25 May 2005

A Tribute to Andre Norton, Grand Dame of Science Fiction, 1912-2005

Offered by just a few of the many writers she inspired and influenced

Although I've never had the fortune of meeting Andre Norton in person, I feel I have known her forever through her books. Indeed, my first jumbled memory-swirls of learning English and imbibing books of the fantastic are all Norton. The full harvest moon of Horn Crown, the perfect love story of Joisan and Kerovan in The Crystal Gryphon, the mysterious and sinister sleeping gods of Exiles of the Stars, the curious images evoked by The Jargoon Pard--these are my most formative and profound visions that will always be with me when I think of perfect wonder fiction, the truest fantasy. The debt I owe Andre Norton as a writer cannot be measured. The treasure of yearning and vision she granted me as a human being will remain with me always. Thank you, dearest lady. Without you there would not have been a moonlit garden of Laelith in my own writer's dreams.

Vera Nazarian is the author of Lords of the Rainbow and Dreams of the Compass Rose.

At the age of thirteen, a friend in the library suggested I try Andre Norton's The Time Traders. Curious, I picked it up. And never put it down. It was the beginning of a lifetime of adventure in this lady's incredible tales.

At the time, I'd just discovered science fiction. It was the early 1960s, and some fantasy fiction was available, but not much. Fantasy came later, with Tolkien. The problem for me, however, was that science fiction was primarily male: male-oriented, male heroes, male narratives. I enjoyed it all, but part of me wasn't satisfied, until of course I started to read Andre Norton's novels. After The Time Traders, I went on to read others: Star Rangers, Star Man's Son, Crossroads of Time, The Beast Master, Shadow Hawk, and of course the list goes on. But it wasn't until I discovered her Year of the Unicorn that I realised her fantasy novels were just as good, some even better, and they had female heroes I could identify with.

The 1960s era was both a hard and glorious time for most people. A decade of change, it often exploded traditional values. Making that sense of disconnection worse, I had recently moved from a small town to a city. I didn't fit in--I was a young girl, confused, angry and intelligent enough to recognize that my life shouldn't be this way. While others around me seemed to understand intrinsically who they were, and what they could do, I did not. But the themes of Ms. Norton's books, the outsider who has inner strengths that she or he has to rely on in order to earn a rightful place in the world, helped me tremendously.

I also wanted to be a writer. Very hesitantly, at the shy age of fourteen, I wrote Andre a letter. I included a short, overly descriptive paragraph, and asked for her advice. She wrote back, graciously reassuring me. She gave me concrete advice on writing: what skills I would need, what I should read, even how to look at people to see what was genuine or false in them.

Years later when I met her at a conference, Andre Norton was the kind, knowledgeable and gracious lady who'd answered my letter. I was delighted that we began a correspondence and friendship that has been one of the most important in my life. She informed many of my choices through her body of work, reinforcing my sense of self-worth as a young woman when the world seemed to be eroding it; she also pointed me in the directions necessary to develop into the woman I wanted to become.

Andre Norton was a woman who influenced an age, not just myself. She contributed to the genre from the start. Her first published story was in 1937, and although she had to change her name so that boys would buy her books, women instinctively knew that these were their stories. In a sense, she created a place for women in the fantasy/sf field, and will be greatly missed.

Sharman Horwood has published stories in Catfantastic IV, Horse Dreams, Canadian Animals Are Smarter Than Jack, and Departed Family and Friends. In between writing two novels, one of which is a sequel to an Andre Norton novel, she has also collaborated on an alternate history novel, Queen of Iron Years, with Lyn McConchie. She is currently negotiating a contract with TOR to edit collections of Andre Norton's stories.

Andre Norton had the courage to write stories that meant something to her, but were considered unmarketable by most editors. The reading public proved the editors wrong. Her Witch World series showed me that writing fantasy was okay. I didn't have to listen to people who knew better. I could write what was important to me and still have an audience.

Irene Radford, author of the Dragon Nimbus series and Merlin's Descendents series.

Andre Norton...when I saw a book of hers in the school library that I hadn't yet read, I would literally tingle. My breath would catch. New worlds were soon to be mine. An hour home on the school bus, dinner, homework and then...the smell of the pages, my Siamese cat purring beside me as I settled among my covers... What's a heaven for? Andre Norton is surely in a wondrous new world.

Thank you for changing my life, forever.

Nancy Holder is the author of 70 novels and 200 short stories. She is a proud member of SF-FW's and a former trustee of HWA. She has received 4 Bram Stoker awards and her work has been translated into over two dozen languages.

I think the first two books I read by Andre Norton were The Beast Master and Daybreak 2025 A.D. I must have been 13. These books had a powerful effect.

The protagonists were kids like me, and their lives sucked, and they triumphed. It was like Andre whispering in my ear, 'You'll survive this.' I really needed to hear that. I think that's when I decided I would write this stuff too.

Jennifer Stevenson's first novel is Trash Sex Magic, a 2004 release from Small Beer Press. She recently sold two romantic fantasy novels to Betsy Mitchell at Del Rey.

I remember reading my first fat fantasy in third grade. It was Roger Zelazny's Amber series packaged in two books. I was hooked. I had to read more. So I went to my library and stumbled on a huge array of Andre Norton stories. I started with Witch World. I wanted to read about women, and powerful women at that, not just big-chested, helpless, vapid girlie-girls. Andre's women kicked ass. I was amazed. This guy really knows women, I thought. Why couldn't women write like this?

As I wandered through Andre's worlds, I discovered an amazing variety of ideas and characters and I wanted to move in. I wanted to live there. I wanted to write just like him. This guy is incredible, I thought. It wasn't until years later that I learned Andre was, in fact, a woman.

As a girl and as a woman, Andre's stories have spoken to me deeply, sparking my creativity, and also lending me a sense that I could do this too. Not only that I could write, but that I could be strong and smart and capable. At some point in our lives, we're asked, who are your heroes? One of mine is Andre Norton.

Diana Pharaoh Francis, author of Path of Fate and Path of Honor.

I became friends with Andre not quite six years ago. I'd been handed my first anthology to edit, Historical Hauntings, for which Andre wrote a beautiful tale about a bead weaver. Then the time came to gather brief bios of the authors, and I received one from everybody except her. The packager said they would use a "stock" bio. But this was my first anthology, and I wasn't going to settle for "stock" anything. I dug out my SFWA directory and found a phone number. Andre answered (I was expecting a secretary or something). She had this thin voice that sounded like crystal windchimes, and she said she was delighted that I wanted a new bio . . . said no one had asked for such in quite some time. We talked for an hour, and later I sent her a thank-you note for being in the anthology.

We corresponded from then on. In fact, Andre wrote me more often than all of my relatives put together. A few times I got two letters in the same week. I still have many of her letters in a thick file folder in my desk, along with a handwritten list of historical books she thought I should acquire. Often she wrote about her cats . . . I wrote back about my dogs. She called them our "fur people." She'd call once in a while just to say hi and to ask what I was up to. Invariably, we'd talk about books and books and books . . . and our fur people.

Sometimes I'd send her books that I'd read and thought she might enjoy--usually ones that had cats in them. And sometimes she'd call and say, "I've just finished the most wonderful book that someone sent me. You must get it!" I'd reply: "I've read that one . . . I'm the `someone' who sent it to you." Then she'd giggle in her windchimes voice and tell me her memory got slippery from time-to-time.

I sent her my hardcover Dragonlance books, and she blessed me by calling me "an amazing writer." And then she was kind enough to write reviews or "blurbs" for some of my novels.

Two years ago she agreed to edit an anthology with me . . . Renaissance Faire, which came out this February. The packager wasn't sure she'd be very involved. Boy, was she! Andre read every story that came in, and we'd confer about them--what we liked and disliked, what needed to be rejected or rewritten. We discovered we had much the same taste in tales and liked the same authors. What a joy that project was!

And then an even better project appeared--Return to Quag Keep, the sequel to the first "D&D" novel, Quag Keep, which came out in 1979. Andre did a line-edit on my first draft, which I have tucked away in a treasure box. Quite a bit of work she put in on it, and quite a lot she taught me. To get a lesson by the "Grand Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy" was priceless. I fully believe she has made me a better writer, and made me see things through different eyes.

When she closed her High Hallack Library last year, she selected a big box full of historical mysteries and reference books for me. It was a great present that I will enjoy for many, many years--a treasure tucked away on the shelves of my office.

But the best treasure . . . that's been enjoying her friendship, her letters, and her windchimes voice.

I will so very much miss my friend.

"I keep my friends as misers do their treasure, because, of all the things granted us by wisdom, none is greater or better than friendship." -- Pietro Aretino (1537)

Jean Rabe is the author of fifteen fantasy novels and three dozen fantasy, science-fiction and military short stories. She's edited anthologies and magazines, and dabbles in articles for a local tourist publication.