Science fiction and fantasy author Andre Norton, who wrote the popular "Witch World" series, has died. She was 93.
Her death was announced by friend Jean Rabe, who said Norton died Thursday of congestive heart failure at her home in Murfreesboro, a Nashville suburb.
Norton requested before her death that she not have a funeral service, but instead asked to be cremated along with a copy of her first and last novels.
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quote: Norton requested before her death that she not have a funeral service, but instead asked to be cremated along with a copy of her first and last novels.
posted
When I was in fifth grade, I burned through a lot of Norton's books in the school library. There were probably more books of hers on the shelf than any other sci-fi author (didn't know she was a "she" then.) I don't really remember them all that well, since I got frustrated with the fact taht so many of the books were part of a series and the library never had all the books in the series. It wasn't always easy to tell what order the books were in, either.
I guess if I'd bothered to think about it, I'd have known she was at least in her 70s, since I was reading her stuff about 40 years ago and she was an established author then.
Makes me want to go back and recheck some of the stuff that turned me onto this branch of literature, even if individual works didn't stick in my memory much.
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Stephen, the first time through I read that as you burned a lot of her books in the school library. My brain was whirling through all sorts of scenarios about your former life as a fundamentalist book-burner. Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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The news really saddened me. The first book of hers I read was "Quag Keep" which was set in the World of Greyhawk (for all of you old school D and D'ers out there).
She's had a long, long career and was really the first female science fiction/fantasy author to really make it. She may not be terribly well-known, but she has her part in history -- one that she worked very hard at.
Last year, a friend of mine who sells used books, sold one of her books to ... Andre Norton herself. It was a mystery novel, one of a very small number she wrote, but that she no longer had in her own library. She (through her assistant) bought the book for her nurse who had never read any of Andre's works. The nurse didn't like fantasy or science fiction, so it took a while for them to find someone with one of Andre's old mysteries.
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