Andre Norton Forum

After giving this matter a great deal of thought for many months, I've decided to start including the short stories written by other authors. Some of the people who have contributed to the Witch World legacy are pretty darn good writers. And that's an understatement.

But where I've been most troubled is with an issue that many people have brought up concerning the material presented on my Witch World pages (and THE Witch World Page was originally derived from an early version of the WorldFAQ). This, of course, is the issue of whether the non-Norton authors should be considered canonical.

For a while I thought maybe I should apply the rule that Marion Zimmer Bradley applies to the non-MZB Darkover stories: they are welcome fan fiction. But I don't believe Ms. Norton feels this way. It is my understanding that she has reviewed and edited the stories, and that she feels they are contributing to the Witch World.

Perhaps I am mistaken, and no one should take that as an official view. It's just my perception.

Still, I would feel uncomfortable calling these stories "fan fiction" unless Ms. Norton herself were to say that is what they are: welcome and endorsed, but fan fiction.

So, I will instead take my cue from the Tolkien fans and use the terms "canonical" and "uncanonical". With respect to Witch World stories I shall not attach the pejorative meaning that "uncaonical" has come to have in the Tolkien community. There are those of us who refrain from using THE SILMARILION as a canonical source since it hardly is a work compiled by J.R.R. Tolkien.

By assigning "canonicality" to a story I will be saying, "I regard this to be the work of Andre Norton and no one else". It is important to me, when trying to understand what an author's stories construct -- in perceiving the author's own creative expression -- to distinguish between the author's work and someone else's.

Tolkien fans have been accused of getting really hung up on the finer points of the books. I'm one of those folks so accused. And I get hung up on the finer points of Norton's books, as well.

So, I ask for feedback. I know most of you just like to lurk, but I'd really like to know if this arbitrary designation is acceptable to you. I'm not asking for approval. I have no idea of whether Ms. Norton would approve, but I think it's unfair to the authors who have contributed to the Witch World legacy to exclude them from all fannish considerations, and it's unfair to the fans who have just discovered Witch World to pretend there is no more to it than what I consider to be "pure Norton".

This distinction is my mechanism of establishing some sort of barrier that respects my comfort level.

Michael