The Passing of a Giant

Up to this point, I have been mostly writing here with an eye toward providing posts that would be entertaining or interesting to my kind audience. However, this time I am writing out of purely selfish motivations. Recently, on Thursday March 17, one of the truly great writers of modern science fiction and fantasy passed away at the well earned age of 93. It was my great pleasure to have read a number of the works of Andre Norton. I read her books mostly as a young teenager. Indeed, she wrote with that age group specifically in mind. The second science fiction book that I ever read was one of hers. It was called "The Zero Stone". It was the first book that I checked out of my Junior High School library. I enjoyed it so much that I became a regular library patron. All the librarians knew me by name! I found a picture of the original hard cover book that actually looks quite familiar to me, even after many years:



Her books really captured my imagination and led me to read the stories of many other authors of science fiction and fantasy in later years. I owe her a debt, and to her I say, with fond remembrance, thank you and farewell!