The Solar Queen
In 1955, Norton introduced Dane Thorson, an apprentice cargo-master who
signed on with the independent cargo ship Solar Queen looking for a
career in off-world trade. Here are the first two star-spanning tales
of Dane Thorson and the Solar Queen.
In Sargasso of Space, the free-traders of the Solar Queen win exclusive
rights to all tradable goods discovered on the planet Limbo. The crew
arrives to find the planet's surface charred, signs of life sparse.
Worse yet, a strange pulse emanating from the planet itself may keep
the Queen from lifting off. The traders find a secret valley with life,
but others may still lurk in rocky caves below. The traders must solve
the mysteries of Limbo if they hope to escape the planet, let alone
come away with some saleable goods.
In Plague Ship, the Queen travels to Sargol, homeworld to a
race of sentient felines, the Salariki. Sargol promises a wealth of
exquisite gems to trade-if the crew can overcome the natives' mistrust.
But their troubles have only just begun. When a mysterious soon
overtakes all the crew except the four youngest, the Galactic Patrol
labels the Queen plagued and orders it to be destroyed on sight. The
apprentices discover alien beings aboard the Queen, and realize the
illness may be connected to the aliens. With every ship in the galaxy
searching for them, the crew has one chance to save the Solar Queen:
broadcast their plight throughout the galaxy. But the one station able
to do this is on Earth, at Patrol headquarters, which ordered the Solar
Queen's destruction.
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Andre Norton
Andre Alice Norton (1912-2005) was an American science fiction and fantasy author (with some works of historical fiction and contemporary fiction) under the noms de plume Andre Norton, Andrew North and Allen Weston. Norton published her first novel in 1934, and was the first woman to receive the Gandalf Grand Master Award from the World Science Fiction Society in 1977, and won the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) association in 1983.
Solar Queen
Solar Queen consists of seven primary books, and includes one additional book that complement the series but is not considered mandatory reads. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
