Ordeal in Otherwhere (Forerunner, book 2) by Andre Norton

[james_davis_nicoll]

Ordeal in Otherwhere (Forerunner, book 2) by Andre Norton

Comments

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

What is that critter on Charis' shoulder on the cover? I know Norton liked telepathic animals, but I can't tell the intended species.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I'm assuming it's one of the somewhat psychic specially bred wolverines (first introduced in Storm Over Warlock)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

No, it's something Charis befriends. I've returned the book so I cannot supply more details.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Oh, that's right, before she met Shan Lantee & his wolverines, she met some sort of local fuzzy critter called a curl-cat.

[seth ellis (from livejournal.com)]

From the back it looks a bit like one of those vaguely defined animals from early animation. Fritz the Cat's ambiguous cousin.

[pameladean]

This Norton book was more important to me than most of the others, entirely because of Charis. I suppose you have heard such stories before, but I will tell this one anyway. Andre Norton was one of the guests of honor at Noreascon 3. I went to get a book autographed by her. I'd forgotten to bring my copy of Ordeal, but I bought a newer book in the dealer's room, published while I was in college and temporarily not reading new sf. The line was immense. It was full of women my age and older and younger. All up and down the line one heard the same thing over and over. "This book was so important to me when I was ten." "The only female protagonist I ran across for years." "Charis is the best hero." After about an hour and a half, I went away, because Andre Norton had already heard and would hear again dozens of times the thing I had come to say to her.

P.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I have to say, I generally am not a fan of Norton's first edition covers but I like this one.

[roseembolism.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that this was the second Norton I read, which would make it something like the third or fourth proper SF novel I read. Lucky me, at the library I went to, the juvenile Heinleins were shelved right across from the Nortons.

This is one of those novels which, because I read it at a tender age, really defined my relationship with SF and fantasy. How magic/psionics could work, interstellar trade and travel, and the role of women. I consider myself quite lucky.