ing. Although it appears that the story concluded
with this volume, there are hints that further ad-
ventures set in this world might be in the offing.
Nix also wrote a much less ambitious series of
six books in the Seventh Tower series, consisting of
The Fall, Castle, Aenir, Above the Veil, Into Battle,
and The Violent Keystone,all published in 2000 and
- The setting is reminiscent of the work of
Mervyn PEAKE in that the action takes place
within a gigantic castle so large that it is essentially
a city, providing a large cast of characters and a
wide variety of settings for the young protagonists,
who seek a missing magical artifact and battle a
number of enemies before recovering it and saving
the castle from destruction. It is aimed at a much
younger audience than the Abhorsen trilogy and
has less appeal for mature readers.
Nix has recently started a new series with Keys
to the Kingdom(2003) and Grim Tuesday(2004), also
for young readers. The protagonist is a boy with mag-
ical powers who must defeat a succession of interest-
ing villains. Nix’s occasional short stories for adults,
such as “Under the Lake” (2001) and “Heart’s De-
sire” (2004), indicate that he might find a welcome
audience among adults as well as children.
Norton, Andre (Alice Mary Norton)
(1912–2005)
Alice Mary Norton began her writing career pro-
ducing adventure stories for young adults, mostly in
historical settings, during the 1930s. She also turned
out her first fantasy novel, Rogue Reynard(1947), a
minor talking animal story, and then a second, Huon
of the Horn(1951), but most of her output during
the 1950s and early 1960s was science fiction.
It was the publication of Witch Worldin 1963,
the first of more than two dozen novels in the
WITCH WORLD SERIESwritten solely or coauthored
by Norton with other writers, that has proven to
be her most noticeable achievement. The early
volumes bear some resemblance to her science fic-
tion and are cast as planetary adventures, but she
quickly abandoned all efforts at rationalization and
invoked magic and psychic powers in their stead.
The series begins in the land of Estcarp, a matri-
archy ruled by witches, women with psychic pow-
ers, but later volumes move to other regions of
that world and follow separate sets of characters,
often with no connection to the other story lines.
Individual volumes are set in various times and
places and most stand completely alone, sharing a
common setting and occasionally characters but
with separately resolved plots. In recent years
many of the titles in the series have been collabo-
rative efforts and of less interest than earlier titles,
but the Witch World novels have had obvious in-
fluence on the work of Marion Zimmer BRADLEY
and other writers.
The popularity of the series overshadows the
fact that Norton wrote a considerable body of fan-
tasy not set in that world. Although most of her
work prior to the 1960s had been ostensibly for a
young adult audience, her emphasis began to
change as she largely abandoned science fiction in
favor of fantasy. Only a small portion of her fiction
was still designed for younger audiences, such as
Steel Magic(1965, also published as Gray Magic),
in which children go through a magic portal into a
world where King Arthur and Huon of the Horn
battle evil. This was the first of a series of themati-
cally related fantasies, all of which involved some
form of magical time travel. Octagon Magic(1967),
the best of her children’s fantasies, follows the ad-
ventures of a troubled young girl who discovers
that a neighbor’s elaborate dollhouse is magical
and that she can enter it and travel to a different
age. Fur Magic(1968) also involves a transforma-
tion in which a young boy finds himself magically
changed into an animal as well as transported
through time.
Norton continued to write occasional children’s
fantasies through the 1970s, starting with Lavender
Green Magic(1974), in which children travel back
through time to visit a good witch. Red Hart Magic
(1976) explores similar territory and actually con-
sists of interrelated short stories about young people
who have adventures in time thanks to the magic
properties of an old inn. One of her most interesting
fantasies during this period is the adult novel The
White Jade Fox(1975), in which a young woman ac-
cepts a job as governess in a home that is set in a
magical landscape where animals have unusual in-
telligence and the physical nature of the countryside
can change from moment to moment. Knave of
Dreams(1975) describes the adventures of a youngNorton, Andre 259