Read The Synopsis Treasury for Free Online Page B

before closing the library in 2004 due to failing health.
    By the time she passed away in 2005 she had written over two hundred novels and many more short stories, and had co-written quite a few in her later years with female fantasy authors who built their success on the wake of Andre’s pioneering career.
    … My first book published, The Prince Commands , was issued during my very early twenties. I simply had an alphabetical list of publishers and sent it to the first on the list—who took it. The field was not so crowded then and one did not need an agent. I submitted the finished manuscript not an outline—this is what I did for years. This particular title was an adventure story, not sf or fantasy.
    Now my agent uses an outline idea and perhaps a couple of chapters in a submission.
    Witch World [1963] grew from a short story idea concerning a Crusader, which I had set down in notes but never developed.
    [Port of Dead Ships] was one of the full length novels which appeared in the omnibus entitled Storms of Victory [1991] which was one of the Witch World books.
    It does not read exactly as the printed copy does since once I begin to write I often change the plot. My characters seem to take over and carry on as they please rather than as I intended and I do not argue with them.
    … This is, of course, what was submitted to the publisher before the book was written.
    —Andre Norton

    (2 Oct 2003 and 6 April 2004)
Port of Dead Ships
Plot

    Simon, Jaelithe, Kemoc, Orsya (Kemoc’s Krogan Wife) and Koris meet with Sulcars asking for aid against what they believe may be either renewed Kolder trouble or Black power. Several Sulcar ships had disappeared and months later found derelict with no evidence of what happened to the crews—apparently they were abandoned voluntarily—they had all set sail in the beginning for the far south which was largely unexplored.
    The Estcarpians agree to help, but the Witches, no longer holding government control, refuse to have anything to do with it. A seeress who is part Sulcar, plus Jaelithe, agrees to come. The seeress as part Sulcar is so refused witchship. While they are discussing this matter another Sulcar ship is reported in, bringing with it a derelict which is like no ship ever seen in Estcarp before. They go to investigate this. The Sulcars finding the ship also report volcanic disturbances under the sea which they had fled. Simon sees this is a ship of his own World. They explore it and discover that everything is as it was left, apparently by a crew who had departed hastily and some time ago. Find only ship’s cat on board. Charts on board are all of Simon’s world.
    Four ships sail for the south. Kemoc and Orsya and seeress are on first vessel, and Simon and Jaelithe on another. They will keep in touch by mind touch. Five days out they run into a storm which parts the ships and drives the one with Kemoc south very swiftly. In fact the Sulcars are worried that they seem to be caught in a current from which they can not break free. Seeress tries, backed by Kemoc, to reach other ship. Not able to do so. Falconer on board as marine sends his bird—no better luck.
    Seeress keeps trying and then announces that they seem to be enclosed in an unnatural “silence”.
    They see islands which appear to have risen from the sea not too long before. The water about the ship is warm. At night farther away they see a glow which might come from a volcano. Orsya returns from one of her needful swims to say there is a surprising lack of all sea life—she can not pick up any trace of living things.
    Ship continues to be drawn forward. They see land ahead which is larger than any island they have passed. There a large bay opens out and the Sulcars manage to get loose from the current and reach that.
    The bay is crowded with ships, some looking very old, many of them strange in shape. The Sulcars manage to anchor at the edge of this collection. Kemoc, Orsya, and seeress are all aware of