In perfect harmony with the otherworldly environment, Norton peppers original sayings, phrases and honorifics into her writing. First and foremost, the quality of the narrative can not be overlooked. Troy must decide whether to do what is right or what will best help him survive.Ĭatseye is most impressive in three ways. The small menagerie of highly intelligent animals, including the foxes Sargon and Sheba, the cats Sahiba and Simba, and Shang the kinkajou, draw Troy into a maelstrom of conspiracies and death. The levels of his skill with beasts surprises even himself after he learns that he can communicate telepathically with a select few of the animals at his employer’s establishment. Luckily for Troy, his legacy as a former colonist of Norden allows him to snatch a temp position at a pet shop that caters to the upper echelons of the planet.īeing from the well known herding society of Norden, Troy has an uncanny affinity to animals. They can contract to be shipped off-world to some unknown fate, acquire a work permit that will allow them to find short term meager employment in northern Tikil, or they can buy their way into the booming underground Thieves Guild organization. Norton ascribes a bleak and uncertain future to those of the Dipple. On the planet Korwar, people like Troy live in slums called the Dipple. Bitterly fought until a stalemate was realized, the War rewrote galactic geography and national boundaries, forcing many to live in semi permanent statelessness. In this new installment of Norton’s ever growing bibliography we meet Troy Horan, a young man who, like many of his generation, was displaced from his homeworld because of The War of the Two Sectors. If half of what her book promised was true, then here was an author that I could fully invest in. Reading the back cover of Catseye while in my town’s book store, I had to berate myself for not looking into her before. I’m ashamed to say that I haven’t experienced much of Norton’s writing myself, although her fans sing her praise joyfully and have repeatedly recommended her titles to me. Catseye is the short, but very well written, science fiction novel from the pen of the legendary Andre Norton.

Catseye by andre norton