They say you can’t go home. Perhaps that is true, as I recently had that experience from a reading level. Back when I was in High School I discovered a series of books by John Norman, entitled “Gor.” (No, they were neither biographies of the future-and-once VP, nor were they slash and hack novels, but a sci-fi epic fantasy loosely done in the style of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ sci-fi series about Barsoom or his John Carter of Mars books.) The Gor series of books revolved around a Earth gent named Tarl Cabot, a teacher in a small New England university.
In the first book Tarl goes camping, is “kidnapped,” and brought to Gor, a planet in a geosynchronous orbit with Earth, only on the far side of the sun. Gor is not only slightly smaller than Earth (resulting in Tarl now being capable of greater feats of strength), but it is also permanently stuck in a “Middle Ages” Meilu. That is to say, the inhabitants of Gor live in a world of warring City-States, where the most advanced weapon is a crossbow. Further, the beasts that cohabitate the world with the men that live there tend to be large lizards, enormous birds that have been tamed to carry men, as would horses on Earth.
Oh yeah, one more thing. There is slavery on this world, however (and this was a big draw for me when I was 15), much of the slavery issues revolve around gender politics. That is to say that — on Gor — men were men and women were, well, pleasure slaves. Yep, you read that right. The Earth, 1950s male opinion that women should be “Barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen.” Is the rule of law here on Gor — except for the pregnant part, you see, the men give their female pleasure slaves a drink called “slave wine” that prevents them from getting knocked up.
When I first discovered this series there were four books published, which seemed to wrap up the entire series. I read and thoroughly enjoyed them all and I thought that was that. Only not so much. A couple of years later I learned that Norman had actually continued the series, and added a few more books to the run. After acquiring these books, I became aware that not only did Norman published a couple of non-Gor books (all written with the same sensibilities), but kept extending his Gor run of books. Eventually he wound up publishing some 25 paperbacks full of the World of Gor (he also wrote two stand-alone works of fiction as well as a non-fiction book, and a trilogy of non-Gor books.
In addition to all of this, there were two movies made about Gor (I only saw one, and it was ghod-awful, and as I understand, the second one was even worse). Also a small company attempted to translate the book into a comic, only it was printed out of the country (in Canada, I believe) and when customs inspected it, they wouldn’t let the comic into the U.S. because it was deemed pornographic. I’ve seen art from the comic, but never a completed issue, so I don’t know if any were actually created, or if the entire shipment was confiscated and destroyed.
That brought me up to the early-to-mid ‘80s, when the books stopped coming out. Anyway, to get back to the round-about point I’m all but avoiding, the books were as much about the warfare and political intrigue of Gor as they were about the sexual politics. Only that seemed to change. Now when I was 15, it was cooler-than cool to be reading a book that contained actual sex in it (yes, this was well before I discovered real pornography). To be sure, the sex act was never truly written about in graphic detail, as much as it was implied, and hinted at throughout the books. (for what it is worth, any one sex scene in any of Alison’s books was way more descriptive (and way better) than any of the sex in any of the Gor books.)
Being 15, I thought it was way cool that this guy Tarl was getting laid several times in the course of each book, and there were no repercussions, as 1) in spite of the fact that the sex was against the will of the female involved, it was never rape,as that was technically her purpose (both in the story and on that world), 2) the woman never got pregnant (so he always dodged that bullet), and 3) there was no chance of him catching any STDs as they simply didn’t exist on this world.
Seriously, how wicked-cool was that? (Remember, I’m a teen when I started reading these books.) Well, as stated, I got older, and after a while, began reading the books more out of habit than because I really found them either believable or interesting. I bring all this up now, as — a couple of years ago — New World Publisher, acquired the rights to Gor, and published a 26th volume. It was kind of a big deal, as this was the first one in over a decade, and it was also the first hardback (tipping in at $25.00).
Well, it was the inflated price tag that kept me away, but finally, I succumbed to the 15-year-old that was still living in my head, and bought the book. It then sat around for a while before I could get to it. When I finally did, I wondered why I had bothered. First of all the book was about two or three hundred pages too long. Second, the main character, Tarl Cabot, had been written out (not the first time, but generally a bad idea, as the books sans-Tarl are generally a poorer read). Third, the book’s main character was an Earth woman who was kidnapped and brought to Gor to perform a very specific task (yeah, that, but something actually relating to the story as well).
Still the worst part of this book was that Norman was still stuck in his “A women’s job is to be sexually dominated by a man, and that she is only truly fulfilled when she comes to accept this role and surrenders to the slave that is in every woman’s soul” rap. Seriously? I not only got that in the first book (though it was way less apart of the story than it was in the most recent book), but anyone who never read that book would have picked up on that in the second chapter of this new book.
The real problem with this book was not its price-point, nor its length, nor even its subject matter. The problem is that Norman needed an editor. Someone that would have told him, “Look John, all the T&A is fine, but you really have to let someone kill someone soon, or you are going to lose your audience.” Believe me when I tell you that nothing (nothing) happens in the first third of the book. then a little something happens, but all of the real action (which is still drawn out and boring) happens in the final 100 pages. Plus, all of Norman’s characters speak in the same voice, they all have the same speech patterns, and all make the same observations. He never makes any attempt to differentiate one from another.
To make matters worse, there were truly shoddy production values utilized in the production of this book. Not only were there were a couple of typos, but throughout the book (much of which is people talking to each other) utilizes dumb (or straight) quotes. This makes me crazy, as all you need to do to get smart (or curly) quotes, it to turn that functionality on in your word processor. Something the publisher of this book simply didn’t understand. Personally it kept bringing me out of the story, which helped ruin it for me.
Ultimately, the book was way better when I was a teen and there was more violence than sex (as opposed to this version that had more implied, if not actual sex than violence). Truth-to-be-told, Norman is still writing around the sex, rather than about it. He describes the motions leading up to it, and hints that it is actually taking place, but he is like a prude when it comes to writing the naughty bits themselves. (It is like he has a “M for Mature” rather than an actual “R” rating in is writing ability). According to the book jacket’s interior (and the new website) there was supposed to have been a 27th book out by now. Seeing as it didn’t appear, I have to guess that Norman’s style of gender politics has finally jumped the shark, and no one cares any more.
Mores the pity, as I really liked those books, and really wouldn’t have minded to have gotten one of those, rather than the one that I wound up getting.
The Perfessor
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