Andre Norton and the Heinlein juveniles were the first science fiction I read and the first books I bought. I still have Andre Norton books I bought more than 35 years ago. (Aside from an occasional ice cream or candy bar, my allowance all went for comics and paperbacks.) I'm not sure you would catch the Norton love as an adult; she has a great imagination, but both her characters and prose can be a bit one-dimensional. I think the science fiction like The Time Traders holds up best.

Andre Norton pretty much invented the trope of the alienated teen who really is special/super-powered. Her and early Marvel Comics.

Yup. Almost every novel involves a young adult who's isolated socially in some way -- orphaned, usually, in addition to something else -- faced with an opportunity to take a new path. They change, they grow, they discover new talents, and find a place for themselves in a new world. It sounds simplistic, but for a geeky 12-year-old? Gold.

I'm not sure you would catch the Norton love as an adult; she has a great imagination, but both her characters and prose can be a bit one-dimensional.

This is true, but I still read her. I was recently disappointed with Voodoo Planet, but Star Rangers, aka The Last Planet, still holds up pretty well.

She was certainly at the forefront of seeing the Alien as just another kind of sapience, no better or worse than humanity. And I loved the use of "bemmie" as derogatory slang for "non-human". BEM, bemmie, get it? Heh.

My first Norton, as I said in my LJ this morning, was The Stars Are Ours, followed not long after by Daybreak 2250 AD and The Last Planet. One of the ones I'd like to find and reread is Star Gate, where Earth has become a supplier of mercenaries for planetary wars across the galaxy. That one was interesting, and particularly grim. Neat stuff.

BEM, bemmie, get it?

...No.

BEM: Bug-Eyed Monster. Shorthand for the evil aliens in many 1950s movies.

Aha. Thankee.

I've seen Repo Man and Diner but not that other movie.

Andre Norton pretty much invented the trope of the alienated teen who really is special/super-powered

Not to want to diss Norton, but John Wyndham did that earlier; Chocky and (especially) The Chrysalids. Which were the other SF books you got in school libraries in the UK along with Cat's Eye, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and John Christopher.

My first Norton was Witch World. I didn't read Star Rangers until I was older, but it's still pretty good. I read the Witch World series at about the same time I read the Darkover series, and used to get them confused (I was pretty young), but I've since gone back and read some from each. WW much more with the sci-fi, less fantasy, and much more interesting treatment of female characters.

I think, possibly, she collaborated with -- Anne McCaffrey? -- in the late 80s on a series, which I read

Black Trillium? Some other female sci-fi/fantasy author in there also. I read the first one but didn't love it.

And I've seen all three movies, and have sometimes gone for days at a time without quoting at least one of them.

Oh, yeah, the Witch World series. I remember those. I liked Heinlein better at the time. I suspect that if I went back and read both again, that might change.

I've seen Diner and Buckaroo Bonzai and part of Repo Man, but never read any Norton. In fact, I had never heard of her before this conversation.

Ah well.