

There are various classic Norton titles that could be focused on further, but The Beast Master and sequel Lord of Thunder make good examples of the best of her work. Nevertheless, it’s not just as nostalgia reading that some of them, at least, are worth digging out. There were a lot of them, but they now come across as old-fashioned in tone – pulpy, chaste, science adventure stories that without the space trappings could be transferred almost whole into an American frontier milieu. You might not be inclined to add Andre Norton’s name into a roll-call of science fiction names if you were asked to come up with one partly because you might associate her with her more fantasy-based Witch World novels, and partly because you’ve probably forgotten coming across her books in the kids’ and teen section of your library. The Beast Master (1959) and Lord of Thunder (1962), Andre Norton
