Talk:Witch World (novel)

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Kirkus Reviews

Kirkus did not review Witch World (1963), perhaps because it was a paperback original. It had reviewed dozens of her books from 1934 to 1963, whose hardover status I have not checked.

This is a short version of Talk: Witch World#Kirkus Reviews. --P64 (talk) 01:42, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Mainly confirmed. Kirkus reviewed 29(?) Norton novels prior to Witch World, all in hardcover first editions. --P64 (talk) 18:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Science fiction

The first edition does not show any reluctance to market Witch World as science fiction. The inside blurb on Norton mentions s-f repeatedly. The title page illustration shows the Kolder in a skullcap with various cable connections.

The back cover mentions "science-adventure" and "super-science, witchcraft, and fantasy-romance" in the sense of genre, I believe. Tregarth's destiny is a planet where "the laws of nature operate differently--where in fact certain types of 'magic' apparently work. Into this far-out space world, an Earthman is sent to test his skill against this new type of science."

Of course multiple motives underlie the cover blurb, only one being to sell the book to the Ace ppb audience. Maybe another was to play safe regarding what Norton would reveal in sequels. I have not read any sequels and my revision only nudges the presentation toward science fiction.

I deleted Category:Alternate history novels and did not add any explicit science fiction cat. --P64 (talk) 20:36, 21 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

sequel Web of the Witch World

The first edition inside blurb is about the book, not the author. "QUEST FOR KOLDER ... Somewhere they were storing up the super-science of an adjoining world ... [WOTWW] combines the best of science-fiction with the most colorful heroic fantasy."

On the back cover, ... "Andre Norton's WOTWW] is a terrific novel of scientific marvel, other-world color, and sword-and-sorcery action that will thrill and delight every reader."

In the text, here as in Witch World, the Kolder are presented as aliens with advanced technology. There is plenty of fancy metal stuff and the greenish metal dimensional gate is finally destroyed by pressing a button on a metal rod from the alternate world, evidently a gun that annihilates its target (annihilation, i infer, not disintegration).

--P64 (talk) 20:59, 5 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

High Hallack sidequel Year of the Unicorn

The first edition inside blurb is primarily about the planet Witch World --that setting shared (on different continents) by this book and the first two. It pushes the science fiction interpretation very hard:

(quote) Lands of wonder ... lands of marvel ... lands of fantasy ... al these are waiting for discovery. Soewhere up there, out there, beyond, in the infinity f suns and worlds, they exist.

Such is the planet AN has termed the Witch World. It exists, it has much in common with our own world, but it has much that is not common--its own peoples, its own marvels of a science not born under our stars."

The blurb does close without 'science'/'scientific' or any clear allusion thereto: TYOTU "is one of AN's finest fantasies--a novel of wonder and witchcraft, of adventure and alien worlds."

On the back cover is a plot summary that closes "find a lost land, a forgotten world, and a super-science challenge. [AN's YOTU] is a brand-new novel of swordsmanship and scientific sorcery."

P.S. Is it true this book was published after Three Against the Witch World as some sources say? This one does have a higher Ace catalog number, F-357 vs F-332, and its first printing was late in the year, Oct 1965. My copy lists the first three Estcarp novels, F-197 -263 -332, and no others on the copyright page. --P64 (talk) 21:33, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

sequel Three against the Witch World (Estcarp #3) Unfortunately I hold the 1974 Ace paperback ed (95 cents up from 40 cents). The Author blurb still pushes AN as s-f but there isn't a hint of science fiction to the inside front or the back cover blurb --no more than the word 'world'. --P64 (talk) 21:33, 16 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]