Part of Series
The first new exciting Beast Master adventure in decades! Danger on Arzor Beast Master Hosteen Storm has endured great perils to carve out a life for himself on Arzor, the colony planet he's called home since the destruction of Earth by the alien Xik. On a planet with alien life forms and untold secrets from it's pre-Human past, there are always dangers in the wild, especially the vast desert and rugged mountain region known as Big Blue. But nobody has ever experienced a threat like the devastating scourge the natives call Death-Which-Comes-in-the-Night. Something is killing grazing animals . . . and has begun to attack humans as well, leaving nothing but the bones of its victims behind. Hosteen, aided by his telepathically linked animals, knows that if he can't stop the killings Arzor will be decimated. His only ally is a young woman who has beast master ability, but was raised to mistrust others with such a power. At stake is the safety of all those on Arzor, and on other colony planets as well. Because Death-Which-Comes-in-the-Night is a scourge that if not stopped here, could spread . . .
Author
Alice Mary Norton always had an affinity to the humanities. She started writing in her teens, inspired by a charismatic high school teacher. First contacts with the publishing world led her, as many other contemporary female writers targeting a male-dominated market, to choose a literary pseudonym. In 1934 she legally changed her name to Andre Alice. She also used the names Andrew North and Allen Weston as pseudonyms. Andre Norton published her first novel in 1934, and was the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master Award from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977, and won the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) association in 1983. Norton was twice nominated for the Hugo Award, in 1964 for the novel Witch World and in 1967 for the novelette "Wizard's World." She was nominated three times for the World Fantasy Award for lifetime achievement, winning the award in 1998. Norton won a number of other genre awards, and regularly had works appear in the Locus annual "best of year" polls. On February 20, 2005, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, which had earlier honored her with its Grand Master Award in 1983, announced the creation of the Andre Norton Award, to be given each year for an outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for the young adult literature market, beginning in 2006. Often called the Grande Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy by biographers such as J. M. Cornwell and organizations such as Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Publishers Weekly, and Time, Andre Norton wrote novels for over 70 years. She had a profound influence on the entire genre, having over 300 published titles read by at least four generations of science fiction and fantasy readers and writers. Notable authors who cite her influence include Greg Bear, Lois McMaster Bujold, C. J. Cherryh, Cecilia Dart-Thornton, Tanya Huff, Mercedes Lackey, Charles de Lint, Joan D. Vinge, David Weber, K. D. Wentworth, and Catherine Asaro.
