Norton Andre (37)

A classic English-style detection mystery set in New England in the 1950s--by "the grand dame of science fiction" (Life) and legendary talent Grace Allen Hogarth. When librarian and writer Frederika Wing finds a dead body in the hammock next to Miss Hartwell's small bookshop, it's not long before the sleepy little town is filled with hostile residents--who all seem to be hiding something.

Two intriguing stray cats communicate with Jim and Elly Mae, convincing them that the cats are aliens from another planet.

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A Hidden Treasure

Sig, Artie, Kim, and Ras live in the same neighborhood and go to the same school, but they have nothing in common…until each of them sneaks into the old abandoned house on the corner and discovers the strange puzzle box covered with pictures of four dragons. Drawn by powerful magic, the boys find themselves bound together by a mystery that will transform them all--and transport them into worlds that are populated by heroes and dragons of lore….

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Tirtha was the last of the line of Hawkholme. Men who hated those of the Old Race had destroyed her clan, and she alone lived to carry the burden of her family's destiny.

Driven by powerful magic to return to her ancestral home, she set out into the twisted, ruined mountains of Eastcarp. Her hired guide was a Falconer, a man of an ancient warrior race who was also alone in the world, and falconless.

But a Dark One was determined to foil their mission -- and only together could they hope to stand against its awesome powers.

Times are changing in Rendelsham. The old King is dead, and the foolish Prince Florian has assumed the throne. Florian's mother, Queen Ysa of the House of Oak, still controls the land from behind the scences, but her job grows more difficult every day. Her unworthy, headstrong son is harder to control than her husband was, and she must spend more time than ever masking her own movements. Her husband's illegitimate daughter Ashen, heir to the nearly dead House of Ash, still causes trouble by her very existence, and must never be given an opening to the throne. The barbarian Sea-Rover clan presents problems from the edge of the Bog, Ysa's newest magical ally has been exposed as a traitor, and nothing is going as Ysa had planned.

And still the unknown yet encroaching threat from the North continues to grow.

Through births and deaths, marriages and duels, love and betrayal, magic and force, the four Houses of Rendelsham can only survive by the strength of their unity--but is unity possible in such a court of intrigue as this one?

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The Dales of Andre Norton’s Witch World have endured wars, natural disasters, the predations of strange creatures, and treachery. None loves the land as well as Lorcan, orphaned at birth, who has sought his birthright for as long as he can remember. Exiled from his native land when it was invaded by Alizon, he spent his youth in Paltendale where he was treated as an outsider, especially by Hogeth, an heir of that dale, who resented Lorcan’s presence when both were still young men.

When he came of age, Lorcan left to seek his own destiny. Since then, he has fought valiantly to rid the Dales of the Alizon invaders, but not even his efforts can prevent the deaths of many people, and the destruction of many keeps and garths. The war now over, he has survived, but so have those who would plunder the lands of the survivors. And among the plundering bandits is his nemesis from Paltendale, now more bitter and determined to vanquish Lorcan.

During his travels Lorcan has joined with five blank shields, who, fighting together for common cause, become his boon companions. Then he meets a young noble lass, from a dale known as Honeycoombe for its beekeeping. Her dale has been decimated by the war, but with Lorcan and his band, she will try to rebuild a home where they all can live in peace. Lorcan feels that he might at last find happiness with the valiant fair maiden. But Hogeth now leads marauders across the dales, destroying what they cannot rightfully have, and there will be no peace in the dales until Lorcan and Hogeth settle their old, bitter score.

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### From Publishers Weekly

Though fantasy veteran Norton, who died earlier this year, receives first billing, New Zealander McConchie indicates in her acknowledgments that she, with her mentor's blessing, wrote this entertaining, if unspectacular, novel set in Norton's Witch World. When invaders destroy 10-year-old Lorcan's family and lands, he becomes the Keep Lord of Erondale. Five years later, the destitute lad has managed to master some weaponry and strikes out on his own. Due to hidden wealth entrusted to a faithful family retainer, he's no longer penniless, but he still needs all his resourcefulness and courage to survive. Meanwhile, Meive of Landale, a young beekeeper, loses her home and family to outlaws. Meive can communicate with her bees, who in the tale's most unusual twist are magical warrior bees led by the wise and powerful Bee-Goddess. Aided by the hymenopteran hivers, Lorcan and Meive set about freeing dalefolk from the tyranny of vile renegades and restoring Landale as a haven. Witch World fans will find this "collaboration" fits smoothly into the series. *(Dec.)*

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### From Booklist

Lorcan, former heir to Erendale, must make a new life for himself after the wars with Alizon. While traveling, he falls into the hands of bandits, from whom he is rescued by Meive, a beekeeper and lady of power, who has lost her own kin. They work together to rebuild Meive's dale, aiming to create a haven for those who have lost land or kin and are willing to work for the common good. In this well-crafted fantasy set in the late Norton's Witch World, she and McConchie, her collaborator on two previous Witch World novels, have produced a seamless page-turner. Although the basic setting is familiar after more than 40 years' worth of Witch World stories, the book's quite convincing picture of a land without rulers or laws in the wake of disaster is more than a little timely. *Frieda Murray*

*Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved*

Oak, Yew, Ash, and Rowan: the four powers of the world, all once great and mighty, now yielding to the effects of centuries of war. A King of Oak and a Queen of Yew sit on the thrones of the land--the King is a drunken lout, the Queen a magical schemer. Ash and Rowan are nearly dead, their totem trees in the sacred square withering away to nothing.

Allis falling into place for the power-hungry Queen Ysa, who will stop at nothing to ensure the continuation of her line. Only one thing may stand in her way: a long-ago prophesy that Daughter of Ash will one day rise again to reclaim her rightful place on the throne.

But deep in the swamps, in the care of the witch-healer all need and all fear, there is a young girl-woman who can not be the witch's daughter; a girl who by virtue of her beauty and elegance, and simmering power, can only be a Daughter of Ash, the one who will rise to fulfill the prophecy--and the destiny of her birthright.

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### About the Author

For well over a half century, **Andre Norton **has been one of the most popular science fiction and fantasy authors in the world. Since her first SF novels were published in the 1940s, her adventure SF has enthralled readers young and old. With series such as* Time Traders, Solar Queen, Forerunner, Beast Master, Crosstime, *and *Janus*, as well as many stand-alone novels, her tales of action and adventure throughout the galaxy have drawn countless readers to science fiction.

Her fantasy, including the best-selling *Witch World* series, her "Magic" series, and many other unrelated novels, has been popular with readers for decades. Lauded as a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America, she is the recipient of a Life Achievement Award from the World Fantasy Convention. Not only have her books been enormously popular; she also has inspired several generations of SF and fantasy writers, especially many talented women writers who have followed in her footsteps. In the past two decades she has worked with other writers on a number of novels. Most notable among these are collaborations with Mercedes Lackey, the *Halfblood Chronicles,* as well as collaborations with A.C. Crispin (in the *Witch World* series) and Sherwood Smith (in the *Time Traders *and *Solar Queen *series). An Ohio native, Ms. Norton lived for a number of years in Winter Park, Florida, and now makes her home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, where she continues to write, and presides over High Hallack, a writers' resource and retreat.

“Grand Dame of Science Fiction” Andre Norton’s two Dream novels collected together for the first time.  Powerful dreamers become trapped in the perilous, magical worlds of their own creation and must learn to shape their own dreams – or disappear forever.

“Grand Dame of Science Fiction” Andre Norton’s dream sagas; two novels collected together for the first time in one volume:

*Perilous Dreams

*Tamisen the Dreamer, trained to walk through her dreams to other places, other worlds. But when she is asked by the crippled star traveler Lord Starrex to take him into a dream world where he can regain his legs and his life something goes terribly wrong.  Someone, or some*thing*, stalks this world, and it does not mean well to Starrex or to Tamisen.

*Knave of Dreams

*For Ramsay Kimble, sleep means nightmares, and he avoids it whenever possible.  But now a car accident has catapaulted him into the very world he most dreads:  the horror world of his own dreams.  But here he is not his ordinary self, but a nobleman from a fair country, possessed of power to fight back, defeat his nightmare visions, change his dream world – and ultimately rescue his life from the terror that stalks him.

**About Andre Norton:**

“The Grand Dame of Science Fiction…” –*Time*

“One of the all-time masters.” –Peter Straub

“Andre Norton is a superb storyteller whose skill draws the reader completely into a fantastic other world…”  –*Chicago Tribune*

**About *Perilous Dreams *and *Knave of Dreams*:**

"[A]ll of Norton's renowned story-telling magic is present in abundance . . ." –*Future Retrospective*

"An interesting handling of the parallel worlds theme." –*Kliatt*

**

An orphan, Blake Walker has never really known who he is, and his strange flashes of intuition have always set him apart from those who raised him and everyone else he has known. Acting on one of those flashes, he prevented a murder. But neither the assailant nor his intended victim were from the world Walker had always known, and he had stumbled onto the greatest secret of the ages. Our Earth is only one of an infinite number of Earths, each with a slightly different history from the others, each separated from the others in a crosstime dimension. Walker was drafted into a frantic search for a madman from an advanced Earth who desires to be an absolute ruler of men. The would-be tyrant has chosen our Earth as the place where his reign will begin. And, if the powerful technology he controls does not give him complete control of the planet, he will not hesitate to destroy it utterly . . .   Publisher’s Note: Crosstime was originally published in parts as The Crossroads of Time and Quest Crosstime. This is the first time both novels have appeared in one volume.

In the crowded firmament of contemporary fantasists, no star shines brighter than Andre Norton - a dazzlingly inventive crafter of otherworlds and wonders, and past recipient of the World Fantasy Convention's Life Achievement Award. And now the Grandmaster returns with the riveting tale of two courageous young adventurers...and their perilous quest for light. The blackened and desolate land called the Ryft was once paradise - the magnificent garden of the goddess Lyr. But that was lifetimes ago - before an old and crafty evil descended upon the world. While still a child, Alnosha came to this ruined place of dread and despair. And here, under the loving guidance of the forgotten goddess' last priestess, Alnosha first discovered and honed her extraordinary hand-talent: the ability to divine by touch. Now another has come to the Ryft - an embittered High Born youth, outlawed and pursued by the villainous servants of a false god. Though he hates and mistrusts all mystical powers, the fugitive Kryn is inexplicably drawn to Alnosha, the Gifted One. And together they embark upon a strange and perilous odyssey that will lead them from the broken lands to the savage city...and into the malevolent heart of an all-consuming darkness. For ancient hands that once held the bounty of the sun are guiding their every step - shattered hands that Alnosha and her reluctant champion must restore at all costs...or face a hopeless and terrifying future eternally trapped in evil's thrall.

How many millions of books by Andre Norton have been sold and read with pleasure by science fiction readers is beyond anyone's guess. For quite without fanfare Andre Norton has become the favorite author in the pantheon of science fantasy writers. Norton's novels of time travel, of interstellar trade, of other dimensions, and of the fabulous Witch World, are constantly in print and always in demand - and so it with pride that this new book brings to the sf public Norton's rarest gems: novelettes and short stories unavailable elsewhere that comprise between themselves the whole strata of Norton's marvel cosmos. "The Book of Andre Norton" Contains, among others, "The Toads of Grimmerdale", "Long Live Lord Kor!", and five more classics, as well as special articles about and by Andre Norton and a complete bibliography.

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In a future where humanity has scattered itself across the stars and Earth itself is now a dimly-remembered place of legend, two worlds of near-supernatural strangeness challenge two naive but courageous heroes. The planet Beltane had been unscathed by the all-encompassing war of the four Sectors when Vere Collis and his friends, exploring caves underground, were trapped by powerful explosions on the surface. Their leader was killed, but the group wandered for days underground to find a way to the surface. They emerged to find that they were the last human survivors on Beltane. Only strange and deadly mutant creatures now roamed the surface. Elsewhere in the galaxy, Kilda's home planet had no place for her, so she took employment as a teacher and governess to two young children on the planet named Dylan. But she soon found that one of her charges has an invisible "dread companion" and soon Kilda knows that the companion is not imaginary at all, as it leads her charges into an other-dimensional world resembling the legends of Faerie. Though the other world has unknown dangers on every hand, Kilda follows the children across the spatial barrier, knowing that she is their only hope. Two complete novels of two very different heroes battling alien and unknown evil, and fighting to protect the helpless in worlds that are wondrous, terrifying, and utterly alien.

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**Publisher's Note: ***Dark Companion* has previously appeared separately as *Dark Piper* and *Dread Companion*. This is the first combined publication in paperback of the complete book.**

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Two children receive messages in an old mailbox in a vacant lot and are plunged into the strangest week of their lives.

Amazon review: This review is from: The Opal-Eyed Fan (Hardcover) The Opal-Eyed Fan is one of my favorite Norton books, though it isn't overly endowed with substance, or is even really fantasy. It's romantic suspense, tinged with a bit of the supernatural. And while it might not be particularly intellectually stimulating, it serves a very necessary function as brain candy. It's set in the Florida Keys, quite awhile back when wreckers-- and pirates-- still roamed the waters. Persis Rooke, accompanying her uncle on a mysterious quest involving an old family scandal and a forgotten will, is shipwrecked on Lost Lady Key. Lost Lady Key is the home of her rescuer, the wrecker Crewe Leverett, his sister Lydia, the remnants of an ancient island race, and (as implied in its name) a ghost. Persis is increasingly drawn into the intrigues of the island's inhabitants. What are Lydia and her handsome beau, pirate Ralph Grillon, planning? What does Ralph Grillon want from Persis? And what is the significance of the strange false fan that keeps turning up in Persis' possession? Perhaps a little conventional, but still great fun. It has its high points; the take on wreckers, who are often represented unfavorably, is particularly interesting. Recommended for all who like swashbuckling, pirates, adventure, and a nice dash of romance. If this heady mixture sounds appealing, it's worth the effort to find a copy (although it will be necessary to ignore the dreadfully dated cover). For another great swashbuckler, also try Andre Norton and Rosemary Edghill's recent The Shadow of Albion. Ailanna

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There is nothing quite like the type of space yarn that the great and greatly prolific Andre Norton wrote in the 1950s and 1960s. Well-crafted, colorful, exciting, with a wonderful sense of strangeness and awe to the settings and descriptions, these books never fail to delight, no matter how many times you read them. Even the elements which tend to date these novels add a sort of nostalgic charm that I find irresistable. If you have yet to get into Andre Norton, now is a good time. You are bound to have a fun fun time!

Centuries after the civilized world destroyed itself in a dimly-remembered final war, a few rebels courageously searched through the shattered cities/ trying to regain old knowledge. One was Fors-driven from his clan for the crime of being a mutant. Though his people had long searched the remnants of the old world to regain the knowledge and skills of their ancestors, the land to the north was forbidden. Having nothing to lose, Pars and his feline companion set out to the north, little realizing what a staggering discovery they would make. Elsewhere/ Sander also searched-for the Before People who were said to have survived the great devastation. Then he encountered Fanyl, engaged in her own quest for the knowledge of the Before People. And soon they would find themselves threatened by an ancient evil which destroyed not just lives, but minds as well....

Plague Ship contains the second Solar Queen adventure. Nortons four-book series about the trader-crew of the Solar Queen ended in 1969 with Postmarked the Stars This remarkable Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and Nebula Grand Master just recently passed away after a long and extremely fruitful career (her first novel was published in 1934, her latest fantasy in 2005). Nortons Solar Queen stories are told from the viewpoint of Dane Thorson, an apprentice-Cargo Master who is introduced in Sargasso of Space, the first Solar Queen novel, as a lanky, very young man in an ill-fitting Traders tunic. Most of this authors heroes and heroines are young, uncertain of themselves, shy, with a tendency to trip over their own enthusiasms and load themselves up with guilt at the slightest opportunity. They are very likeable and their adventures are narrated in remarkably lean prose with just the right touch of description. After ten years of schooling, orphan Dane Thorson is assigned via a computer analysis of his psychological profile--not to a safe berth on a sleek Company-run starship that his classmates were vying for--but to a battered tramp of a Free Trader. To say that the Solar Queen lacked a great many refinements and luxurious fittings which the Company ships boasted was an understatement. But she was a tightly-run ship and what she lacked in refinement, she made up for in adventure. Dane soon settles in under Cargo Master Van Rycke and learns to his dismay what large gaps unfortunately existed in his training. Plague Ship takes the crew of the Solar Queen to Sargol, where the enigmatic feline natives seem very reluctant to trade away their fabulous scented gemstones. When Dane Thorson discovers an herb that the Salariki are willing to swap for their gems, he fears that his eagerness to make a trade breakthrough might have poisoned a native child. That becomes the least of his worries when the Solar Queen blasts off from Sargol with invisible, undetectable stowaways that would brand the free traders anathema to all inhabited worlds. The Solar Queen novels are prime representatives of Nortons lean action-packed brand of story-telling. If you havent read them since you were a teen-ager, I urge you to try them again. For a few pleasant hours, you will be immersed in the adventures of a likeable, feisty band of free traders on exotic, carefully-drawn alien worlds.

Simon Tregarth, whose own Earthly prowess had won him a throne and a witch-wife in an alien world, knew that both triumphs were precarious as long as the super-science of Kolder held a foothold on that planet.

Mike and Susan feel a mounting sense of urgency and terror as they try to protect their younger brother who seems threatened by an invisible and powerful force in a house that has long been in their family, on which there is supposedly a curse.

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The planet Korwar was a glittering jewel of a world, inhabited by the galaxy's wealthiest, visited by the upper classes of other worlds in search of diversion. The jewel had a flaw: the Dipple, its name coming from a contraction of ''displaced person,'' where the misfits, the hopeless, the penniless eke out a wretched existence on the dole. Two young men hoped to escape from the Dipple:

Troy Horan was deported from his own planet after it lost an interstellar war. When he had a chance to work in an unusual pet shop, offering exotic creatures from other worlds to the wealthy, he though his luck had changed. But the owner was playing a dangerous game of intrigue, and when he was murdered Troy barely escaped with his own life. Aided only by telepathic animals from old Terra who had befriended him, he had no choice but to hide in ruins left behind by the now-vanished original inhabitants of Korwar; ruins which explorers had entered without returning. . . .

Nik Kolherne had a face so cruelly scared and disfigured that he wore a mask to cover it. When he was recruited with a promise of being given a new face, a face which would make a young heir think he was someone else, he was uneasy, but accepted the offer. Then he found out that he was party to a kidnapping for more sinister purposes than he had been told, and he was the only hope of the young heir's survival—if the two of them could survive on a planet veiled in eternal night, swarming with dangerous predators. . . .

Andre Norton-Grand Mistress of science fiction-presents a grand tapestry of the far-flung interstellar future, in which the first starships from Earth have burst out into the universe . . . only to run straight into the restraining grasp of the stagnant alien federation known as Central Control.

Only as interstellar mercenaries can humans go to the stars; the aliens who already dominate the galaxy allow no other recourse. But when Swordsman Third Class Kana Karr and his comrades-in-arms are betrayed and abandoned on a hostile world by their alien masters, the warriors from Earth begin a desperate but glorious march across a planet whose every sword is against them. Their actions may doom humanity's future . . . or lead the way to an empire of their own!

Four thousand years later, galactic civilization is collapsing, and the underfunded crew of an exploration starship is forced to set down on an uncharted planet: a mysterious, abandoned world that is achingly beautiful-and hauntingly familiar. Ranger Sergeant Kartr, telepath and stellar Patrolman, searches with his crewmates for the source of a beacon which may mean escape for them all. What he finds is far stranger: the first clue to what may become the greatest revelation in galactic history!

Enter a world of ancient magic

When his father is called to active duty in Vietnam, Cory Alder is sent to spend the summer with his adopted Native American uncle, Jasper. Accustomed to life in the city, Cory finds the reality of the ranch scary--every shadow is full of menace. But when an encounter with a medicine man catapults Cory into a world of Native American legend, conquering his fears becomes a matter of survival. Transformed into a beaver called Yellow Shell, Cory is now part of a war between the People, animals whose intelligence equals that of humans. In order to return home, Cory must help Yellow Shell and his allies defeat the Changer, who is attempting to enslave the People in this world--and in Cory's world as well. With two worlds hanging in the balance, Cory will have to use every ounce of courage and animal instinct within him to defeat this enemy . . .

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On the distant jungle world of Janus, Naill Renfro hopes to work off his debts and begin his life anew. But soon Naill begins to remember another place, in another time--when he was not human, but something else: a native of Janus, in the days before its civilization fell. Embarking on a quest to learn more of his alien heritage, Naill will discover the mysterious source of his strange new memory, the fate of the others of his kind--and the story of human invaders who devastated the once-proud world!

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### The story of Kerovan, whose cloven hooves set him apart from the human folk of the Dales, as he seeks his rights as heir to the throne of Ulm at a time when strange sea invaders are shattering the old kingdoms, and equally enigmatic manifestations of the Old Ones coming to interfere with humanity.

Publisher's Note: From the Sea to the Stars was originally published in parts as Sea Siege and Star Gate. This is the first time both novels have appeared together.

Sea Siege: The nuclear war had come at last and the research team on an island in the West Indies thought they had been lucky to survive. But survival was going to require more than luck, when they found themselves under attack by sea creatures out of darkest legend, directed by a malevolent intelligence from the depths of the sea.

Star Gate: Long ago, the Star Lords had come from a dying Earth to Gorth, where they helped the inhabitants build a civilization. Now some of the Lords have resumed wandering among the stars, but others have decided to travel through an interdimensional gate to another Gorth in a parallel universe. And when they find that in this universe the Star Lords from Earth conquered and enslaved the people of Gorth, their course is clear. They must battle their counterparts to free Gorth--even if it means their own destruction.

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