Beast Master's Ark
Beast Master Hosteen Storm has endured great perils to carve out a life for himself on Azor, the colony planet he’s called home since the destruction of Earth by the alien Xil. On a planet with alien life forms and untold secrets from its pre-human past, there are always dangers in the wild, especially in the vast desert and rugged mountain region known as Big Blue.

But nobody has ever experienced a threat like the devastating scourge the natives call Death-Which-Comes-In-The-Night. Something is killing grazing animals, and has begun to attack humans as well, leaving nothing behind but the bones of its victims.

Hosteen, aided by his telepathically linked animals, knows that if he can’t stop the killings Azor will be decimated. His only ally is a young woman who has beast master ability, but was raised to mistrust others with such a power. At stake is the safety of all those on Azor and on other colony planets as well. Because Death-Which-Comes-In-The-Night is a scourge that if not stopped here, could spread...
Life on other planets, Hosteen Storm (Fictitious character), Fiction, Fiction, science fiction, action & adventure
Andre Norton, Lyn McConchie
Andre Norton was born Alice Mary Norton in Cleveland, Ohio, the daughter of rug company owner and his wife.  She began writing while she was in high school, and she was the editor of a literary page in the school's paper.  She also wrote her first novel, Ralestone Luck, which was published in 1938.  Her first published novel was The Prince Commands (1934).  She graduated from high school in 1930 and began studying teaching at Flora Stone Mather College of Western Reserve University.  In 1932 she dropped out early due to economic conditions and began working for the Cleveland Library System.  In 1934, she legally changed her name to Andre Alice Norton, the pen name she had adopted to increase her marketability since boys were the main audience for fantasy.  In 1941, she bought a bookstore called the Mystery House in Mount Rainier, Maryland, but the business failed and she returned to the Cleveland Public Library.  In 1950 she became a reader for the Gnome Press Co.  In 1958 she became a full-time author.  In 1966 she moved to Florida for health reasons, and then to Murfreesboro, Tennessee.  In 1977, she received the Gandalf Grand Master Award from the World Science Fiction Society, and in 1983 she received the Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master Award from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.  She died in March of 2005 of congestive heart failure.

She has been called the Grande Dame of Science Fiction and Fantasy.  Over the course of her career, she published over 300 published titles read by four generations.  Shortly after her death, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America created the Andre Norton Award for outstanding work of fantasy or science fiction for Young Adults. || Lyn McConchie was crippled in an accident in 1977 and forced to take medical retirement in 1988.  She became a professional writer in 1991.  Since then, she has published a many short stories in at least six countries, and 18 novels.  She owns and runs a small farm in New Zealand, where she breeds coloured sheep and tends her free range geese and hens.

She has received the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Novel in 2003 for Beastmaster's Ark, in 2005 for Beastmaster's Circus, and 2006 for The Duke's Ballad, all three of the books having been co-written with Andre Norton.