Norton, Andre. Witch World. New York: Ace Books, 1963.
This book took some hunting down. Andre Norton didn't come to my attention until after she died in 2005. In fact, it was her death that brought her name to my attention in the first place. Being such a fan of Science Fiction and Fantasy, people kept asking me, "Oh God, did you hear? Andre Norton died." Now if you are a bibliophile, having to answer, "Who's Andre Norton?" is a trifle embarrassing. So, being uniquely me, I found out.
Andre Norton wrote SciFi Fantasy from the 1950's through until she died in 2005. Despite her vast popularity in the 60's and 70's somehow she dropped out of popular consciousness for my generation (whoohoo being a child of the 80's) and many of her books dropped out of print, including Witch World.
Witch World is the flagship title for the Witch World series; it was published in 1963 and was nominated for a Hugo in 1964. Its last reprint was in the early mid-80's. So picture me, the intrepid book explorer: pith helmet, flashlight, and spear (wild bookworms you know) on the hunt. I trolled through the used-bookstores of Atlanta, scraping through stacks of V.C. Andrews novels and warding off attacking anthologies. No back room was too dark and no shelf too high. After about three months of looking, I finally found a copy in the Decatur Book Nook.
It was worth the search. On the surface, it's a fairly typical 'lost in another world' scenario. However, Norton actually addresses many of the practical considerations that many authors neglect, such as language and culture shock. It's well written, and thematically cohesive. Norton has a knack for circling back around on ideas unobtrusively. I suspect that a publisher will eventually get around to reprinting Witch World since they do seem to be slowly cycling through her catalog, but it's worth hunting down an old used copy.
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