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rushthatspeaksReview from July 2nd.
I'm not entirely sure how I missed this book, because I've read both the sequels (Ordeal in Otherwhere and Forerunner Foray) multiple times. I put it down to Norton's huge bibliography-- seriously, every time I go to a good used bookstore I turn up something of hers I have never heard of, let alone read-- and the fact that several of her series are structured to be so independent of one another that I once went fifteen years without noticing that I missed a book that came between two other books. (To be specific, I read Moon of Three Rings and Dare to Go A-Hunting as a kid and found out about Exiles of the Stars when Baen put out the omnibus. Uh, oops. Actually I didn't find out about Storm Over Warlock until the omnibus came out either, but I think there's a bit more excuse for missing the beginning of a series than the middle.)
This has a very typical Norton setup, young man on the run on an alien planet with telepathic wolverines as his companions. One reason I love Andre Norton so much is that that is absolutely a typical Norton setup. Anyway, the wrinkles this time around are that the things chasing him are insectoid aliens who really cannot be communicated with in any way, and the alien planet is inhabited by matriarchal telepathic sea-dwelling reptiles who don't like him because he is confusingly both male and telepathic, a thing that doesn't happen in their species. It's a pretty standard protagonist-running-away-from-things book, mostly, but the sea-dwelling culture is really fun and convincingly alien, and the way in which the protagonist keeps spending immense time and effort to stop being trapped on small islands without food or water only to then find himself trapped on different small islands without food or water is structurally more enjoyable than it sounds.
Solidly second-tier Norton-- in a year or so it is going to blend in my head with her other sixty-three books about people running away from danger with telepathic animals. The sequels are much better, more complex and less standardized. But I felt no urge to walk away in the middle; Norton is always readable even when she's not impressive.
I'm not entirely sure how I missed this book, because I've read both the sequels (Ordeal in Otherwhere and Forerunner Foray) multiple times. I put it down to Norton's huge bibliography-- seriously, every time I go to a good used bookstore I turn up something of hers I have never heard of, let alone read-- and the fact that several of her series are structured to be so independent of one another that I once went fifteen years without noticing that I missed a book that came between two other books. (To be specific, I read Moon of Three Rings and Dare to Go A-Hunting as a kid and found out about Exiles of the Stars when Baen put out the omnibus. Uh, oops. Actually I didn't find out about Storm Over Warlock until the omnibus came out either, but I think there's a bit more excuse for missing the beginning of a series than the middle.)
This has a very typical Norton setup, young man on the run on an alien planet with telepathic wolverines as his companions. One reason I love Andre Norton so much is that that is absolutely a typical Norton setup. Anyway, the wrinkles this time around are that the things chasing him are insectoid aliens who really cannot be communicated with in any way, and the alien planet is inhabited by matriarchal telepathic sea-dwelling reptiles who don't like him because he is confusingly both male and telepathic, a thing that doesn't happen in their species. It's a pretty standard protagonist-running-away-from-things book, mostly, but the sea-dwelling culture is really fun and convincingly alien, and the way in which the protagonist keeps spending immense time and effort to stop being trapped on small islands without food or water only to then find himself trapped on different small islands without food or water is structurally more enjoyable than it sounds.
Solidly second-tier Norton-- in a year or so it is going to blend in my head with her other sixty-three books about people running away from danger with telepathic animals. The sequels are much better, more complex and less standardized. But I felt no urge to walk away in the middle; Norton is always readable even when she's not impressive.
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Date: 2011-07-04 02:57 pm (UTC)I've read Forerunner Foray and I haven't read this one, either. Go know.