The Hunter ReturnsTHE HUNTER RETURNS owes its genesis to the fact that Jim Kjelgaard’s estate was represented by a very clever agent, Eleanor Wood. Jim Baen and I both were big fans of Kjelgaard’s YA (Young Adult) novels when we were growing up, but the one that had the greatest impact on Jim was Fire-Hunter, which I hadn’t read. For Jim it was one of the two books which he believes were the most formative on him. (The other was Against the Fall of Night, by the way.)

Eleanor learned this–and offered the book to Jim for reprint. He took it, though Fire-Hunter only marginally fits within an SF line: the novel describes the adventures of Hawk, a Paleolithic youth, who’s expelled from his tribe for innovation. Hawk not only survives but flourishes; at the conclusion, the wretched remnants of his former tribe beg to be allowed to join him. continue reading…