Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
I know it's best not to, but has anyone mentioned John Norman's "Gor" series yet  ? The original trilogy was actually pretty reasonable Burroughs-ish fantasy, but then it turned into wierdo-fetish soft porn, and went downhill from there... |
About the first six are readable, if you buy the premise.
Gor is "counter Earth", kept hidden on the otehr side of the Sun by the advanced science of the insectoid Priest-Kings. The Priest-Kings have been kidnapping people from Earth for centuries and transplanting them to Gor.
The hero, Tarl Cabot, is a John Carter type, who quickly adjusts to his new surroundings and becomes a great warrior and leader.
The Priest-Kings maintain careful limits on permitted technology. So humanity has the stabilization serums, which arrest aging, and advanced medicine and building technology, but combat is still mano a mano with edged weapons.
Also in the mix are the Kur, bear-like aliens who have destroyed their own planet in internecine wars and seek to take over Gor from their refugee fleet.
Norman has broad historical knowledge, and a setting that lets him toss in human cultures from throughout history and transplant them to Gor to decent effect. Early books are marred somewhat by clumsy style and a tendency to infodumps in uncomfortable places.
One background bit in Gor is that most women are slaves, with the exception of a group called the Free Companions. Cabot's original lover, Talena, is a Free Companion. She disappears early in the series and Cabot sets out to find and free her.
Unfortunately, Talena is soon enough forgotten. The philosophy of Gor is that a woman is not truly happy and fulfilled (and multi-orgasmic) unless she totally submits to a masterful Gorean male and becomes a Kajira. In later books, this becomes the dominant theme, and the series dissolves into BDSM fantasies. (DAW even published a volume called "Imaginative Sex" which was a set of fantasies based on the Gorean female slavery theme.)
Norman was dropped from publication by DAW books after founder Donald A. Wollheim died and his daughter Betsy took over the operation. He claims his sales were still good, and being dropped from contract reflected bias on the part of Publisher Betsy Wollheim and Editor Sheila Gilbert against his material.
Speaking personally, the more dominant the female slavery theme became the weaker the books got, and the more Tarl Cabot became a true Goren male, the more boring and one dimensional he became. I didn't stop reading them because of the content. I stopped because I was bored.
At least some of them were picked up an re-issued in the 90's by a porn publisher called Masquerade Books, but I'm not sure about finding them now.
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Dennis