The Zero Stone (Viking, November 1968), Breed to Come (Viking, April 1972), and
Galactic Derelict (World Publishing, 1959). Covers by Robin Jacques, László Gál, and Ed Emshwiller
Andre Norton (1912 -2005): between ages 12 and 16 I probably read more Andre Norton books than any other author. Our small town library didn’t have a huge selection of SF/Fantasy works but someone in their purchasing department seemed OK with Norton, and that was a happy thing for me.
As painful as it is to report, it’s also probably a good thing that Alice Mary Norton chose to write under the name Andre. I just assumed Norton was a man, and I wonder if I would have been as quick to pick up her books if I’d known it was a woman behind the covers. Nowadays it makes no difference, but it might have affected my choices as a teenage boy.
Norton wrote both SF and fantasy, although the earliest books I read by her were firmly in the SF camp. The X Factor, The Zero Stone, and Galactic Derelict. Galactic Derelict is a particular favorite of mine, and one I’ve reread several times (something I very very rarely do.)
The Crystal Gryphon (Atheneum, August 1970) and The X Factor
(Harcourt, Brace & World, August 1965). Covers by Jack Gaughan and Richard Powers
In Galactic Derelict, a young man named Travis Fox stumbles upon a group of archeologists who are planning a trip 10,000 years into the past to find a crashed alien spacecraft. Fox, who has some experience with archeology, is invited along. They discover one wrecked craft in the past and a smaller sphere-shaped craft intact. However, when the time device is accidentally activated, it takes Fox, the intact ship, and a couple of others into the future, where the ship takes off for parts unknown, its journey governed by programmed commands. A very exciting story.
Being hooked by this time on Norton, I scoured the library for more, and found some of her more fantasy oriented works, including the wonderful Breed to Come. Eventually I found my way to her primary Sword and Planet work, her Witch World series. At least the first couple fit the bill. I’m going to post about Norton over several days because there’s a lot to say. The books shown here are my copies, and I deliberately tried to buy the same ones I read way back in the day. That is, library copies.
First five novels in the Witch World saga: Witch World, Web of the Witch World,
Three Against the Witch World, Warlock of the Witch World, and Sorceress of the Witch World
(Ace paperback originals, 1963-1968). Covers by Jack Gaughan (1-4) and Jeffrey Jones (#5)
Breed to Come was my introduction to the concept of “uplift,” in which humans have raised various animals to sentience and given them bipedalism and human style hands. At the time, I’d not yet read The Island of Dr. Moreau by H. G. Wells. When I mentioned Breed to Come on the Facebook Swords & Planet League group, someone mentioned the Wells story. I’d wondered about it but couldn’t remember if it was humans raising up animals to make them more human, or taking humans and making them more animal.
Once I got home and was able to inspect my copy of Wells’ book, it became clear he had the concept of “uplift,” in mind, and further reading suggests his was the first time that concept ever appeared. This makes it likely Norton was influenced by Wells, though I can’t be sure.
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Breed to Come (Ace Books, June 1981). Cover artist unknown
Norton’s main heroes in Breed to Come are from a sentient cat species. If you didn’t know anything about Norton at all, you’d suspect from reading her works that she was a “cat” person and indeed she was. Cats or cat-like beings appear in many of her stories.
I always wished I’d been first to come up with the “uplift” concept, but even though I couldn’t be first, I’ve written a book that incorporates elements of the idea. It’s my latest — called Razored Land. The background is that a genetic plague struck that hacked genes from various organisms and inserted them in other organisms through a viral process.
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Razored Land (Tule Fog Press, print edition, November 9, 2023). Cover by Warren Design
This phenomenon exists and is called Lateral Gene Transfer, although it doesn’t happen so dramatically or on such a wide scale. It’s postulated to have been involved in evolution, and in my book it creates species that share human and animal genes but lean more toward the human. There’s a wolf/dog/human hybrid, called Wolfers, a feline species called Felmorphs, and a hybrid species that are mostly sentient beavers called Diggers. There also human immunes, one in particular who is searching for his wife, who was pregnant when the plague hit.
There’s a print book that contains both volumes of the story, Crimson Sacrifice, and Blackest of Hates, and the two individual volumes are available as ebooks.
Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group at Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was Andrew Offutt’s Greatest Contribution to the Genre: Swords Against Darkness.