Thread: FREE/BARGAIN — Science Fiction & Fantasy
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Old 08-04-2020, 09:18 PM   #4201
Rev. Bob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dr. Drib View Post
The first 3 (or 4) are not bad. They're very 'Burroughs-ish' and 'Kline-ish'.

The rest stink something horrible.
This, but with a little more nuance…

The first few books are kind of Burroughs’s John Carter (Earth man taken to alien world) in kind of a Conan-ish world, with the main distinguishing feature being prominent slavery – menial for men, sexual for women. They have an adventure plot, one which is standard enough if you set aside the slavery stuff, and in that respect they’re not that horrible.

After that arc, though, Norman quickly resorts to cranking out variations on three different outlines:

1. The travelogue, in which the original hero visits a new area or subculture on Gor. Just an excuse to show off some new worldbuilding.

2. A man gets taken to Gor as a slave, trains up as a gladiator, earns his freedom, and acquires an adoring slave girl or three along the way.

3. A feminist woman gets taken to Gor as a slave, trained in the arts of pleasure and the “natural duty” of submission, and eventually embraces her new role when she falls in love with her new master.

After about the first half-dozen books, that’s all there is to them… at least, through the first 25, which is when I jettisoned the series. (I was a teenager.)
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