if there was an anthology called Heirs of Andre Norton

[james_davis_nicoll]

Who should be in it?

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I know this will sound like a troll but the first name that popped into my head was Marion Zimmer Bradley. I also know this very problematic but she fits stylistically and the time frame. Melinda Snodgrass also fits except she comes to late to be a direct heir.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Diane Duane, Elizabeth Lynn, Tamora Pierce, Robin McKinley, & Vonda McIntyre. Sadly, I can't think of a single SF novel in the past 20 years that is anything like Norton's SF, her legacy seems mostly to be in fantasy.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

What about Becky Chambers?

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Definitely. Her work isn't the same sort of adventure fiction that Norton usually wrote, but Chambers is definitely far closer than any other SF author of the past 20 years that I can think of.

[scott-sanford.livejournal.com]

Surely Norton's output teaches us that women are mythical creatures like unicorns, mermaids, and honest politicians.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Some people not me.

[tavella.livejournal.com]

Joan Vinge - her Psion series is the closest thing I can think of to pure Norton homage.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

Second that.

[dryadinthegrove]

Thirded.

[rosefox]

Rae Carson.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I was very much hoping this thread would result in me learning of authors I did not know of, and it has!

[rosefox]

Her YA novels are superb. Highly recommended.

[carbonel]

Katherine Kurtz. She didn't write all that much YA, but what she did struck me as very Norton-esque.

Unrelated to that, I was astounded to discover that she apparently wrote several of the Baba Yaga stories in the children's magazine Jack & Jill.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Ooh, I loved those.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Sharon Lee & Steve Miller's stuff, particularly the Trader sequence. A lot of C. J. Cherryh.

[vr-trakowski.livejournal.com]

There kind of was one.

[ross-smith.livejournal.com]

P. C. Hodgell.

[(Anonymous)]

Jo Clayton

[iayork.livejournal.com]

Agreed about Clayton. Her books have the same cheerful energy and sense of wonder.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I haven't read enough sf during the past 20 or so years to participate in this discussion(Historical, English Viallage, and ChickLit Mysteries, maybe, but not Norton (who I'd have to think about... I don't consider her a great writer from any Literary standpoint, but I've re-read a ridculous number of her books, and hope to re-re-read them). But you've introduced a discussion I want to follow.

[awesomeaud.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth Bear?

[martin-wisse.livejournal.com]

Ann Leckie, who has said publically how much she owns to Norton.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'd never have thought of Leckie being like Norton - there's a lot more Count of Monte Cristo in Ancillary Justice than I've ever seen in anything by Norton, but in the small details, I can definitely see that.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Moonsinger's Friends:

Introduction: Susan Shwartz

Stories:
Marion Zimmer Bradley
Diane Duane
Tanith Lee
Poul Anderson
Sandra Miesel
Meredith Ann Pierce
Jayge Carr
Nancy Springer
Anne McCaffrey
C.J. Cherryh
Jo Clayton
Diana Paxson
Judith Tarr
Katherine Kurtz
Jane Yolen

Conclusion:
Joan D. Vinge

There you go.

[w. dow rieder (from livejournal.com)]

Interesting that all the writers I thought of (Cherryh, Vinge, McCaffrey, and Anderson) are on that list. And it's been long enough since I've read each that it's hard to be sure now, but I think that of Anderson's shorter works, the more they were like Norton, the more I liked them.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

What impressive is that the term heirs fits better than contemporaries for pretty much everyone on the list except perhaps for Anderson & McCaffrey, because Norton was born so much earlier than most of them, despite none of the authors on this list being remotely young.

Lots of people still talk about Anderson, Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein as the founders and early big names of modern SF, but I rarely hear Norton's name mentioned by anyone who isn't nearly as old as I am, but she was right there with them, and wrote more novels than any of them except perhaps Anderson.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

She began before most of them but my recall is that she didn't really start publishing at her break neck pace until after she was forced to retire in, um, 1950? But yeah, important and often overlooked.

[kjn]

I think Scalzi's Old Man's War and sequels owe far more to Norton than to Heinlein. Admittedly, I've not read either one extensively.

[john scalzi (from livejournal.com)]

They don't if only for the reason that I didn't widely read Norton when I was younger.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Say, is my 50 Nortons project Big Idea-worthy?

[kjn]

Don't confuse my compliments with your facts! :-)

[pointoforigin.livejournal.com]

Geary Gravel, especially in "A Key for the Nonesuch" and "Return of the Breakneck Boys." I think in "The Pathfinders," there's mention of a fictional writer named Norton Erb, a nod to Gravel's influences. Gravel had a story, "Old Toad," in Norton's anthology, "Tales of the Witch World 2."

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought about Gravel in years, but you are entirely correct, and I'd definitely count The Alchemists & The Pathfinders as Norton-like. It's a damn shame he stopped writing.

[kpreid.livejournal.com]

Jane Lindskold? Maybe?