Witch World

Author: Andre Norton

Andre Norton was one of the most prolific writers of science fiction and fantasy throughout the 1950s and 60s, but the two strands of her career came together in the extended series that began with Witch World. The novel opens on Earth, where Simon Tregarth is a former soldier who has become a black marketer. On the run from the authorities and from other criminals, he is given the opportunity to flee through a gateway to another world. What he finds there reads like a standard fantasy adventure, full of warring tribes and witches and colourful escapades, but towards the end we realise that the people Tregarth is fighting have also arrived from another universe, though one with a higher level of technology than Earth. Why it's on the list: Andre Norton's colourful planetary adventures were responsible for introducing an extraordinary number of readers to science fiction. And in the long Witch World series, that eventually became a setting shared with other writers, she combined the most engaging aspects of her fantasy and her science fiction.