Andre Norton [1912 - 2005]
James Nicoll
this morning.
James Nicoll
--
http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
http://www.marryanamerican.ca
http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
James Gassaway
news:d1caam$8kh$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
> this morning.
>
*moment of silence*
Solom...@aol.com
I am deeply saddened by this Ms. Norton's passing. The first science
fiction book that I ever read was "The X-Factor." I was in third
grade. It changed my life forever.
Joel Solomon
myrme...@yahoo.com
James Nicoll wrote:
> Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
> this morning.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/SHOWBIZ/books/03/17/obit.norton.ap/index.html
Catherine Hampton
wrote:
> Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
> this morning.
I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
<sigh>
--
Catherine Hampton <ar...@spambouncer.org>
Home Page * <http://www.devsite.org/>
The SpamBouncer * <http://www.spambouncer.org/>
(Please use this address for replies -- the address in my header is a
spam trap.)
Luke Webber
> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:13:10 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> wrote:
>
>
>>Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
>>this morning.
>
>
> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
>
> <sigh>
A great many, to judge from the earlier thread foreshadowing her death.
I'm saddened by her death, but glad that she has achieved peace after
her illness.
Luke
Gene Ward Smith
news:tuuj311ucfuct8cn9...@4ax.com:
> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
I don't know what the actual first one was, but the first I recall was
David Starr, Space Ranger, by a guy named Paul French, whom it was later
revealed was actually called Isaac Asimov.
Shawn Wilson
"Gene Ward Smith" <gws...@svpal.org> wrote in message
news:Xns961C9AD235E4...@209.68.147.67...
>> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
>
> I don't know what the actual first one was, but the first I recall was
> David Starr, Space Ranger, by a guy named Paul French, whom it was later
> revealed was actually called Isaac Asimov.
The first real books I ever read, as opposed to stuff that was written for
adolescents, were 'Le Morte D'Arthur' and 'Have Space Suit, Will Travel'.
(OK, technically HSSWT WAS written for adolescents, but it was in the adult
SF section).
Richard Collier
"Catherine Hampton" <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote in message
news:tuuj311ucfuct8cn9...@4ax.com...
> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:13:10 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James
> Nicoll)
> wrote:
>
>> Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
>> this morning.
>
> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
>
Me too (well certainly the Science Fiction as opposed to fantasy) -
Sargasso of Space was my first.
Garrett Wollman
Catherine Hampton <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote:
>I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
I'm not sure whether I did or not (it was either her or L'Engle), but
I'm trying hard and failing to remember anything about the first
Norton I read. I can remember later stuff I did read -- nearly
everything of hers that I could find the the YA section of the
library -- but that very first book I can't remember what it was
about. I think the title was something nasty like "Star Ka'at World"
(would have to be considered Late Norton, I suppose).
Stuff that I *do* remember reading:
- That "time"-travel story with Atlantis.
- Moon of Three Rings and its sequel
I know I read at least a dozen others, but can't place them at all.
-GAWollman
--
Garrett A. Wollman | As the Constitution endures, persons in every
wol...@csail.mit.edu | generation can invoke its principles in their own
Opinions not those | search for greater freedom.
of MIT or CSAIL. | - A. Kennedy, Lawrence v. Texas, 539 U.S. ___ (2003)
aa...@flash.net
Heinlein, but alas he only wrote about one 'juvie' a year. It was quite
a relief to have Norton as a fall back.
I recall with great fondness her 'future on a chipped plate' SF (as
Brian Aldiss would characterize domesticated space opera).
Always wanting to get to some pastoral setting in her SF, yet she had a
great eye for a 'lived in look' in her future fiction urban places.
Her SF rework of Xenophon's Anabasis in Star Guard was quite a
clever idea , not sure another SF author ever tried it.
TechDock
> snip
>
> Stuff that I *do* remember reading:
>
> - That "time"-travel story with Atlantis.
> - Moon of Three Rings and its sequel
>
> I know I read at least a dozen others, but can't place them at all.
>
> -GAWollman
>
Thank you. I had forgotten about Moon of Three Rings, and I remember
now how much I enjoyed that.
I don't think I started with Norton, but I definitely remember The Zero
Stone and the effect it had on my science fiction reading career. It
really generated the sense of wonder for me.
Colin Campbell
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
> Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
> this morning.
>
> James Nicoll
I think my introduction to Andre Norton was THE STARS ARE OURS in the
50s in my early days of SF intoxication, and I grabbed everything of
hers I could find. The one that influenced me the most was the TIME
TRADER series...I was fascinated by the idea of studying to become a
Beaker trader in the far B.C., and it sparked my interest in archaeology
and paleontology.
Geek
>
> > Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
> > this morning.
> >
> > James Nicoll
Anderson was the first I read, but Norton was my first real favorite.
I searched down everything she wrote. So much, and so many different
things. She was about the last of the Masters of the 50's, I cannot
think of any left.
aa...@flash.net
... and Ray Bradbury , I think Clarke is about to go tho.
Arwel Parry
>
> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
>
I did. "Star Guard" was one of the first two books I borrowed when I
first got my library tickets at the town library when I was 9. August
1968....
----
Arwel Parry
http://www.cartref.demon.co.uk/
stePH
@grapevine.lcs.mit.edu:
> I'm trying hard and failing to remember anything about the first
> Norton I read. I can remember later stuff I did read -- nearly
> everything of hers that I could find the the YA section of the
> library -- but that very first book I can't remember what it was
> about. I think the title was something nasty like "Star Ka'at World"
> (would have to be considered Late Norton, I suppose).
That would be the sequel to _Star Ka'at_, and I think one more book
followed it.
stePH
--
If it cannot break the egg's shell, a chick will die without being born.
We are the chick. The world is our egg.
If we cannot break the world's shell, we will die without being born.
Smash the world's shell! For the revolution of the world!
stePH
> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
My first was _A Wrinkle in Time_ by Madeleine L'Engle. But _Star Ka'at_
by Norton wasn't far behind it.
I think it's the only Norton I've ever read, though.
Marilee J. Layman
>Catherine Hampton <spam...@spambouncer.org> wrote in
>news:tuuj311ucfuct8cn9...@4ax.com:
>
>> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
>
>My first was _A Wrinkle in Time_ by Madeleine L'Engle. But _Star Ka'at_
>by Norton wasn't far behind it.
>
>I think it's the only Norton I've ever read, though.
My first was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor
Cameron. I didn't read Norton until a couple of years ago, when the
SF discussion group read Time Traders.
--
Marilee J. Layman
William F. Adams
Reminds me though I'll have to dig out a set of the Witch World novels
to read to my kids (5 and 10). The high school I attended was located
in a rural county in Virginia where apparently Ms. Norton had kin, who
upon receiving books from her, promptly donated them to the library, so
they had a fairly compleat set of the Witch World books for which I am
eternally grateful.
_The Crystal Gryphon_ was always one of my favourites, and the
post-apocalyptic future novel she wrote for juveniles was one of the
first books I ever read (after Hal Gordon's _Divers Down_).
William
Richard Shewmaker
Thank you for the link.
I loved her Witch World books; I probably started reading them in junior
high. It's a bit of a reality check, thinking about that now.
Keith F. Lynch
> My first was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor
> Cameron. I didn't read Norton until a couple of years ago, when the
> SF discussion group read Time Traders.
_Time Traders_ was one of the first SF novels I ever read. I don't
remember when I first read it, but I still have my copy, and it's a
1958 printing.
--
Keith F. Lynch - http://keithlynch.net/
Please see http://keithlynch.net/email.html before emailing me.
Al
impressed with her ability to present very viable SF!
Captain Button
>> My first was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor
>> Cameron. I didn't read Norton until a couple of years ago, when the
>> SF discussion group read Time Traders.
>
>_Time Traders_ was one of the first SF novels I ever read. I don't
>remember when I first read it, but I still have my copy, and it's a
>1958 printing.
I'm not sure which book was first, but it was almost certainly one of the
Heinlein juveniles.
But I ran into Norton quickly, what with being adjacent to Norse and all.
I read _ Ice Crown _ pretty early on, I'm sure.
--
Once is happenstance.
Twice is coincidence.
Four times is enemy action.
BOMB MARS NOW! [ Captain Button - but...@io.com ]
Marilee J. Layman
wrote:
>Marilee J. Layman <mjla...@erols.com> wrote:
>> My first was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor
>> Cameron. I didn't read Norton until a couple of years ago, when the
>> SF discussion group read Time Traders.
>
>_Time Traders_ was one of the first SF novels I ever read. I don't
>remember when I first read it, but I still have my copy, and it's a
>1958 printing.
Yeah, I went on to read all the Time Trader books, even the new ones
written with/by other people.
--
Marilee J. Layman
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
> My first was The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet, by Eleanor
> Cameron. I didn't read Norton until a couple of years ago, when the
> SF discussion group read Time Traders.
>
The Mushroom books are favorites of mine too. I wouldn't say they are
SF in the sense that say _The Zero Stone_ was though I would be hard put
to say where the whimsey in the former outstrips a cat with psionic
powers in the latter.
Ted
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Al <aa...@flash.net> wrote:
>
>
>I was not fond of her fantasy, but , she, being a techno-phobe, I was
>impressed with her ability to present very viable SF!
>
Hmm, didn't know she was a techophobe, but it does cross into her SF,
where things are always running out of power or breaking down..
Ted
James Nicoll
Luckily, we know how to fix or replace them. A lot of Norton's novels
are set in periods of unusually rapid increases in entropy when her
characters lack the resources to keep up. Others are set in regions
where resources are poor for some reason, like the Dopples.
Patricia Wadley
> "James Nicoll" <jdni...@panix.com> wrote in message
> news:d1caam$8kh$1...@reader1.panix.com...
> > Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
> > this morning.
> >
>
> *moment of silence*
The first Norton I ever read [man am I older than most of you] was
"Beastmaster." I was in the seventh grade and it was the single
most influential book as it showed me what storytelling was all
about.
Andre was first and foremost a storyteller. She created worlds
that became characters in her stories. There was color and
conflict and details and characters and imagination all bundled up
into worlds that, by gawd, I wanted to go to.
I have read all of her books, some more than ten times. I know
that I have read the WW series from start to finish at least ten
times. And I just started it again.
"Star Guard" was such a wizard book that I judged other SF
military fiction against it. Her ability to make me see what was
happening allowed me to revisit places that I will never actually
go.
I read new authors and sometimes I will write and tell them that I
enjoyed their book and sometimes I tell them that they remind me
of Andre. And, without exception, they have all replied that they
are honored to be compared to her, but not worthy. And then they
all write that she was the single most influential writer that
they had read and often she was the reason they began writing.
Her leaving means the "Golden Age" is truly dead. She leaves a
void that no one will be able to fill, though some will try.
I, for one, will mourn her until the day I die.
p
Patricia Wadley
Yes, but that taught me, as she taught her protagonists, that the only
thing you can depend on is yourself. That you must be self-reliant and
have courage and confidence. That the only thing that can and will hold
you back is yourself.
That knowledge that seeped into my life enabled me to handle just about
anything that came along. It wasn't as if I stood around and said "What
would Andre" do? No, I had just learned to trust myself and not to depend
upon others. It made graduate school a breeze. Relatively.
p
William George Ferguson
>Al <aa...@flash.net> wrote:
>>
>>I was not fond of her fantasy, but , she, being a techno-phobe, I was
>>impressed with her ability to present very viable SF!
>>
>
>Hmm, didn't know she was a techophobe, but it does cross into her SF,
>where things are always running out of power or breaking down..
She has frequently been described as a technophobe, but I don't know that
it is completely valid. She certainly wrote books where technology was
harmful (the Janus books as an example, or the Koldor in the Witch World
books), but in most of her fiction, technology was neutral.
The first Andre Norton book I read (aka the first real sf book I read, in
a 35 cent Ace Double around 1957) was The Stars Are Ours. In that book,
the scientists are the heroes, and the anti-science fanatics are the bad
guys.
Patricia Wadley, in a post on this thread, mentions that she will mourn
Andre Norton. I don't know if, for me, mourn is the right word. I will
certainly miss new Norton books (after April), but by all accounts Andre
Norton loved to write. She got to spend 71 years doing what she loved and
getting paid for it. In many ways, that is a life to be envied.
--
"Who needs the big picture? Not me! Hints are fine."
-Joan Girardi
(after God showed her just a little of his omnipresent brain)
Patricia Wadley
Yes, she definitely got to do what she liked. And it allowed me, and others,
to visit the worlds that she dreamed up. I mourn the loss of the future books
she would have written, her last book was hurried into print by her publisher
so that she could see it before she died.
But I shall also mourn her as a friend. She was the first writer to whom I
ever wrote and we corresponded, off and on, for many, many years. It wasn't
like some deep philosophical conversations, it was "I loved such and such a
book. What do you think of this and that? BTW have you read this or this?
Yada, yada, yada." But she was kind enough to ask after my studies, comment
on books she was reading or had read. She told me what was going on with her
cats, where she had been, what was going on at "High Hallack." That sort of
thing. The kind of chit chat that does nothing more than tell one another
"Hey, I've been thinking of you and wondered how you are."
I shall miss knowing that there are new worlds and possibilities coming from
her pen.
I shall miss her.
I shall mourn her loss.
p
Geek
>
> The first Norton I ever read [man am I older than most of you] was
> "Beastmaster." I was in the seventh grade and it was the single
> most influential book as it showed me what storytelling was all
> about.
> "Star Guard" was such a wizard book that I judged other SF
> military fiction against it. Her ability to make me see what was
> happening allowed me to revisit places that I will never actually
> go.
I will also miss her greatly. I started reading in the early fifties
and along with Anderson, her books were my favorites. I have a very
fond place for Beast Master, and the follow up Lord of Thunder, was one
of the first books to scare the what-ever out of me. There is a
section that just creeped me out, I loved it. I guess now I am going to
have to find the pile of Nortons that are somewhere around here and
start rereading them.
She was a great lady, and I too will miss her.
Dana
Al
that
it is completely valid. "
Tho I do remember the first Norton I read was Star Guard and the
villains were the 'Mechs' and our heroes were the 'Archs', I was only
14 when I read it in 1955 so I did not notice , but even in that book I
don't think she was using a harsh a value judgment.
All the more to her credit. It was Heinlein who set the SF hook into me
with, well the story telling of course! but also the future fiction
verisimilitude. His 'domesticated super science' settings (tho soon I
found this permeated most modern SF 'future fiction' and good 'space
opera').
Norton was quite clever, I loved her urban settings, even if she spent
most of her time 'pastoral'. Never any bad techno-babble, maybe she
learned that from the pages of Astounding, where great SF writers had
learned how to use extrapolated physics and technology in tenable ways
that showed something working with a minimum about how it worked (who
cared about the detailed super science workings anyway?! gets in the
way of story telling).
Always remember the Dipple on Korwa , I was always more interested in
the city than the rest of the planet!
Sometimes she could hold her own with great stylish SF writers like
Poul Anderson and his super refined space opera.
James Nicoll
Al <aa...@flash.net> wrote:
>"She has frequently been described as a technophobe, but I don't know
>that
>it is completely valid. "
>
>Tho I do remember the first Norton I read was Star Guard and the
>villains were the 'Mechs' and our heroes were the 'Archs', I was only
>14 when I read it in 1955 so I did not notice , but even in that book I
>don't think she was using a harsh a value judgment.
>
>All the more to her credit. It was Heinlein who set the SF hook into me
>with, well the story telling of course! but also the future fiction
>verisimilitude. His 'domesticated super science' settings (tho soon I
>found this permeated most modern SF 'future fiction' and good 'space
>opera').
Super science?
Aside from SIXTH COLUMN, when did Heinlein use super-science?
Well, BETWEEN PLANETS and HAVE SPACE SUIT WILL TRAVEL probably qualify.
And FARMER IN THE SKY and if total conversion counts as super-science,
DOUBLE STAR, TIME FOR THE STARS and ORPHANS OF THE SKY, too. And then
there's the Martians in RED PLANET and STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.
Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public
order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health, what
have the Romans ever done for us?
Al
Troopers...heck a lot of FTL interstellar flight in Heinlein... always
liked his explanation of FTL by multiply connected topology.... always
wondered how that got into SF, somebody read about Einstein-Rosen
bridges in 1935?
Captain Button
jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll) wrote:
>In article <1111414072....@l41g2000cwc.googlegroups.com>,
>Al <aa...@flash.net> wrote:
[snip]
> Super science?
>
> Aside from SIXTH COLUMN, when did Heinlein use super-science?
>Well, BETWEEN PLANETS and HAVE SPACE SUIT WILL TRAVEL probably qualify.
>And FARMER IN THE SKY and if total conversion counts as super-science,
>DOUBLE STAR, TIME FOR THE STARS and ORPHANS OF THE SKY, too. And then
>there's the Martians in RED PLANET and STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND.
ORPHANS OF THE SKY: I don't have a copy handy, but there I thought it
wasn't so much total conversions per se as transmuting everything into
hydrogen and then fusing the hydrogen. But a lot of those transmutations
would be net energy losses even after the fusion to helium, so either the
fusion went beyond helium, heavier elements were not converted, or the
transmutation was some superscience that violated energy conservation.
Or am I thinking for some other book?
> Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public
>order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system and public health, what
>have the Romans ever done for us?
There's the public officals with amusing names....
Gene Ward Smith
@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com:
It got into sf by way of--who else?--H. G. Wells. Here's a paragraph from
"The Remarkable Case of Davison's Eyes":
That completes the remarkable story of Davidson's eyes. It is perhaps the
best authenticated case in existence of a real vision at a distance.
Explanation there is none forthcoming, except what Professor Wade has
thrown out. But his explanation invokes the Fourth Dimension, and a
dissertation on theoretical kinds of space. To talk of there being "a
kink in space" seems mere nonsense to me; it may be because I am no
mathematician. When I said that nothing would alter the fact that the
place is eight thousand miles away, he answered that two points might be
a yard away on a sheet of paper and yet be brought together by bending
the paper round. The reader may grasp his argument, but I certainly do
not. His idea seems to be that Davidson, stooping between the poles of
the big electro-magnet, had some extraordinary twist given to his retinal
elements through the sudden change in the field of force due to the
lightning.
Al
for interstellar flight and FTL was there any area of extrapolated
technology he did not touch? I think he even hinted about parallel
universes too.
John F. Eldredge
<wci...@NOSPAM-yahoo.com> wrote:
>William F. Adams wrote:
>>
>> _The Crystal Gryphon_ was always one of my favourites, and the
>> post-apocalyptic future novel she wrote for juveniles was one of the
>> first books I ever read (after Hal Gordon's _Divers Down_).
>
>She had at least two post-apocalyptic novels:
>
> _Daybreak - 2250 A.D._ (also called Star Man's Son)
> _No Night Without Stars_
>
>I'm not sure how they were marketed, but they were both suitable for
>juveniles. I don't recall my first SF author, but she was definitely
>one of the earliest.
>
>- W. Citoan
_Daybreak - 2250 A.D._ was my first introduction to Andre Norton, and
one of the first science fiction novels I ever read. I must have been
about 10 or 11 at the time.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
W. Citoan
>
> _The Crystal Gryphon_ was always one of my favourites, and the
> post-apocalyptic future novel she wrote for juveniles was one of the
> first books I ever read (after Hal Gordon's _Divers Down_).
She had at least two post-apocalyptic novels:
_Daybreak - 2250 A.D._ (also called Star Man's Son)
_No Night Without Stars_
I'm not sure how they were marketed, but they were both suitable for
juveniles. I don't recall my first SF author, but she was definitely
one of the earliest.
- W. Citoan
--
Calvin: "People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never
children."
-- Bill Watterson from Calvin & Hobbes
Al
Indeed the great dad of modern SF.
Ethan Merritt
Patricia Wadley <mj...@sysascend.com> wrote:
>
>The first Norton I ever read [man am I older than most of you]
[sigh] not quite all of us.
>was "Beastmaster."
Mine was "Sword in Sheath", followed by "The Sword is Drawn" and
"At Sword's Point", and then, scrounging about for more titles, the
discovery that Norton had transplanted her WWII adventure stories into
spaceships, and the foreign ports of call onto other planets.
The Witch World books were a real change of pace, but the feel of the
early Solar Queen stories and the free trader tramp ships were taken
directly from her earlier stories set in the post-war Pacific.
I *think* I've read every book she wrote, most of them upon initial
publication. Some, like _Eye of the Monster_, I don't think I've seen
a copy of since.
My personal favorites are _Moon of Three Rings_,
_The Stars Are Ours_, _The Crystal Gryphon_ and direct sequels,
and _Beast Master_. Back in the day I liked the Time Trader stories,
but they have not aged that well, and the ret-conning in the reissued
versions doesn't help any. The best of that set was "The Defiant Agents".
> I know
>that I have read the WW series from start to finish at least ten
>times.
Same here. The ultimate in comfort reading.
Norton was that rare example of an author who settled early into
a distinctive style, and maintained it throughout a very long
writing career. She notably introduced character-driven plotting
into high fantasy, and created a vividly imagined shared future defined more
by its social settings and lifestyles than by gee-whiz gadgets.
Perhaps for this reason she is more often thought of as a fantasy
writer than a science fiction pioneer, but it is worth noting that
she was nevertheless was one of the first SF authors to insert
glimpses of what we now call "virtual reality" into her stories.
Carol Hague
> On Thu, 17 Mar 2005 16:13:10 +0000 (UTC), jdni...@panix.com (James Nicoll)
> wrote:
>
> > Andre Norton is reported to have died peacefully at her home
> > this morning.
>
> I wonder how many SF fans started with her books. I did.
>
> <sigh>
Her books weren't the firsf SF I read, but they were certainly *among*
the first, and many of them are still on my shelves. A great
storyteller. I'll join you in that <sigh> if I may.
--
Carol