Andre Norton - Witch World Books

Andre Norton was another prolific writer of fantasy and science fiction. I didn't really get into her books that much, but I do have a collection of her Witch World series, probably because I liked the covers of the British editions published by Tandem. They are unusual, somewhat psychedelic and bizarre. I can't recall reading many of the series, but I did like Year of the Unicorn the best.

Related books, eg Jargoon Pard is a sequel to Year of the Unicorn

Next will be old style fantasy - A Merritt, Sprague De Camp etc.

Tanith Lee - Various Novels

This entry will conclude my display of Tanith Lee books. I realised whilst I was scanning the covers, that all the DAW editions are in fact first editions.

Here's some more for your delectation.

Red As Blood or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer is Tanith Lee's take on traditional fairy tales such as Snow White, Beauty & The Beast, Cinderella etc. It has interior illustrations by the lady herself and the cover is the work of Michael Whelan.

Companions On The Road contains two novellas, the title story and The Winter Players. It's a Bantam paperback edition where the cover artist is not credited. Days Of Grass is a science fiction novel about alien invasion. Cover art by Michael Whelan.

Next Day By Night, a science fiction novel, and Sung In Shadow a version of Romeo & Juliet. Cover art by Don Maitz and Victoria Poyser.

Back to swords and sorcery with the next two books - Cyrion and Volkhavaar.
Cover art is respectively by Ken W Kelly and Michael Whelan.

Finally, a werewolf novel Lycanthia or The Children of Wolves, cover art by Paul Chadwick and The Blood Of Roses, a British paperback published by Arrow Books in 1991. The cover artist is Jeff Willis.

That's it for Tanith Lee. Next - Andre Norton's Witch World books.

Tanith Lee - Flat Earth & Other Tales

Continuing with my Tanith Lee collection, here are covers from three of the Flat Earth series. I seem to be missing Death's Master, but I have the others, Night's Master, Delusion's Master and Delirium's Mistress.

Cover art by George Barr

Cover art respectively by Ken W Kelly and Michael Whelan

The following two books in the Secret Books of Paradys series are British paperback editions published by Unwin in 1989. Cover art is by Peter Goodfellow.

Back to DAW paperback originals, here is the highly regarded Kill The Dead with a terrific cover by Don Maitz.

And to finish off this particular post two individual novels, Sabella or The Bloodstone, a Science Fiction Vampire novel and The Silver Metal Lover, the tale of a human girl's affair with a beautiful robot. Cover art is by George Smith (Sabella) and Don Maitz.

And yes, there's more Tanith Lee to come - I did say I have a large collection of her books.

Tanith Lee - The Early Books

In times past I was a great fan of Tanith Lee's heroic fantasy books. She is remarkably prolific, producing something like 20 novels in the 1970s alone.

She first came to my notice in 1975 when DAW released her first adult fantasy novel The Birthgrave as a DAW original paperback. I had never before read anything quite like her fantasy, so became addicted to her novels thereafter. As you will see I did collect a great many of her books, though ceased to do so in the late 1980s.

So first up The Birthgrave and its sequels Vazkor, Son of Vazkor and Quest For The White Witch. I recently reread this sequence just to see how they appealed to me today. I decided they were a fun read, definitely not boring and certainly didn't throw them down in disgust. The covers these days look quite exotic with the muscular savage looking men and provocative busty women.

Cover art by George Barr

Cover art by Gino D'Achille

Next, The Storm Lord and its related novel, Anakire.

Cover art respectively is by Gino D'Achille and Michael Whelan.

The next two early Tanith Lee books are her dystopian Four Bee novels. These two books of hers are the only ones I regularly reread. I recently reviewed them on my other blog Cat Politics.

The cover art of Don't Bite The Sun is by Brian Froud and Don Maitz did the artwork for Drinking Sapphire Wine.

More Tanith Lee will follow soon.

Heroic Fantasy - Swords and Sorcery 2

Below are all the editions of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd & Gray Mouser paperbacks I have in my library.

Cover art for the Ace editions are by Jeff Jones. The last book in the series The Knight & Knave of Swords cover artist is Darrell Sweet. the Mayflower edition has no credit for the cover artist.

Next - Tanith Lee

Heroic Fantasy - Swords & Sorcery

The following covers are from various heroic fantasy novels or collections, mostly paperback originals published by Ace, DAW and Dell. The Flashing Swords II cover is surely by Frank Frazetta, though it is not acknowledged in the publishing credits, nor is the artist of the second collection Heroic Visions. The latter book I'm pretty sure I purchased because it had a new Fafhrd & Gray Mouser novella called "The Curse of the Smalls and the Stars". I loved the Fafhrd & Gray Mouser series by Fritz Leiber - swords and sorcery fiction with class, humour and panache. I will be displaying the covers in the next entry.

Next are some feminist heroic fantasy collections, Amazons I & II edited by Jessica Amanda Salmonson. Cover Art by Michael Whelan.

Another collection with a somewhat absurd cover...

Next - more heroic fantasy - novels by Fritz Leiber & Tanith Lee.