Beast Master's Planet

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

The Beast Master was first published in 1959. Miss Norton, having already established a reputation for exciting science fiction adventure in dozens of novels, was known to readers of all ages as one of the most dependably entertaining authors in the field.

Hosteen Storm, the Navajo hero of The Beast Master, was immediately a popular hero. The combination of military experience and Native American traditions gave him a background virtually unique in the annals of SF. Combined with Storm’s special ability to communicate telepathically with the animals of his beast master team, he remains, more than forty years later, a most appealing and intriguing character.

Living on the colonized but still largely untamed and mysterious planet Arzor, Storm has his hands full with issues that most adventure novels don’t often treat. He brings with him the pain and anguish of having experienced a war that ultimately destroyed his home—Terra, the longtime science-fictional name for Earth. And he bears the emotional scars of personal tragedy, a burden passed down from his family. His adventure and his emotional baggage are inextricably entwined, their mutual resolution essential to the successful conclusion of the story. He also has plenty of flat-out action—on horseback, like a range-rider in the American West, but also involving more sophisticated vehicles and equipment appropriate to a frontier light-years from Earth.

This is vintage Andre Norton—straightforward on the surface, but with hidden layers of meaning and theme that enrich the novel without slowing it down.

Lord of Thunder, first published in 1962, continues Storm’s story, allowing readers to learn more about the mysteries of Arzor and the aliens who, uncounted ages before, created mysterious machineries that confound both the human colonists and their native aboriginal allies.

New adventures have, in the past few years, been written by Miss Norton and Lyn McConchie, about Hosteen Storm and his unique animal cohort. These two original novels are the rock on which those newer novels are based. Rich in alien color and the sense of wonder of all good science fiction, these first two novels of Hosteen Storm are published together for the first time in this omnibus edition.

They have stood the test of time, and remain as exciting and fresh as when first published. Welcome to the excitement of the future!