switched to science fiction in the 1950’s. After working as a children’s librarian, researcher, and journalist for 18 years, she turned to full-time writing in the late 50’s. Perhaps her most famous series was the Witch World set, which combined elements of science fiction and fantasy together to create the Witches of Estcarp and never-ending stories of escape and adventure. Most of her juvenile books revolve around an adolescent (of either sex) stumbling upon a grand galactic/surreal fantasy world, often with the help of a companion, quite often a cat, or cat variant. (Andre Norton loved cats as much as the internet.)
Unlike other writers of her stature and time period, Hollywood and television have, for the most part, passed her by. (We shall not talk of The Beastmaster). This is to some extent, understandable. Norton wrote so much she defies description and classification. Fantasy. Science fiction (both hard and soft), romance, historical. She took her early love for historicals and incorporated extensive details and research into her books. Her worlds contain indigenous peoples who are not tropes, who have rich histories, and are equally advanced, if different, from her protagonists. The lines in her universe are distinct – there is good, there is evil, and modern day humans are on both sides. She wrote both for kids and adults, although she is most remembered and revered for her work in juvenile fantasy/science fiction. She died in 2005 at the age of 93, and has inspired multiple generations of writers.
Name a flavor of SF/Fantasy, and chances are, she wrote it. Telepathic companion animals? See Daybreak – 2250. Time travel with romantic elements? Time Traders series. Science fiction Arthurian Avalon ruled by meta-humans/evolved Elf types? Here Abide Monsters (a personal favorite).
(Total sidebar. I have a habit of fitting songs to books, and right after I read Here Abide Monsters, I heard Toto’s Africa, which lyrics I changed in my head to “I bless the rains down in Avalon”.)
Here’s an odd fact about her novels. Every book has exactly 18 chapters. (Dr. Al Wendland turned me on to that tidbit and in every book I’ve got with original layout, it holds true.)
My personal quest continues. If you’ve got any Andre Norton lying about in need of a good home, do let me know. (Unless it’s The Jargoon Pard, which I seem to have four different copies of already, which is probably sufficient.) Her place on the map of universes is so large, that my quest is both suitably noble and potentially, epically doomed.
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