Andre Norton as an undergrad course - PART 6 [PHOTOS]

My next post in honor of Andre Norton being taught within an undergraduate course at my college campus.

According to the Andre Norton Official Website, the artist for this book cover is by Laslo Gal, another favorite Ms. Norton book illustrator.

front cover 

Here is another book cover and story that has heavily influenced me. As a reader. As a writer. As an artist. Breed to Come was the second story I read after 'Warlock of the Witch World' (more on that title later:)). This story was a milestone in that it not only featured what I would later learn to be anthropomorphic characters, but the level of world-building was astounding. In a nutshell, this is what would be considered a Dystopian sf tale. This is millions of years after earth was ruined and abandoned by the human race, who took to the stars, leaving a wrecked planet, the animals, especially the cats, dogs and rats, have evolved into separate civilizations. The story starts with a feline character and Norton explains his biology as if his remains were examined by scientific forensics. It's an incredible spare kind of writing that just took my breath away with its precision details! As Furtig (cat protagonist) explains, he is about to partake in some sort of ceremony to determine if he will be chosen as a mate. Norton has a knack for dissecting complex cultural and social mores into an interesting journey for the reader.  

back cover

Furtig goes on a quest to figure out what his purpose is. But, this protagonist has another motive and so he decides to follow in the footsteps of a clan ancestor who pursued his quest for knowledge and was never heard from again. The story ebbs and flows. It picks up and slows down, especially by Ms. Norton's expositions on the landscape and what earth now looks like after millions of years of missing us. Of course, there is conflict and invaders touch down on earth to check it out as well. Furtig has to find his place in this new world and we the readers must figure out our place in this magnificent novel as well. 

Andre Norton as an undergrad course - PART 5 [PHOTO]

Another Andre Norton book cover! According to the Andre Norton Official Website, the artist for this cover is Davis Meltzer.

As an artist, there are many things that inspire me, especially when it comes to book covers. Nowadays, some of these front covers are being digitally done and I find the artwork often uninspiring, which is sad to say the least. However, with some of my favorite stories, I have been fortunate to have favorite covers too. Here is another from Norton's Web of the Witch World, which I think is the second book in her long-running 'Witch World' (c) series. 

For some reason, it reminds me of a 1970s comic book cover, and the tale within is filled with powerful women, magic with science, inter-dimensional villains, and a protagonist from our planet who is still adjusting to the culture of this new world. It is a refreshing, exciting, sense of wonder tale. To read it multiple times is to find something new. Pure delight. 

Andre Norton as an undergrad course - Part 4 [PHOTOS]

Now, on to the Book Covers!!!
*Kermit the frog cheer*

As I said in an earlier posting, since finding out from some college students that my favorite, favorite author Andre Norton is being taught in an English course on-campus, I have decided to revisit my love and 'fangirling' of this amazing woman. 

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In previous posts, I gave URLs on her newest official site and older homepage as hyperlinks in the post, re-posted a classic post on her, and just about ranted on the unfairness that while an undergrad, many folks didn't seem to know about her and now, as an employee on same campus, she is part of a college literature curriculum!

But, I am an artist first, and I judge books by their covers, and, for some reason, perhaps because Ms. Norton was prolific and was still writing and publishing almost to her death, her bibliography is varied, long, and epic in scope as her stories. Yet, it was the various artists that tried to capture her ideas that mesmerized, baffled, or even bewildered me.

Without further ado, on to the book covers! 

The first is Norton's The Zero Stone. The book is from my family's personal library. These are the Viking editions that my father acquired during the 1970s. According to the Andre Norton Official Website, the cover artist is Robin Jacques.

What struck me was the highly-detailed almost digital preciseness of the piece. Also, the illustrator captured a pivotal scene. Do you see the detailing? I used my Chromebook's webcam to take this picture so I apologize if it's not clear enough. 

 Not only is this one of Norton's more zippier-reads (the action is not breakneck but it does breeze by during the action scenes), but my biggest regret is that I removed the dust jacket! It annoyed me and so I took it off the book! What can I say? I was 11-12 at the time. I regret it now. I still regret it. I know better. 

Still, what was on the dust jacket is what's on the actual binding as well as the front and backcover. I've seen other editions where this gorgeous illustration was on dust jacket only, so, I lucked out.

Andre Norton as undergrad studies - PART 3

I got that last rant out of my system. Now, on to more serious topics.

There are plenty of reasons to enjoy Ms. Norton. I will give the list on why I adore her.

 1. Her protagonists are often outcasts/pariahs/lepers in her/his respective community/society/world/planet.
2. This outcast often does not know what is in store for them. Then, in the middle of their woes, their destiny arrives!
3. Norton appears to have used more disabled characters than other fictional authors. Also, because her character is disabled, doesn't default them to 'bad guy/bad girl'.
4. The disability stays with the character. Whether it's in a Norton science fiction or fantasy, the disability is often a boon.
5. The disability is also not glorified but is unpleasant for the protagonist. Norton's literary descriptions of how a real-life or fictional disability can affect the character in profound ways - by their internal monologues, their physical or 'magical' limitations, she as a writer appeared to have a good grasp on portraying a disability in a realistic way. However, by the middle of the story, he/she finds out how the 'disability' helps on the quest or in the middle of a conflict.
6. Norton likes 'furries', and the protagonist will often be accompanied by either a recognizable creature (cat or dog), or, a creature native to that particular planet/dimension/world.
7. Said 'furry companion' will often be more intelligent than the protagonist and often dispels the reader's ideas about 'pets'.
8. There are clues, riddles, puzzles to solve, ancient languages to decipher. Some of Norton's best stories (Most are) read as crime thrillers or murder mysteries.
9. Her novels, short story collections, series, and shared worlds are equally populated genderwise. That means she has just as much female protagonists as her male protagonists.
10. Norton appears to like shape-shifting, polymorphism, and out-of-body-experiences.
11. The woman got me more obsessed about psychic phenomenon! In many of her stories when the protag and 'furry' companion were 'linked', it was often through telepathy.
12. Norton's villains were not the Van Dyke-mustache-twirling types. Often, they simply were philosophically/politically/socially/genetically opposed to the protagonist. And if there was 'evil', it was a forgotten source of power left on some ancient abandoned world.

In honor of Andre Norton being taught at my campus, I will have another post on the Grand Dame of Science Fiction/Fantasy!
And some pics from my collection! Take care!

[Part 4 coming up]

Andre Norton as undergrad studies

Life is not fair sometimes. No, I mean, really unfair. Back in the almost-mid to mid-90s, I was an awkward 17-19 year old traipsing around Miami Dade Community. I was withdrawn, bookish, and by then, highly steeped into the science fiction and fantasy genres. I couldn't get enough of it and, except for a few friends and fellow art-majors, I pretty much kept to myself.

By now, I was reading Andre Norton, a living-legend sf/f author who had almost consistently published since the mid-30s. She was prolific. She churned out novels, short stories, series, and shared worlds. Her worst was better than other writers' best and I loved her books to pieces. For some reason, her works weren't often re-edited into newer editions, so, many of her stories were out-of-print. In fact, I familiarized myself with the local used bookstore in my neighborhood. It was one of only a handful where I could find Ms. Norton's works.

I have another post that I will link with this because I waxed eternal about her in it, but, I will say this: Andre Norton stories were ahead of their times in terms of style and gender-equality. Half her books had female protagonists just as the other half were male. Her writing in sci-fi was just as exemplary as her fantasy writings. She has influenced many of the speculative fiction authors over the generations. She continues long after her death.

And while I was an awkward new college student reading battered copies of her books, now in my late 30s, my community college now a 4-year, I still read her.

But there's a catch.

Ms. Norton is now being TAUGHT at my college campus...
[Part 2 in another post]

When Do We Take Responsibility?

This month under "The Big Read" project that is under Florida Center for the Literary Arts or FCLA (a program that started from the umbrella of Miami Dade College's Wolfson Campus' Community Education but now its own entity), I was invited by a professor friend to travel with several English classes to the Morikami Museum in Delray Beach last week Friday.

The Big Read is a Florida-program that endorses and encourages reading and activities through FCLA to promote a particular book. 

This year's book is Julie Otsuka's (pronounced: Oat-ska) "When the Emperor Was Divine". In it, a mother, her elementary school-age children and a host of other characters are Japanese-American and in a point in U.S. history when it was dangerous to be so. During World War II, after the Japanese bombed our military base Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the United States government changed the statuses of Japanese-Americans from 'Citizen' to 'Enemy Alien'.

Propaganda ensued by the North American press to demonize and villianize a segment of our population as not American and worse, not human. Thousands of Japanese-Americans were then forced from their homes, businesses and shops at the point of American military firearms. In a horrific modernization that nearly recalls Native Americans' Trail of Tears and Nazi Germany's deportation of European Jews, Americans were marched and loaded onto trains and taken to internment camps out in the Midwest.

Surrounded by barbwire (which historically was invented to keep in cattle and other livestock, never human beings) and guards, countless Japanese-Americans pined and suffered, many wondering how their country could have done this to them.

Otsuka's tale is told in a slim and minimal prose style, as I've seen in other Japanese-American and Japanese writing. The novel's language is simple, but it delivers its promise of pain, agony, suffering and loss. Told in a voice that neither judges nor preaches.

We have seen such stories before.

Star Trek's 'Mr. Sulu', played by the adorable and incorrigible George Takei, is taking his experience of this point of shame in North American history with his play "Alliance". Weisel's "Night" speaks on the horrors of the Jewish people behind the Third Reich's bloody curtain.

We have countless first-person to third-person diaries and accounts on the Trail of Tears and the heavy toll it took on this continent's indigenous peoples. 

The news speaks every day (especially if you watch the right news and foreign news and not just celebrity news) about atrocities committed towards segments of populations around the world. Either through wars, civil wars, religious battles, diseases and famine, new holocausts happen everyday.

We once dehumanized the 'other' through propaganda and rumors. Now I hear Ebola jokes... When will we humans learn from history so we won't repeat it? 

When will we learn that Dr. King's quote "Injustice somewhere is injustice everywhere"? When DO we all begin taking responsibility instead of waiting for the next person to do it?

April 1 - Daily Poetry Blast! And it ain't April Fool's!

April 1 - Daily Poetry Blast! A celebration of National Poetry Month from the Florida Center for the Literary Arts at Miami Dade College