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Iron Cage
A young boy is torn between conflicting loyalties when a spaceship lands on the planet which he shares with a tribe of intelligent animals
288 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1974
9 people are currently reading
287 people want to read
About the author
Andre Norton
696 books1,388 followersAndre Norton, born Alice Mary Norton, was a pioneering American author of science fiction and fantasy, widely regarded as the Grande Dame of those genres. She also wrote historical and contemporary fiction, publishing under the pen names Andre Alice Norton, Andrew North, and Allen Weston. She launched her career in 1934 with The Prince Commands, adopting the name “Andre” to appeal to a male readership. After working for the Cleveland Library System and the Library of Congress, she began publishing science fiction under “Andrew North” and fantasy under her own name. She became a full-time writer in 1958 and was known for her prolific output, including Star Man’s Son, 2250 A.D. and Witch World, the latter spawning a long-running series and shared universe. Norton was a founding member of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers' Guild of America and authored Quag Keep, the first novel based on the Dungeons & Dragons game. She influenced generations of writers, including Lois McMaster Bujold and Mercedes Lackey. Among her many honors were being the first woman named Gandalf Grand Master of Fantasy and SFWA Grand Master. In her later years, she established the High Hallack Library to support research in genre fiction. Her legacy continues with the Andre Norton Award for young adult science fiction and fantasy.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
April 18, 2022
UPDATE 4/18/22: I either never added my stars or GR somehow deleted them.
4 out of 5 stars. A great introduction to Andre Norton's work!
In the far future, a young boy named Jony and his mother Rutee have been experimented on, along with many other humans, by an alien race they call the Big Ones. Rutee and Jony's late father Brom were both psychics and past their abilities on to Jony. When the Big Ones could not control Brom with their own powers, they killed him and then telepathically forced a man to impregnate Rutee (this does not happen on page but is referenced and mention). But finally, Jony, using his own psychic powers, was able to break Rutee and himself out and they were left on a planet the Big Ones were briefly on. There, Rutee gave give birth to twins, a boy named Geogee and girl named Maba; and Rutee and her children were rescued by the People, another race of aliens that showed kindness to them.
Now, years later, Rutee has died and Jony, Maba, and Geogee live among the People. Rutee made Jony promise to never use her powers on the twins who he is having difficulty raising. But that promise is broken when the twins wander off to an ancient site Jony had investigated himself and they learn terrible secrets about the planet's past. The People mark Jony as a potential enemy, but soon a new enemy arrives to the planet. And, thousands of years ago, a poor mother cat is abandoned in a dump.
This is the first book I've read by Norton and it was quite interesting. It was certainly darker than I was expecting. Not grimdark dark by any means, but as I mentioned above there were quite a few dark things alluded to within the book such as Rutee being raped and being forced in a breeding broken. Some of the things shown on page, while not very graphic, were still just as dark. There was torture and human and animal experimentation going; or rather, the experimentation on the People was an allusion to how people treat and experiment on animals. In fact, the whole story is a message and a lesson on humanity's relationship towards animals, as also indicated by the prologue and epilogue story of the mother cat. At some points, such as the final pages where Jony has a realization about humans and animals, I think Norton got a bit heavy-handed, though it was not the most heavy-handed message I've ever read in a book for kids. I think if kids read this it would be more than enough for them to realize the message Norton is trying to get across and I don't think the more direct statements would be talking down to them. If adults like me read this, they will probably know early on what Norton is getting at (especially if they are familiar with her noted love of animals) and the more direct messages might make them say "That's obvious." But again, I didn't find it that "bashing over your head"-like.
Anyway, Jony does go through quite a bit in this story. From impose exile by the People, being scuffed in the planet's wilderness, and having to fight other enemies. The sad part that I realized after I finished the book, is that after Rutee dies, Jony has no one who really loves him. He obviously cares for Maba and Geogee and the People, however he is raising the former two as per the dying wish of his mother (who he never even calls "mom" by the way) and he merely wants the approval of the latter. Being young and, well, brats, I don't think Maba and Geogee really love Jony all that much either, at least in the beginning. It does seem to imply that Maba comes to love Jony as the story goes on. Maba has great character development from a brat to more responsible and mature child. Geogee really doesn't grow out of the brat stage. Although several members of the People, like Yaa, do care for Jony they never show any affection love for him. The (mostly male) members of the People like Voak and Otik keep judging him for his actions which he never does with the intention to hurt the People and are often results of Jony being a victim of circumstance. On reflection, it's quite sad. Jony isn't loved, and as a result all his responses to the conflict he faces are internal.
Perhaps this is another message Norton is meaning to get across. I recently learned from a comment left on a review of Iron Cage on Tor.com that this book occupies a strange place in the timeline of Norton's bibliography. At the time this book was published, 1974, Norton was writing books with predominantly female character leads for purposes of gender equality; but in this book a boy, Jony, takes the lead. Was it a trunk story? Or did Norton plan this? Either way, there is a possibly a discussion of masculinity hidden within this book. Jony doesn't want to use his psychic powers on the twins or the People, he fears he'll become like the Big Ones who enslaved his mother and his people. At one point, a mysterious statue of a woman grants Jony strength, he feels the desire to destroy anything he wants, but he shrinks away form it. He later channels that strength into Maba after she has been hurt and when he goes back to the stone woman for more power he uses it bring down the enemy's inhuman and non-organic spaceships and machines that are torturing the People. If this is another intentional message, then Norton is saying that boys should use their powers or gifts to heal and help others, not use them for coercion. We see this also with the mother cat story. The first boy, in whose hands the cat's life is placed, disregards her, but a second boy takes her in and takes care of her. This gives me hope that possibly after everything Jony has gone through, the People and the twins will reciprocate actual love to him because they have finally understood each other, as when you and animal do come to understand each other, there is actual love there. Again, I might be speculating on the whole masculinity thing, but if it is intentional, I welcome it.
I think Norton's handling of the message here is the best part of the book. The plot is very interesting and it keeps you reading, although I wish the pace had slowed down at some points. If was very quick and there was a lot of action. The other criticism I have is writing. I don't know if this was just Norton's style or if the rules of writing were different back then, but there were constant usages of commas in places where they didn't belong, it got distracting sometimes. The prose is at least very readable; though, as I said before, Norton didn't need to state the obvious at certain points when we could get that obvious merely by understanding what was happening on page. Also, some other characters besides Jony, Maba, and Voak could've used more development.
Other than that, a really great and interesting read.
4 out of 5 stars. A great introduction to Andre Norton's work!
In the far future, a young boy named Jony and his mother Rutee have been experimented on, along with many other humans, by an alien race they call the Big Ones. Rutee and Jony's late father Brom were both psychics and past their abilities on to Jony. When the Big Ones could not control Brom with their own powers, they killed him and then telepathically forced a man to impregnate Rutee (this does not happen on page but is referenced and mention). But finally, Jony, using his own psychic powers, was able to break Rutee and himself out and they were left on a planet the Big Ones were briefly on. There, Rutee gave give birth to twins, a boy named Geogee and girl named Maba; and Rutee and her children were rescued by the People, another race of aliens that showed kindness to them.
Now, years later, Rutee has died and Jony, Maba, and Geogee live among the People. Rutee made Jony promise to never use her powers on the twins who he is having difficulty raising. But that promise is broken when the twins wander off to an ancient site Jony had investigated himself and they learn terrible secrets about the planet's past. The People mark Jony as a potential enemy, but soon a new enemy arrives to the planet. And, thousands of years ago, a poor mother cat is abandoned in a dump.
This is the first book I've read by Norton and it was quite interesting. It was certainly darker than I was expecting. Not grimdark dark by any means, but as I mentioned above there were quite a few dark things alluded to within the book such as Rutee being raped and being forced in a breeding broken. Some of the things shown on page, while not very graphic, were still just as dark. There was torture and human and animal experimentation going; or rather, the experimentation on the People was an allusion to how people treat and experiment on animals. In fact, the whole story is a message and a lesson on humanity's relationship towards animals, as also indicated by the prologue and epilogue story of the mother cat. At some points, such as the final pages where Jony has a realization about humans and animals, I think Norton got a bit heavy-handed, though it was not the most heavy-handed message I've ever read in a book for kids. I think if kids read this it would be more than enough for them to realize the message Norton is trying to get across and I don't think the more direct statements would be talking down to them. If adults like me read this, they will probably know early on what Norton is getting at (especially if they are familiar with her noted love of animals) and the more direct messages might make them say "That's obvious." But again, I didn't find it that "bashing over your head"-like.
Anyway, Jony does go through quite a bit in this story. From impose exile by the People, being scuffed in the planet's wilderness, and having to fight other enemies. The sad part that I realized after I finished the book, is that after Rutee dies, Jony has no one who really loves him. He obviously cares for Maba and Geogee and the People, however he is raising the former two as per the dying wish of his mother (who he never even calls "mom" by the way) and he merely wants the approval of the latter. Being young and, well, brats, I don't think Maba and Geogee really love Jony all that much either, at least in the beginning. It does seem to imply that Maba comes to love Jony as the story goes on. Maba has great character development from a brat to more responsible and mature child. Geogee really doesn't grow out of the brat stage. Although several members of the People, like Yaa, do care for Jony they never show any affection love for him. The (mostly male) members of the People like Voak and Otik keep judging him for his actions which he never does with the intention to hurt the People and are often results of Jony being a victim of circumstance. On reflection, it's quite sad. Jony isn't loved, and as a result all his responses to the conflict he faces are internal.
Perhaps this is another message Norton is meaning to get across. I recently learned from a comment left on a review of Iron Cage on Tor.com that this book occupies a strange place in the timeline of Norton's bibliography. At the time this book was published, 1974, Norton was writing books with predominantly female character leads for purposes of gender equality; but in this book a boy, Jony, takes the lead. Was it a trunk story? Or did Norton plan this? Either way, there is a possibly a discussion of masculinity hidden within this book. Jony doesn't want to use his psychic powers on the twins or the People, he fears he'll become like the Big Ones who enslaved his mother and his people. At one point, a mysterious statue of a woman grants Jony strength, he feels the desire to destroy anything he wants, but he shrinks away form it. He later channels that strength into Maba after she has been hurt and when he goes back to the stone woman for more power he uses it bring down the enemy's inhuman and non-organic spaceships and machines that are torturing the People. If this is another intentional message, then Norton is saying that boys should use their powers or gifts to heal and help others, not use them for coercion. We see this also with the mother cat story. The first boy, in whose hands the cat's life is placed, disregards her, but a second boy takes her in and takes care of her. This gives me hope that possibly after everything Jony has gone through, the People and the twins will reciprocate actual love to him because they have finally understood each other, as when you and animal do come to understand each other, there is actual love there. Again, I might be speculating on the whole masculinity thing, but if it is intentional, I welcome it.
I think Norton's handling of the message here is the best part of the book. The plot is very interesting and it keeps you reading, although I wish the pace had slowed down at some points. If was very quick and there was a lot of action. The other criticism I have is writing. I don't know if this was just Norton's style or if the rules of writing were different back then, but there were constant usages of commas in places where they didn't belong, it got distracting sometimes. The prose is at least very readable; though, as I said before, Norton didn't need to state the obvious at certain points when we could get that obvious merely by understanding what was happening on page. Also, some other characters besides Jony, Maba, and Voak could've used more development.
Other than that, a really great and interesting read.
August 4, 2021
This was a marvellous book, by one of the first classic sci-fi authors that helped shape my adolescent mind. Superficially, if you just read the blurb, it is a standard adventure/quest fantasy / sci-fi but as with everything by Andre Norton, there is so much more to it. I am going to add a short fan-girl rave about the author at the end.
So, Iron Cage is one of the Norton books that I never found as an adolescent (as I had limited access to books growing up) but it is just as amazing to read as an adult for the first time. While nothing I have read indicated that Norton was a animal rights activist, there is a strong though EXCEPTIONALLY subtle animal rights theme here. Though maybe it is just a humanists theme, they should be the same thing after all.
The book starts with a tiny prologue of there here and now/ 1970's of a cat being abandoned by it's owners who are moving. This little intro-story is actually concluded in the Epilogue and ties it together with the main story, but by the end of the book I was so absorbed that I had forgotten the prologue and the ending was a masterly surprise of excellent writing.
The main story starts with an exciting escape: Rutee and her son Jony are being held in cages aboard a ship in which aliens are using them in what are (to the aliens) animal experiments. The two escape the aliens just as the ship is about to take off.
Rutee gives birth to twins on the planet. She does not know which planet she and her family were captured from a colony world and Jony has grown up in the cages, he knows no other life. Rutee and the babies survive with the help of another intelligent alien, one of what they come to know as the People, large mammalian but not human.
Jony and his twin siblings grow up on this planet, among the People, living life their way which is a pre-speech, pretechnological hunter gatherer style of life. This calm life is interrupted when the older Jony finds the ruins of a civilization which the People will not speak about and will not acknowledge. As he is coming to terms with this discovery he sees a space ship descend and is terrified that it is the 'Big Ones' who tormented his mother and himself. But the space ship does not contain Big Ones, it contains humans and the question then becomes whether humans are actually a more moral species than the Big Ones, because when these new humans look upon the People, all they see are animals, much as when the Big Ones look at humans all they see are animals.
At the end of the day, while that is the underlying story that kept me enthralled, this book is a great coming of age for Jony. A questing book and a thrilling adventure. The world of the People is lightly drawn but is beautifully defined and the writing itself is as lovely as anything by Andre Norton I have ever read. The ability to write an excellent story, in excellent prose with subplots AND an underlying social theme are a bundle of talents that in my experience are rarely found all together, and this book, which is perfectly suited as either YA or adult, is a perfect example of all those skills, rounded off with a most excellent ending.
Now, Andre Norton! A prolific author who's writing career started as far as I know in the 30's with her last book published in 2005 the year the world lost her. As her writing career started so early, she used the pseudonym Andre, because as a female writer she would have had a harder time being published. I believe she used more overtly male pseudonyms as well, but she changed her name legally to Andre at some stage. An interesting thing, when I first started reading her I thought she WAS a male writer and I am not the only one ; my sister for one and other readers I have spoken to admit they thought the author was male. I think that is another example of how well she wrote.
She was prolific - she must have well over a hundred books as well as stories and collaborations. I have only read a small fraction of them. Sadly this excellent author, who in 1997 was the first woman to be inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, neck to neck with the greats Arthur C. Clarke, H. G. Wells and Isaac Asimov seems to be nearly forgotten and the only way to find her books is to collect them piece by piece from second hand shops and book sales. A task I am working on.
So, Iron Cage is one of the Norton books that I never found as an adolescent (as I had limited access to books growing up) but it is just as amazing to read as an adult for the first time. While nothing I have read indicated that Norton was a animal rights activist, there is a strong though EXCEPTIONALLY subtle animal rights theme here. Though maybe it is just a humanists theme, they should be the same thing after all.
The book starts with a tiny prologue of there here and now/ 1970's of a cat being abandoned by it's owners who are moving. This little intro-story is actually concluded in the Epilogue and ties it together with the main story, but by the end of the book I was so absorbed that I had forgotten the prologue and the ending was a masterly surprise of excellent writing.
The main story starts with an exciting escape: Rutee and her son Jony are being held in cages aboard a ship in which aliens are using them in what are (to the aliens) animal experiments. The two escape the aliens just as the ship is about to take off.
Rutee gives birth to twins on the planet. She does not know which planet she and her family were captured from a colony world and Jony has grown up in the cages, he knows no other life. Rutee and the babies survive with the help of another intelligent alien, one of what they come to know as the People, large mammalian but not human.
Jony and his twin siblings grow up on this planet, among the People, living life their way which is a pre-speech, pretechnological hunter gatherer style of life. This calm life is interrupted when the older Jony finds the ruins of a civilization which the People will not speak about and will not acknowledge. As he is coming to terms with this discovery he sees a space ship descend and is terrified that it is the 'Big Ones' who tormented his mother and himself. But the space ship does not contain Big Ones, it contains humans and the question then becomes whether humans are actually a more moral species than the Big Ones, because when these new humans look upon the People, all they see are animals, much as when the Big Ones look at humans all they see are animals.
At the end of the day, while that is the underlying story that kept me enthralled, this book is a great coming of age for Jony. A questing book and a thrilling adventure. The world of the People is lightly drawn but is beautifully defined and the writing itself is as lovely as anything by Andre Norton I have ever read. The ability to write an excellent story, in excellent prose with subplots AND an underlying social theme are a bundle of talents that in my experience are rarely found all together, and this book, which is perfectly suited as either YA or adult, is a perfect example of all those skills, rounded off with a most excellent ending.
Now, Andre Norton! A prolific author who's writing career started as far as I know in the 30's with her last book published in 2005 the year the world lost her. As her writing career started so early, she used the pseudonym Andre, because as a female writer she would have had a harder time being published. I believe she used more overtly male pseudonyms as well, but she changed her name legally to Andre at some stage. An interesting thing, when I first started reading her I thought she WAS a male writer and I am not the only one ; my sister for one and other readers I have spoken to admit they thought the author was male. I think that is another example of how well she wrote.
She was prolific - she must have well over a hundred books as well as stories and collaborations. I have only read a small fraction of them. Sadly this excellent author, who in 1997 was the first woman to be inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, neck to neck with the greats Arthur C. Clarke, H. G. Wells and Isaac Asimov seems to be nearly forgotten and the only way to find her books is to collect them piece by piece from second hand shops and book sales. A task I am working on.
March 8, 2022
4 humans escape captivity and live with some bear-like creatures on a strange planet. There are strange installations in a couple of places that are shunned by "the People".
I won't say more, but the story is interesting, but for me worth just one reading. Okay -- this was my second time through, though I don't remember the first. I'm sure I liked it the first time through, otherwise I wouldn't have kept it in my library. But I'm getting old and my tastes are changing. So take it for what it's worth.
I won't say more, but the story is interesting, but for me worth just one reading. Okay -- this was my second time through, though I don't remember the first. I'm sure I liked it the first time through, otherwise I wouldn't have kept it in my library. But I'm getting old and my tastes are changing. So take it for what it's worth.
January 5, 2023
Incredible
September 15, 2023
Good social commentary on treatment of animals
January 5, 2021
This didn't get to the action until 50% of the book was under my belt. The beginning had promise of action, then it fell off into developing a background. It confused me jumping from a present day situation to one that is definitely in the future, then it started to make sense as Norton developed a theme. Although I lean towards the sentiment of be kind to all of God's creations, I felt like the whole purpose of the story was not necessarily entertainment, but to remind people animals are a lot more like us then we would like to think. I like a book that doesn't make me think about that sort of thing until I am well past reading it; that is why it is only 4 stars.
September 19, 2020
A young castaway, reared by aliens, must rescue his adoptive family from an evil corporation. A Science Fiction Book Club selection.
January 20, 2022
Another of Andre Norton's near misses. The beginning is so promising, that there should be an alien race which treats humans as we treat some animals as laboratory specimens. The difference between their species and ours is so great they cannot see us as being in any way intelligent or reasoning and deal with us as creatures to be controlled or discarded. By discarded I mean literally thrown out as garbage. That ties in with the opening scene set on the contemporary Earth with two teenage boys throwing a box containing a pregnant cat into a waste tip rather spend the time travelling to a local Humane Society office.
Jony and his pregnant mother Rutee are being held captive by the aliens, the Zhalar. Jony has a high level of telepathic and mind controlling skill, he can even exert control over one of the Zhalar at a time, and before leaving the planet the Zhalar decide that he and Rutee should be thrown out with the waste. They survive and make a life-saving contact with the native species known only as The People. The People are bear-like in appearance but have the intelligence and organisation perhaps similar to Neanderthals or early modern humans and Jony, Rutee and her new born twins Geogee and Maba learn to live with them and become a part of their community.
That's all fine until Norton gives in to temptation and presents a now teenage Jony with a traditional Norton landscape to explore: an ancient road leading to an abandoned city of ruins and monuments and, later on, subterranean passageways and ancient Forerunner artefacts including that Norton staple 'rods of power'. How our military leaders would love to get their hands on one of those devices. Later in the story Jony disables an entire spaceship with his rod of power. Admittedly the ship has landed on the planet and is not flying in orbit but, either way, it's quite an achievement.
That spaceship is from the human part of the galaxy and its crew are searching for survivors from the Zhalar attack that led to Rutee's capture. The crew, all male, are human to the core and cannot see The People as anything other than animals. They capture Jony and his siblings and demonstrate to Jony that humans and Zhalar are not really very far removed from one another. The conclusion shifts back to the original concept, though there is a bit of old Norton action thrown in: there is a colony of Triffid-like creatures hidden away in the bowels of the ancient city which Jony must overcome and the ghosts of the Forerunner legacy try to resurrect themselves.
Jony is left with the power to choose how the planet should advance. Respect for all species or human dominance. An epilogue shifts back to our Earth where another teenager finds the pregnant cat on the rubbish tip and decides he cannot leave it there. And so a thousand years of history, present to future, unites in an act of humanity.
Jony and his pregnant mother Rutee are being held captive by the aliens, the Zhalar. Jony has a high level of telepathic and mind controlling skill, he can even exert control over one of the Zhalar at a time, and before leaving the planet the Zhalar decide that he and Rutee should be thrown out with the waste. They survive and make a life-saving contact with the native species known only as The People. The People are bear-like in appearance but have the intelligence and organisation perhaps similar to Neanderthals or early modern humans and Jony, Rutee and her new born twins Geogee and Maba learn to live with them and become a part of their community.
That's all fine until Norton gives in to temptation and presents a now teenage Jony with a traditional Norton landscape to explore: an ancient road leading to an abandoned city of ruins and monuments and, later on, subterranean passageways and ancient Forerunner artefacts including that Norton staple 'rods of power'. How our military leaders would love to get their hands on one of those devices. Later in the story Jony disables an entire spaceship with his rod of power. Admittedly the ship has landed on the planet and is not flying in orbit but, either way, it's quite an achievement.
That spaceship is from the human part of the galaxy and its crew are searching for survivors from the Zhalar attack that led to Rutee's capture. The crew, all male, are human to the core and cannot see The People as anything other than animals. They capture Jony and his siblings and demonstrate to Jony that humans and Zhalar are not really very far removed from one another. The conclusion shifts back to the original concept, though there is a bit of old Norton action thrown in: there is a colony of Triffid-like creatures hidden away in the bowels of the ancient city which Jony must overcome and the ghosts of the Forerunner legacy try to resurrect themselves.
Jony is left with the power to choose how the planet should advance. Respect for all species or human dominance. An epilogue shifts back to our Earth where another teenager finds the pregnant cat on the rubbish tip and decides he cannot leave it there. And so a thousand years of history, present to future, unites in an act of humanity.
June 25, 2011
This is my first book by Andre Norton, and a positive experience. Jony, the human main character, escapes from aliens who were using his people as laboratory animals. He and his two younger siblings grow up in the care of a peaceful hunter-gatherer species. The story gets under way when he finds and explores an empty city which his clan holds in such horror that they ignore its existence. Jony and his siblings now have to choose whether to act on the clan's caution or their own curiosity. During the complications that result, an exploring spaceship lands, raising the stakes of the conflicts by putting the whole planet in danger. (It is a bit of an artificial coincidence for Jony to find the city and the spaceship to land within days of each other). The plausibility of the alien life described is about average, I think.
Read
April 22, 2010The protagonist of this story is an escaped experimental animal. This would be a better story if it didn't repeat the standard Norton line that there are people too alien to be understood or negotiated with. Jony's response to his own kind when they emulate the Big Ones is not to try to explain his position, but to destroy them. Don't look like he learned much, does it?
The 'human' spacers refer to galactic law, but nobody takes steps to review what galactic law SAYS, and how to appeal to it. So the People and their human fosterlings are reduced to stranding people in what amounts to a living dead situation (no women, as far as I can see, so no new generations), and to continue doing so if contacted again. Not a particularly viable situation.
The 'human' spacers refer to galactic law, but nobody takes steps to review what galactic law SAYS, and how to appeal to it. So the People and their human fosterlings are reduced to stranding people in what amounts to a living dead situation (no women, as far as I can see, so no new generations), and to continue doing so if contacted again. Not a particularly viable situation.
January 31, 2014
this story is about Jony, a young boy who together with his mother are captured by aliens. Most of his early years are spent in a lab aboard the ship. His pregnant mother and he escape the ship while on a planet, and protected by sapient former pets of a now dead colony of humans. Their safety is threatened when Jony discovers the abandoned city.
This was a good story. I'd recommend it to any young person or teenager. However, for adults, you easily see all the holes in some of the basic premises and may or my not be able to suspend your belief. Not one of her best works, IMHO. The obvious and repeated moralizing sortof annoyed me. This book was part of an Omnibus called The Iron Breed (also includes Breed to Come) that was recently republished by Baen books.
This was a good story. I'd recommend it to any young person or teenager. However, for adults, you easily see all the holes in some of the basic premises and may or my not be able to suspend your belief. Not one of her best works, IMHO. The obvious and repeated moralizing sortof annoyed me. This book was part of an Omnibus called The Iron Breed (also includes Breed to Come) that was recently republished by Baen books.
February 8, 2016
Published in 1974. It's pretty simplistic by today's standards and at a 185 pages also short as a book. I've been a great fan of Andre Norton over the years. Animal rights people will probably love its theme of taking care of animals. The "People" of the story are more than that of course. This was a stand alone book having neither a precursor or follow up. It also has many parts from other books she wrote though in the way she uses the "lost" individual, the animals, esper qualities, ancient unknown civilizations. Not sure it's enough to keep and adult reader happy. Teens down maybe so.
August 9, 2011
A gently beautiful, delicate science fiction novel, sobering and awakening in challenging the concept of sentience, civilization, and the pretentiousness of the so-called civilized, who's behavior instead resembles that of animals, savages and barbarians, contrasting the peaceful nobility of the so-called animal.
April 16, 2013
Andre Norton is one of my favorite Science Fiction Authors. The Iron Cage is one of her books that I had not previously read. It is very well written and speaks to being able to live with our environment and other living things instead of destroying for our own gain. As always I really enjoyed the story.
February 22, 2015
In one of her stand-alone novels - no prequels, sequels or cousins, Norton explores the mental interactions between animal and human species, in the end, blurring the lines between who is animal and who is human. First published in 1974, this novel does stand up to modern day analysis.
December 14, 2018
My favorite Andre Norton book. It affected me deeply when I was a kid.
The little short story at the end about finding an abandoned cat with its kittens really worked well and help to make the point.
The little short story at the end about finding an abandoned cat with its kittens really worked well and help to make the point.
May 12, 2008
Ugh... I loathe this book with a burning passion. But thats just me
February 8, 2020
Treat others as you want to be treated, for someday the positions may be reversed.
November 25, 2013
Read as part of the Iron Breed omnibus.
October 6, 2012
Okay I guess.
March 5, 2015
1978 grade B-
January 3, 2017
Classic Sci-fi
February 7, 2017
Well written and easy to follow.
May 8, 2011
One of those books I read over and over again as a teenager. Excellent science fiction.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews