Assignment Nor'Dyren is a science fiction novel that was written by Sydney J. Van Scyoc. I enjoyed this novel both as an adventure story and as an allegorical exploration of an important question about human society: why do some humans seem to put their energies into creative endeavors rather than reproduction? Nor'Dyren is a world where a human-like alien species has a more structured social system than is the case for human society. When humans arrive on Nor'Dyren, they discover that there are three specialized types of Nor'Dyrenese: