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Submitted by Darrin B. Baumgarten 
(Dec 12, 2002)

Those who have never discorvered the John Norman Gor
series books 1 - 25 and now recently released book
26 "Witness of Gor" have missed one of the most enjoyable sience fiction reads available. The concept
of the story is unique, the characters interesting and
the action tough and exciting. Those who say the first 10 books are the only ones worth reading are missing half of the complex story. Book 12 "Beasts of Gor" is surely one of the best of the series. Though John Norman drifts into other characters with many of the later books, each of the main characters comes back and interacts later in the story with the original character "Tarl Cabot". The story begins to culminate in books 20 - 25 which are each in their own right incredible books. The overall story is exciting and the philosophical concepts provacative. My favorite John Norman quote: "Within the circle of one's own sword, every man is a Ubar" Lastly, though the overall tone of "female slavery" within these novels is surely controversial,and tends to put many off of reading them, those who find it offensive have missed Norman's point. His point being that Men and Women are not the same, one is stronger and more dominant then the other. It is only that western society castigates men and artificially legislates the stregth of women. Be it morally right or wrong, its evidence in society is unmistakable.

Going by his books, John Norman is a mysogynist of the first water. That said, the first Gor (counter earth) books are well written and highly original in concept and development. The characters are vivid and believable, even likeable and the stories are of the best kind of high adventure - for the first 6 (Tarnsman of Gor, Outlaw of Gor, Priest-Kings of Gor, Nomads of Gor and Assassin of Gor). Tarl Cabot and, a bit into "Tarnsman", Elizabeth (Vella) Cardwell begin as abductees from earth brought to Gor, each for a specific purpose. They learn about their new world, adapt to it, and over time form an effective partnership/relationship as they begin to unravel the real secrets of Gor and the alien races that "supervise" it. There is a good deal of sex (at times fairly explicit) and discussion of sex, male/female roles, etc. - which probably won't bother the guys at all; I found that the storytelling was engaging enough that I could gloss over the general putting-down of women, and Vella is a strong enough character that she evemtially makes it work for her rather than against her - but the plot keeps on rolling despite that. After "Assassin" the series loses much of what made it so interesting. The strength of the story - and the appeal of the characters - fades considerably. The settings of each book are obviously cribbed from historical cultures with very little originality, the anti-female bias descends into something very close to contempt and the emphasis on the sexual more`s of each "culture" threatens to take over entirely. In short, they read like soft-core porn potboilers - and from the number that ended up being written (one a year, until I gave up on even noticing them somewhere around number 9) I would guess that, that is what they in fact were by then.

The Tarl Cabot Saga on Gor. John Norman wrote this huge series of novels (at least 25) but you can read the first dozen only. The background story is very interesting: a terrain is taken on a world Gor which is opposite to earth, on the other side of the sun. On this planet two race of space-faring aliens fight for the possession of the two planets via the humans who have the technology of middle-age. The description of the world is well defined, we encounter numbers of animals like tarn, giant eagles, and we visit a lot of place from desert to iceworld. The stories of each books are well devised but regretfully after the 12th Norman delayed it with long digressions about the woman condition (the right condition for women is slavery, must had a bad relation with a woman). In conclusion read the first 12 books (everybody likes them) if you are not a girl.