Norton in the 1950s, when she was first breaking into SFF.

Andre Norton died on this date in 2005. As it so happens, March 17 is also the birthday of the mighty Ken Barr, who painted possibly the finest run of Norton covers ever. I already posted one blog entry this evening, but I’ve got the time for another post and that’s how we roll at the DMR Blog.

Andre Norton first decided to become a writer, while still a teenager, after reading A. Merritt’s The Face in the Abyss. She had her first novel—a swashbuckler titled The Prince Commands—published in 1934. Not bad for a twenty-two year old. For the next couple of decades, she specialized in writing juvenile/YA novels, gradually moving more and more into the SFF field. In the early 1950s, she also got work as a “reader” for Gnome Press when they were publishing the likes of Robert E. Howard and C.L. Moore.

As she often pointed out, it was Donald A. Wollheim who gave Norton her first big break outside of the YA ghetto. Wollheim published her in his classic Ace Doubles right alongside “grown up” authors like Jack Willimason and Poul Anderson. Norton quickly established herself as a popular author in the Ace stable. When Wollheim left Ace to start DAW Books, Norton followed and her novel, Spell of the Witch World, was the first DAW book ever published. Wollheim continued to be Norton’s main publisher throughout the ‘70s. Then there was some sort of shake-up.

That’s where I come in.

My local librarian—RIP, Mrs. Carpenter—who had stocked my library with loads of ERB and Leigh Brackett, also bought the new Fawcett editions of Norton’s backlist. The first one I checked out was Star Guard, which sported an atmospheric cover by good ol’ Ken Barr. Space mercs from Earth farmed out to bleed and die on backwater worlds to enrich an alien galactic empire. David Drake has stated that it was a major inspiration for his classic, Ranks of Bronze. It hit me hard enough to make me create a comic series based more-closely-than-loosely upon it. I’d do scans of the originals, but all of those were lost in the catastrophic Flood of 2012, where I lost so much else precious to me.

The second Norton book I checked out was Operation Time Search. A dude from the present gets thrown back to the days of Atlantis and Mu. This one had a little less action than Star Guard, but made up for it in antediluvian coolness. And it had a map! I soon learned that Norton was cribbing pretty much straight from Churchward’s The Lost Continent of Mu, but that made it even cooler. I’ve heard/read rumors that Norton wrote an early version of this in the ‘30s when she was still deeply under the spell of A. Merritt. I can see that.

In the next few years, I read The Beast Master, Lord of Thunder, Huon of the Horn and others. All with gorgeous Ken Barr covers. As the years marched on, I read less and less of Norton. Her books became harder to find and I pursued other literary interests. A few years ago, I bought her Janus collection from Baen. I won’t lie. Her style has always been borderline “young adult”. She keeps things fairly simple and her style is certainly not “literary”. The violence is never intense or in your face and sex is definitely in the background. That said, Norton has been called a “born storyteller” countless times. She wrote tales that pull you in and keep moving. She created interesting characters and put them in exciting situations. If you don’t believe me, check out this essay by Don Wollheim—the greatest editor in the history of SFF—written in praise of Andre Norton. He ranks her with Robert Heinlein and Poul Anderson.

I’m not necessarily saying that you need to go out and read Andre Norton, but you should certainly think about buying some Norton for your little brother or son. Tastes are set very young and there is a lot of crap out there. Norton wrote short, tight novels. No door-stoppers. She kept preaching to a minimum. Her imagination and knowledge of history was well above the average. And, most importantly, she knew how to craft an exciting story.

RIP, Andre.