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Pro-animal science fiction &
fantasy author Andre Norton dies at 93
Andre Norton, 93, died on March 17 from congestive heart failure at her
home in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, attended by longtime caretaker Sue Stewart.
Born Alice Mary Norton, in Cleveland, Ohio, Andre Norton changed her name
to evade discrimination against female authors in 1934, when she published
The Prince Commands, the second novel she wrote. Her first, Ralestone
Luck, appeared in 1938.
Employed in the Cleveland Public Library children’s section until
1950, except in 1941 when she owned a bookstore in Maryland and briefly
worked for the Library of Congress, Norton at first wrote exclusively
for the young audience she knew best. Two years after becoming a manuscript
reader for Gnome Press, a science fiction publisher, Norton produced Star
Man’s Son (1952), her first attempt at sci-fi. Reissued by Ace
Books as Daybreak––2250 A.D., it became her first mass
market paperback hit.
After several more sci-fi successes, Norton left Gnome Press to write
fulltime in 1958. To that point, science fiction targeted mostly male
readers; fantasy was written for females. Norton mingled the genre in
The Beast Master (1959), introducing both the style that would
characterize the most productive phase of her career, and the motif of
telepathic communication among animals and humans that recurs in most
of her biggest hits.
The Beast Master and a sequel, Lord of Thunder (1962), were
loosely adapted into the Beastmaster television series (1999-2002), produced
in Australia. After the show was cancelled, Norton and Lyn McConchie,
of New Zealand, issued two further sequels, Beast Master’s Ark
(2002), about an effort to recover lost species using stored DNA, and
Beast Master’s Circus (2004), involving a struggle to bring
a cruel intergalactic circus to justice that mirrors current earthly efforts
to prosecute ever-moving animal acts.
Keeping as many as seven pet cats at a time, Norton as “Andrew North”
in 1953 published All Cats Are Gray, and a year later issued Mousetrap.
Having created her first cat-like creatures with telepathic abilities
in The Beast Master, Norton explored that idea further in Catseye
(1961), which starts in an upscale pet shop; Breed to Come (1972),
Star Ka’at (1976), Star Ka’at World (1976), Star
Ka’Ats & the Plant People (1979), Star Ka’Ats &
the Winged Warriors (1981), The Gate of the Cat (1987), and
The Mark of the Cat (1992), reissued in 2002 with a sequel, The
Year of the Rat.
Usually known for astute judgement of her audience, Norton in the latter
made rats the villains, and may have been surprised that the book was
panned by some of the readers she had persuaded to view animals as moral
equals.
Norton also edited several anthologies featuring cats.
In Star Hunter (1961), set on a planet opened to trophy hunting
because it was deemed devoid of intelligent life, Norton satirized the
pretexts and practices of recreational hunters. She expanded upon the
theme in Night of Masks (1964) and Iron Cage (1974).
As the Civil War centennial approached, Norton produced the historical
novels Ride Proud, Rebel! (1961) and Rebel Spurs (1962),
recycling research done originally for her 1956 western Stand To Horse.
Romanticizing the pro-slavery side of the war, the Rebel series belonged
to a literature of denial made notorious by The Clansman (1905)
by Thomas Dixon, restored to respectability a generation later by Margaret
Mitchell in Gone With The Wind (1936). Norton’s efforts, published
just as the civil rights movement made the genre anachronistic, are remembered
chiefly for the characters Shawnee the horse and Hannibal the mule.
Norton herself seems to have reappraised her direction. To that point,
Norton’s work usually featured outcasts. Thereafter, her characters
tended to be outcasts at least in part because they belonged to despised
minorities or underclasses. Many were distinctly non-white.
Key Out of Time (1963) featured Karara, a Polynesian girl whose
pair of telepathic dolphins help to save the earth from space invaders.
Scientific attention to dolphin intelligence and communication had just
begun, and the popularity of the novel may have contributed to the growth
of the marine mammal exhibition industry––but it also helped
to build opposition to human activities that harm dolphins.
Moon of Three Rings (1966) combined pro-civil rights and pro-animal
rights themes with political satire, in which Krip the Free Trader was
turned into an animal resembling a pine marten as a defense against “evil
power seekers,” who somewhat resembled wolverines.
Writing about fantastic animals based upon familiar species was probably
what Norton did best. Among her many works starring unicorns, dragons,
and griffins were Year of the Unicorn (1965), Ride the Green
Dragon, co-written with Phyllis Miller (1985), Dragon Magic
(1967), The Crystal Gryphon (1972), Gryphon in Glory (1981),
Horn Crown (1981), Gryphon’s Eyrie, co-written with
A.C. Crispin (1984), Falcon Hope, co-written with Pauline Griffin
(1992), Flight of Vengeance, co-written with Pauline Griffin and
Mary Schaub (1992), On Wings of Magic, co-written with Patricia
Matthews and Sasha Miller (1993), Falcon Magic, with Sasha Miller
(1994), and her last book, Dragon Blade, also co-authored with
Sasha Miller (2005).
The unicorn/dragon/griffin stories led Norton into exploring the lives
of characters combining human and animal characteristics. Three novels
co-written with Mercedes Lackey, Elvenbane (1991), Elven-blood
(1995), and Elvenborn (2002), thematically reflect the ongoing
debate over genetically modifying humans and animals with DNA from other
species.
Norton asked in her funeral arrangements that in lieu of flowers, memorial
donations should be sent to a local charity she supported to help indigent
people obtain veterinary care for their pets.
