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| Original cover, 1980's |
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| Kindle cover, 2016 |
Fast forward several years to my college days. I made some new friends (one male, one female) who liked reading even more than I did, and were capable of reading several books in a week (very fast compared to my reading speed). Through our discussions, the Gor books came up. My female friend talked about how horrible they were. I believe a phrase she used was something like "the women are slaves and they love it". Sounded very strange to me. A while later, a similar discussion came up with my male friends parents. His mother talked about those books, and said that the first two or three of them were good adventure stories, but after that the volumes devolved into the authors sexual fantasies. Not exactly rave reviews for the series.
Anyway, during this same period, I had introduced both of my friends to the Mission Earth series of 10 books by L. Ron Hubbard. Yes - the creator of Scientology. You'll have to trust me that his science fiction, especially the Mission Earth series and the standalone novel Battlefield Earth, are worth reading. Mission Earth, which is a science fiction satire about an invasion of Earth, is one of the most entertaining series I've read - granted, I was in college, so my opinion of it may differ now that I am decades older. When my friends started reading it, they agreed it was very good - so good, in fact, that my male friend read an entire volume while I was away for a 2 hour class. The different books in the series ranged from 350 to over 500 pages, so to me this was impressive, when it took me 4 - 7 days to finish a 300 page novel.
After they told me how much they were enjoying it, it occurred to me that Mission Earth also had some sexual scenes - some of the characters were into some pretty nasty stuff, particularly in book four, Alien Affair. So, I wondered: how bad could the Gor books be? They were obviously popular - 25 books in print by 1988. After I got out of college, I started looking around to check them out and found that they were out of print, and they remained so for years - I couldn't even find them at a used book store.
Now fast forward 20+ years. In 2016, I bought a Kindle and found that the books were available again, and the first book, Tarnsman of Gor, was available really cheap (it was on sale - probably $2 US). So, I took a chance on it. I will say that, for their size (200+ to 300+ pages), they are kind of expensive - many of them cost $6.99 to $9.99 for the Kindle version - more expensive than the mass market paperback price. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss weighs in at almost 700 pages and is $9.99. Does that mean they are still popular?
As I started reading Tarnsman of Gor, I immediately realized that this series was strongly influenced by A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (which was written in the 1911 - the first book in the Barsoom series starring John Carter). In Princess, John Carter is transported to Mars in some fashion (not really explained beyond simple transportation). In Tarnsman, Tarl Cabot is transported to Gor in a well explained way - I won't reveal how. Both Mars and Gor are alien controlled worlds. The location of the planet Gor is interesting, especially when compared with Princess. This is a concept I'm sure I've seen used before in a few different places, but I've definitely seen it used in a Doctor who story (when Tom Baker was the 4th Doctor). As in Princess, our protagonist has increased strength due to the lower gravity of the world he has arrived on.
I managed to get through the first five chapters. The book is only 219 pages long (at least, on the Kindle), so this is about 70 pages into the story. At this point, I couldn't continue. While there were some interesting things that were being explained and/or hinted at (such as who the Priest-Kings might really be), and an explanation of how the world has "rules", such as the restriction on technology imposed by the Priest-Kings to keep the civilization in a perpetual Bronze Age (which reminded me of Jack Chalker's Well World concept, where each of the 1,560 hexes of the world has its own climate and ecosystem, as well as restrictions on technology level), I was really put off by the long sections of prose with not much happening. I mean, there's no action - aside from Tarl explaining how he is being trained, and describing the world around him, there is nothing really happening aside from an occasional conversation. For me, this would be like taking James Cameron's film Avatar, cutting out 90% of the dialogue and character interaction, and then making the world less colorful and interesting - it would no longer be appealing. I do have to admit that I did find A Princess of Mars very similar in writing style, and in story elements, but I found it much easier to read than Tarnsman.
So, at this point I stopped, thinking I would get back to it at some point. Well, it's been a year, and I have no desire to go back and finish it. I feel that there just wouldn't be enough payoff for the effort to grind through the rest of the book. I really don't understand why the series has such a large fan base. According to Wikipedia (article here), the original publisher (DAW) refused to publish anymore books in the series after book 25, citing low sales; John Norman attributed this to feminine influences, since women are slaves who are frequently beaten in the later books. In 2001, E-Reads took over publishing all of the books, and there are now 34 novels in the series - the latest one published in 2016 - and, apparently, this series is among E-Reads biggest sellers.
To me, this sounds very much like a publishing industry issue, and censorship stemming from criticism and potential harm to reputation. It reminds me of when I had trouble finding many of Jack Chalker's books at one point. Specifically, his Dancing Gods series. On his website, and sometimes in the foreword of some of his books, he would refer to issues in the publishing industry. Del Rey refused to publish the final book in his Dancing Gods series - their claim was that the books didn't sell well (book 5, Horrors of the Dancing Gods, ended with characters in a tough situation, so Chalker was definitely anticipating some resolution in the final book). In my experience, in Chalker's later years before his death in 2005, it was next to impossible to find any of his books at a store - until BAEN started publishing his newer books, and in turn started re-publishing some of his more popular older works, like the Saga of the Well World. If the books couldn't be found anywhere, it sounds like they were selling to me. These aren't the only instances of strangeness in the publishing industry, but I find it interesting that the Gor series may have had similar issues.
Maybe this book gets better after the halfway point - my impression after looking at the first few pages of book two makes me think not. And, certainly, the degrading treatment of women in the later books is not something I would be excited to read. Ultimately, my advice is to stay away from this series - there are much better things to occupy your time with. While they aren't gritty stories like Gor and Conan, two of my current favorite fantasy series (both Urban Fantasy) are The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher, and the Magic Ex Libris series, by Jim C. Hines - I suspect your time is better spent there, unless you really desire the Bronze Age, alien controlled environment that Gor has to offer. Additionally, if you do like the Gor series, you might enjoy the Dancing Gods series by Chalker - it is one of the most original treatments of what I would call Sword and Sorcery fantasy (other examples being the Conan stories by Robert E. Howard, and The Guardians of the Flame, by Joel Rosenberg, and perhaps the works of Joe Abercrombie and Anthony Ryan, but I haven't read anything by these last two).
If you have different opinions on this series, I'd be interested in hearing them. Feel free to leave a comment.
