Andre Norton
(photo by Beth Gwinn)
Alice Mary Norton was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1912, and began her writing career early. Due to her love of writing fiction in what used to be a male-dominated market, she decided to write under pseudonyms that would not betray her gender. She would ultimately choose Andre.
She was a prolific author, and as she became so popular as Andre Norton in the literary world she legally changed it to Andre Alice Norton in 1934.
While she wrote in mainstream on occasion, she usually wrote genre fiction, and in 1983 she was honored with the Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, the sixth to receive the price, after Robert A. Heinlein, Jack Williamson, Clifford D. Simak, L. Sprague de Camp, and Fritz Leiber.
She would also become the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and the Nebula Grand Master Award.
She was best known for her novel Witch World (1963), which spawned dozens of sequels and spinoffs set in that world. Her novel The Beast Master was adapted into a movie in 1982 starring Marc Singer and Tanya Roberts, but Andre was displeased with the treatment of the tiger used in the film, which had been dyed black to look like a panther. Having a strong love for cats (with many domestic cats living in her house) and for animals in general, she asked her name to be removed from the credits of the movie. She vowed never again to work with Hollywood.
Late in her life she established the High Hallack Library for writers studying the genre. She had amassed over ten thousand manuscripts (including unpublished texts) and videos before closing the library in 2004 due to failing health.
By the time she passed away in 2005 she had written over two hundred novels and many more short stories, and had co-written quite a few in her later years with female fantasy authors who built their success on the wake of Andre’s pioneering career.
… My first book published, The Prince Commands, was issued during my very early twenties. I simply had an alphabetical list of publishers and sent it to the first on the list—who took it. The field was not so crowded then and one did not need an agent. I submitted the finished manuscript not an outline—this is what I did for years. This particular title was an adventure story, not sf or fantasy.
Now my agent uses an outline idea and perhaps a couple of chapters in a submission.
Witch World [1963] grew from a short story idea concerning a Crusader, which I had set down in notes but never developed.
[Port of Dead Ships] was one of the full length novels which appeared in the omnibus entitled Storms of Victory [1991] which was one of the Witch World books.
It does not read exactly as the printed copy does since once I begin to write I often change the plot. My characters seem to take over and carry on as they please rather than as I intended and I do not argue with them.
… This is, of course, what was submitted to the publisher before the book was written.
—Andre Norton
(2 Oct 2003 and 6 April 2004)
Port of Dead Ships
Plot
Simon, Jaelithe, Kemoc, Orsya (Kemoc’s Krogan Wife) and Koris meet with Sulcars asking for aid against what they believe may be either renewed Kolder trouble or Black power. Several Sulcar ships had disappeared and months later found derelict with no evidence of what happened to the crews—apparently they were abandoned voluntarily—they had all set sail in the beginning for the far south which was largely unexplored.
The Estcarpians agree to help, but the Witches, no longer holding government control, refuse to have anything to do with it. A seeress who is part Sulcar, plus Jaelithe, agrees to come. The seeress as part Sulcar is so refused witchship. While they are discussing this matter another Sulcar ship is reported in, bringing with it a derelict which is like no ship ever seen in Estcarp before. They go to investigate this. The Sulcars finding the ship also report volcanic disturbances under the sea which they had fled. Simon sees this is a ship of his own World. They explore it and discover that everything is as it was left, apparently by a crew who had departed hastily and some time ago. Find only ship’s cat on board. Charts on board are all of Simon’s world.
Four ships sail for the south. Kemoc and Orsya and seeress are on first vessel, and Simon and Jaelithe on another. They will keep in touch by mind touch. Five days out they run into a storm which parts the ships and drives the one with Kemoc south very swiftly. In fact the Sulcars are worried that they seem to be caught in a current from which they can not break free. Seeress tries, backed by Kemoc, to reach other ship. Not able to do so. Falconer on board as marine sends his bird—no better luck.
Seeress keeps trying and then announces that they seem to be enclosed in an unnatural “silence”.
They see islands which appear to have risen from the sea not too long before. The water about the ship is warm. At night farther away they see a glow which might come from a volcano. Orsya returns from one of her needful swims to say there is a surprising lack of all sea life—she can not pick up any trace of living things.
Ship continues to be drawn forward. They see land ahead which is larger than any island they have passed. There a large bay opens out and the Sulcars manage to get loose from the current and reach that.
The bay is crowded with ships, some looking very old, many of them strange in shape. The Sulcars manage to anchor at the edge of this collection. Kemoc, Orsya, and seeress are all aware of strange energy at work, but it does not register as either good or evil. The Sulcars decide to try to get ashore and hunt a source of water. No sign of any life—sea birds missing.
They explore one ship and have a feeling they are being watched. Ashore are some very ancient buildings but there appears to be no way to enter these. No doors nor windows.
Seeress visits what the Sulcars believe to be a fairly recently caught ship. She tries to sense any residue of happening aboard. Can pick up only fear which does not appear to have any one source. Orsya and Kemoc in water find evidence of more and more ships, some long sunk.
Finally, they find a war ship of a different type. Skeletons on board and evidence of a battle. Only one where they have found evidence of any bodies. Seeress says men were dead before ship came here—already a derelict.
Fire seen at night leads them to climb the cliffs above the bay. Think there is more volcanic action farther south and out to sea. Are worried about waves which might come from such a disturbance.
On the morning after they see the approach of a Sulcar ship and with it another ship of a different type. They discover the Sulcar one which has Simon and Jaelithe on board. Mind contact tells them that there is life on board the strange vessel also. They get together and from the Sulcar ship see a boat lowered from the other vessel and six men in it. They hail them but men pay no attention. Orsya and Kemoc swim out. They can not make mind touch but do get aboard the boat and discover the men seem to be in a trance. They try to wake them but there is no way. Men are totally strange in appearance and clothing. Simon, Sulcars, and Jaelithe come to them. Strive to grapple the other boat but it is carried on so forcibly that their boat is also dragged along. Jaelithe and the seeress try to concentrate on one man but he seems insane and throws himself into the sea.
Simon tells them this is a ship from apparently the same space-time as he had come from. The boat touched a big rock and the men arise and crowd by the Sulcars and the others going ashore. They follow.
There is a waterway like a cannel [sic.] and the men throw themselves in this and swim. Kemoc and Orsya are ready to follow when the seeress falls into a like trance with the men and goes after them. They come to a huge cavern but by a wall in which there are a number of niches. The men from the ship and the seeress climb up and settle themselves in these. There are huge piles of bones rising out of the water before each niche showing that this must have happened many times before. Jaelithe, Simon, Sulcars and Falconers come by boat. Jaelithe probes the seeress and says that there is some type of installation here which runs on human energy—it does not work smoothly but is able at times to pick up ships or people from other time streams and draw these to it for fuel. It then causes the volcanic action—but it is irregular.
Jaelithe, Simon, Kemoc, Orsya and several of the Sulcars unite power and succeed in breaking the ties the installation has on its latest fuel. The men from the ships fall dead but the seeress is saved. This all is the result they discover of one of the Dark Adepts’ experiments at Gate opening and it had not only opened on Simon’s world but on others also.
The installation shut down is in the blank buildings and Simon oversees the taking of explosives from several derelicts from his own time and blowing it up. They explore and take curiosities from the ships, planning to return. But Simon and the Sulcars make sure that there is no vestige left of other world weapons which might cause future trouble. He says this explains the mystery of the Devil’s Triangle in his own world.
Jaelithe, Orsya and the seeress work to make sure there can be no way of using any of the energy for Dark Purposes.
***