Witch World Series 4: Secrets of the Witch World

Series · 3 books · 1995-1997

By Andre Norton

Books in series

The Key of the Keplian

Secrets of the Witch World

1995

All of Witch World knows to fear the hated, fire-eyed Keplian horses who lure riders to their deaths. All that is, save for one young Native American girl new to Witch World, who rescues a Keplian mare and her foal and discovers an awesome truth—the Keplians were created to serve light, not darkness, and to ride with humans. This is the first in a new trilogy.

The Magestone

1996

They are two strangers whose people have been at war for a millennium. Mereth, a Dales trader, crosses the sea to Estcarp and the archival citadel at Lormt, seeking clues to the fate of a missing heirloom, an ancient jewel of Power. At the same time, an Alizonder hound lord, Kasarian, finds that an ancestor's key opens a magic gate to distant Lormt. Alizonders are wolfish tyrants who fight with sadistic poisons and feed fallen leaders to their dogs, but they have always abhorred the sorcery of Witch World. Now, to Kasarian's horror, a maniacal baron seeks to unleash the dark wizards of Escore using Mereth's long-lost Magestone, stolen from Kasarian's murdered father! Two strangers, two foes suddenly share a common cause, and a legacy more dire than either could imagine....

The Warding of Witch World

1997

It is a desperate time in Witch World. The Magestone, the key to the pandimensional gates, has been lost and now all the gates are open. In the classic series' grand finale, an infinite flood of evil is about to wash across the world as Simon Tregarth returns to lead the planet's heroes in the final war against the forces of darkness.

Author

Andre Norton

Author · 174 books

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.