The first two installments in this series are here:
Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic, Part I
Andre Norton: Gateway to Magic, Part II
As I mentioned in the first two articles in this series, I’ve read a LOT of Andre Norton. Here are just a few pics from my collection that I haven’t yet discussed. Most of these have little to do directly with Sword & Planet fiction but they still contain Norton’s patented characters and action.
1. The Last Planet, which is a variant title for Star Rangers. (Two copies here: Ace 1974 — no cover artist credited although could this be a Whelan?, and Ace 1955 — Harry Barton cover).
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2. Eye of the Monster, the first Norton I ever read that I didn’t particularly love. (Ace 1962, cover by Dean Ellis). It’s quite a short book, actually described as a chapbook, and there wasn’t as much story there as I would have liked.
3. Star Born (Ace 6th Printing, 1979, cover credited to Gino D’Achille, although it looks like a Frazetta to me). Strong story.
4. Sea Siege (The cover has the line, “Author of Judgment on Janus,” which was likely the reason I spent hard money on it because I loved the Janus book so much. Fawcett 1980, cover by Ken Barr). I certainly wasn’t disappointed in this one. Exciting tale.
5. Garan the Eternal, DAW 1972, with an awesome cover by Jack Gaughan, which looks like it could have been on one of the Dray Prescot books. This is basically an S&P story (2 stories linked), although there aren’t any swords except on the cover, which means it wasn’t my favorite tale by Norton. An earthman named Garin Featherstone flies his plane into a mist and ends up in another world where he becomes Garan the Hero. This book also contains a short story of Witch World. A good read.
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Star Gate. Published by Ace, 1971, with a cover by John Schoenherr. I always particularly liked this cover. This is a very good book. When the movie Stargate came out, I suspected it was influenced by this work, and maybe it was, although the “gates” here are not described in any detail. However, I strongly suspect the work influenced my favorite Star Trek the Original series episode, which is called “Mirror, Mirror.”
In Norton’s book, a young man named Kincar s’Rud passes through a star gate into an alternate universe where he finds people who he knows, except that they are evil versions of themselves. That’s just what happens in “Mirror, Mirror,” when Kirk, Bones, Scotty and Uhura exchange places with evil alternates of themselves in the mirror universe.
I thought I was the first to realize this connection, but as I was reading some other reviews of the book I found that “Derek,” a long time friend of mine on Goodreads had a similar observation quite a bit earlier than I did. Derek and I have usually agreed on our reviews on that site.
One other point about the book, I think it fits the Sword & Planet mold in general, although the world Kincar travels to is an alternate version of his own. It certainly has some sword slinging action in it, and although Kincar is not from “Earth” officially, we learn that he was born in a city called “Terranna.” Terra, of course, is an oft-used name for Earth.
Charles Gramlich administers The Swords & Planet League group on Facebook, where this post first appeared. His last article for Black Gate was Andrew Offutt’s Greatest Contribution to the Genre: Swords Against Darkness.