The People of the Ax

by Jay Williams

When he learns the significance of their iron club, Arne is forced to grapple with the dangerous crom, creatures that are neither human nor animal, and their place in the world as he knows it.

Genres: Young Adult, Fantasy

140 pages, Hardcover

First published January 28, 1974

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Jay Williams (May 31, 1914–July 12, 1978) was an American author born in Buffalo, New York, the son of Max and Lillian Jacobson. He cited the experience of growing up as the son of a vaudeville show producer as leading him to pursue his acting career as early as college. Between 1931 and 1934 he attended the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University where he took part in amateur theatrical productions.

Out of school and out of work during the end of the Depression, he worked as a comedian on the upstate New York Borscht Belt circuit. From 1936 until 1941, Jay Williams worked as a press agent for Dwight Deere Winman, Jed Harris and the Hollywood Theatre Alliance. And even though he played a feature role in the Cannes prize winning film, The Little Fugitive produced in 1953, he turned his attention to writing as a full time career after his discharge from the Army in 1945. He was the recipient of the Purple Heart. While serving in the Army he published his first book, The Stolen Oracle, in 1943.

Williams may be best-known for his young adult "Danny Dunn" science fiction/fantasy series which he co-authored with Raymond Abrashkin. Though Abrashkin died in 1960, he is listed as co-author of all 15 books of this series, which continued from 1956 until 1977. Jay Williams also wrote mysteries for young adults, such as The Stolen Oracle, The Counterfeit African, and The Roman Moon Mystery.

In all, he published at least 79 books including 11 picture books, 39 children's novels, 7 adult mysteries, 4 nonfiction books, 8 historical novels and a play.

Williams and his wife Barbara Girsdansky were married June 3, 1941. They had a son, Christopher ("Chris"), and a daughter, Victoria. Jay Williams died at age 64 from a heart attack while on a trip to London on July 12, 1978.

Reviews

[Rachel Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this was published as adult sf, but it reads YA-ish to me. Arne (a boy) and Frey (a girl) are tribal teenagers who have just been initiated as Human Beings, in a ceremony where they gain a limited power of empathy. Because of this, their people may count coup on other tribes and squabble within their own, but they don't kill each other. But another race of people, the crom, may be killed at will, for they have no empathy and thus, to Arne's people, no souls.

But when Arne discovers a crom with an iron club-- a weapon no crom should have the knowledge to make-- he and Frey are sent on a quest to find out what happened. And then a lot of cool, cleverly thought-out, and surprising stuff happens. This is quite a good book, and one which is actually thought-provoking rather than merely preachy. But good luck finding a copy-- I've only ever seen one.

[Derek · Rating 3 out of 5]

Young adult? Young adult. The Andre Norton sort of well-considered young adult that respects its audience.

The back cover practically screams that there are undisclosed facts here, either about the world or about the situation the characters are in. This is true and it takes its patient way through it, at least until the crash ending which reveals and resolves all of it. Until then the tone and plot is almost cozy.

The final utopian tone is like something out of another century: the protagonists admit mistake and the desire to address wrong in a way that reworks the world.

[Nathan Shumate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Oh hey, Jay Williams was half of the team that wrote the Danny Dunn books, which entirely defined my second-grade library habits.

In this he stretches his chops a bit more, and for the first three-quarters of the book, it had real potential (despite having fifteen-year-old boy-and-girl protagonists who love each other and yet DON'T EVEN THINK about sex). But the fourth quarter is marred by huge expository dumps and a bunch of plotty things that make the first three looks like they were stalling in retrospect, plus a big twist that would have annoyed the readers in 1974 even more than today, I'd guess. ("Wait, is this ANOTHER 'Planet of the Apes' sequel?!")

[James]

When he learns the significance of their iron club, Arne is forced to grapple with the dangerous crom, creatures that are neither human or animal, and their place in the world as he knows it.