Witch World

Witch World is a speculative fiction project of American writer Andre Norton, inaugurated by her 1963 novel Witch World and continuing more than four decades. Beginning in the mid-1980s, when she was about 75 years old, Norton recruited other writers to the project, and some books were published only after her death in 2005. The Witch World is a planet in a parallel universe where magic long ago superseded science; early in the fictional history, it is performed exclusively by women. The series began as a hybrid of science fiction and sword and sorcery, but for the most part it combines the latter with high fantasy. Witch World starts with what is now called the Estcarp cycle, describing the adventures of Simon Tregarth from Earth, his witch wife Jaelithe, and their three children Kyllan, Kemoc and Kaththea. The series was then expanded with the High Hallack cycle, starting with Year of the Unicorn in 1965 and its sequels Jargoon Pard and Gryphon in Glory. Mostly these cycles are organized by continent, with High Hallack being on one to the west of the one containing Estcarp and its neighboring countries, with a sea in between.