Rindis.com

This old Ace collection of Andre Norton stories is not aptly named. There’s not a lot of sorcery to be had, high or otherwise, and certainly, it’s never called such. As usual for a collection, it is bookended by the two strongest (and in this case, longest) stories, which also happen to be the ones to have been previously published elsewhere.

In between, we get three shorter pieces, one of which, “Through the Needle’s Eye” is more what I consider a ‘mood piece’. It has a limited plot, which is almost geared around what doesn’t happen (it’s a good example of resolution through what the character learns, though). “By a Hair” is decidedly more developed, though ‘mood’ is still the primary aim, and both range closer to the horror side of the aisle.

“Ully the Piper” is effectively the second High Hallack Witch World story (which is where the WW stories I like better tend to come from). It’s the most lighthearted and fun of the stories, and for the WW completist, it’s in Tales from High Hallack Volume 1.

The first story is “Wizard’s World”, and has a quick introduction of a post-apocalyptic world where psionic mutants have appeared before moving to an alternate world where what may be magic or might simply be a different form of psionics is used. The main character has the moral high ground on just about everyone else, and while dealing with unknown powers, the his powers are just as unknown to everyone else. It’s got a lot of good action, and is good… right up until that ending. It’s… yeah, I don’t think I can easily say anything intelligent there.

The last is “Toys of Tamisan”, which is the longest of the set, and has a fair amount of world-building going on, including diving into the alternate history of a world that is already fictitious. It’s the most ambitious story, and is fairly good. It also forms the first section of the slightly later book Perilous Dreams from DAW. All of that deals with the general concepts of this original story, but only the second part is a direct sequel.

Overall, it’s not a bad collection, but the best part is found in Perious Dreams (and isn’t even the best part of that book). The other stories also apparently got reprinted in various places, none of which are likely to be easy to find today either. Overall, the situation points up the need for some large collections of all of Andre Norton’s works.