: There are certain basic things that run through several of the books. 1) A war on Earth that creates a sub-culture of people. Sometimes these are scientists, other times religious, and sometimes ethnic. (Planets are settled by Africans or religious sects.)

: After the initial spread to the stars, there is again some sort of inter-planetary war. This includes several races from different solar systems. During this war there are areas of displaced people, Dipples. There are also planets that contain the remains of races the came before, Forerunners. There is also an inter-stellar trade.

: I don't believe that Andre Norton ever dreamed these were one universe. I don't think that I'd make ONE time-line to cover all of her books.

Irene,

You have just put your finger on the crux of my disagreement with Maureen's timeline.

I look at the entire Norton Omniverse as resembling a sort of roadmap, by which you can pick out any one of several routes to get from A to Z, or to use a concrete example, from San Diego to Seattle. The "quick" way is to go up US 101 to LA, then cut over to I-5 and straight on; the scenic route is to switch from 101 to 1 at LA, then go up the coast to San Francisco, where you join up with 101 again and continue up the coast. And if you want to take the back roads, there are an immense variety of alternate routes and byways you can get lost in (I know, I've done it several times on purpose). And you can cut back over to I-5 any time you want to speed up the progress.

One of the things that caused this analogy to occur to me was the group of novels and series whose storylines intersect on the planet Korwar, or which relate back in one way or another to the same place.

To be honest, I am not trying to create a single "official" past and future history of Andre Norton's work. Not only would it be incredibly presumptuous of me (I've never even met the lady, much less gotten permission), but as you rightly point out it would be very impractical. What I am trying to do is work out a hopefully-consistent "parallel" set of timelines that incorporates most of the important and non-inconsistent threads into a "main stream" with side-branches that cover the rest.

And in any case, it is primarily for my own amusement -- logic puzzles beat hanging out in bars: they are cheaper, and you don't waste as much money on them. (Spending my spare cash on more Andre Norton is not wasting money... it's an investment in Great Literature).

Respectfully,

Michael B. Caffrey
Stellae Nostrae Sunt!