This book consists of three of Andre Norton's novels, two of which are set on the eponymous planet whilst the third has a somewhat more distant relationship.

The first book is Storm Over Warlock and introduces us to the planet where it is still a largely unknown place still undergoing it's initial survey, though with demands from an overcrowded Terra to open it up for colonisation - not that overzealous bureaucrats were Warlock's most pressing concern for Terra was involved in a do or die struggle with an alien race, the insect-like Throgs who were determined to wipe humanity from the Space Lanes. When the small Scout Base on Warlock was wiped out by a sneak attack, Shann Lantree was the sole human survivor, along with a pair of wolverines that had escaped from their cages overnight. Attempting to escape the Throg trying to capture him, Shann is witness to the downing of a Survey vessel and finds a lone survivor, the leader of the Survey post on his return from headquarters. It was Thorsvald who insisted their best chance of survival was on the coast and this lead to the discovery of the native inhabitants of Warlock, a matriarchal race that had emphasised the development of mental powers and the subjugation of their males, who didn't have these powers. This sometimes gets a bit weird as the Terrans are put to the test but all ends well eventually :-)
The second book is Ordeal in Otherwhere. Initially not seeming to have anything in common with the preceding story, Charis is caught on a planet cut off from Interstellar contact when a plague strikes those who worked with interstellar organisations and the Believer members of the colony take part in a witch hunt against surviving authority figures including Charis, whose only fortune is to be taken when a free trader is in port and she accepts exile on somewhat unfavourable terms rather than death on very painful terms. Due to her facility with languages and ability to learn, Charis is traded to Captain Jagan as his general factotum for his concession on Warlock. He correctly told her the Warlock Matriarchs refused to deal with males but forgot to tell her that the previous holder of the post had been driven mad by her contacts with the natives. Charis soon gets caught up in strange dreams as the natives check her out, but she had a trace of their power so she wasn't as badly affected. But the Jack base proved troublesome after it had been alerted to their presence when she called it up in an attempt to escape Jagan and the presence of the Survey base was almost as unwelcome but after an episode where she found herself out of the base only to find it deserted when she got back Charis finds herself under the power of external forces and on the hidden islands of the natives where she is initiated in the mysteries of the locals. Realising it's a prison, even if a far more pleasant one than any she'd been in up to now, Charis uses her blossoming powers to escape and meets up with Shann Lantree, now an accredited member of the Warlock Survey contact team only to face the open hostility of the females after presenting them with evidence of rebellion amongst their enslaved males. Again, this gets a little trippy in places, maybe not too surprising with such an emphasis on the mental powers of the natives but it did make it a bit hard to follow in places. Another thing about the book is that it is set only a few years on from the first novel but humans are seen as having spread out over many star systems rather than the fourteen from the first and there is no indication of the Throgs. It's set much more in the standard timeline of Andre Norton's science fiction stories than the earlier story,
The final tale making up the Warlock trilogy is Forerunner Foray, and in this story, we never visit Warlock at all. Like the middle tale, we are in Andre Norton's regular timeline in a mature interstellar society and the organised crime families that go along with it and it's from the point of view of one of these that this story takes place. Ziantha is taken from the Dipple refugee camp as a youngster when a crime Veep notices she has unusually good luck at guessing games, indeed so good that she must be psi sensitive. After been taken into the Veep's household, Ziantha's skills are honed so she can identify psychic impressions from items she holds [an author note at the start of the story states that Andre Norton was present at a demonstration of such a reading]. On one such raid, Ziantha is drawn to an ancient artefact and is so entranced she risked an unsanctioned operation to bring it into her keeping. Her... owner learns she has it and brings her own resources to bear in tracking down its origins, Sent on a strange journey into the planet's past, Ziantha and her mysterious companion must survive death and betrayal in two far distant pasts if they are to survive the present. This tale's connection to the first two is only revealed right at the end, and left me wondering why bother :-). Overall, though, this story was more comprehensible than the first couple and generally more exciting.
As an overall comment, this collection is one of the few books where the lead point of view is mainly female, with even some of the other protagonists being female and I personally felt using the oppression of the males of Warlock as a way to demand equality was rather neat. ( )

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