Customer Reviews

Hunters of Gor (The Gor Series)

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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I read the Gor series as a boy in the 70's and early 80's. IMHO the series is most appealing to teenage boys. I recently pulled "Assassins of Gor" off the shelf one night while bored, and re-read it. I was shocked that there was no real sex, and only a handful of pages of philosophy and psychology that I had to skip over. The book was really excellent, although in a straight forward, uncomplicated sort of way. These are escapist novels, richly detailed, which immerse you in an exotic world, not real thinkers. My enduring memories were of the later books in the series, which were almost unreadable because whole chapters were devoted to philosophy and psychology.
I am not offended by the idea that it is natural and enjoyable for women to be submissive to men. Although I recognize it as wish fulfillment fantasy, still I consider it harmless, especially in such an obviously fictitious setting. I even found it mildly interesting the first time it was mentioned. It is the umpteenth repetition that I find boring. I just turn those pages, skipping ahead to the next action sequence. Speaking of wish fulfillment, I wish someone would edit the series, and re-publish it without these parts. Maybe Eric Flint could do it? He likes to edit, according to his afterword to "1633" and he's good at it. Of course, if you take the sex out of Gor you get Barsoom, and that story has already been written.

I looked on Amazon to see if there was anything new going on with the series, and there was. It is being reprinted, starting at the beginning, and at least 2 new books seem to be published, or at least in the works. I was disappointed though that Amazon didn't have the whole series listed under one easy to find heading. I guess there are, after all, millions of books and only so many Amazon employees. So I'm listing the series, in order, along with some brief info. Some of these books I haven't read, as noted.

1.) Tarnsman of Gor - 1966. Earthman, Tarl Cabot, goes to another planet, hidden on the opposite side of our sun, and becomes a master swordsman and Warrior. This is the book that is most like "Princess of Mars" by Edgar Rice Burroughs, which I highly recommend. Note - the 1966 copyright is held by John Lange, the author's real name.

2.) Outlaw... - 1967. Tarl Cabot returns to Gor, to find he's been outlawed.

3.) Priest-Kings... - 1968. Tarl Cabot goes to lair of Priest-Kings to clear his name.

4.) Nomads... - 1969. Tarl Cabot goes to Southern Plains, and meets Mongol type nomads.

5.) Assassin... - 1970. Tarl Cabot returns to Ar, greatest city-state on Gor. Note - this is the first copy I have by Del Rey books, and it has cover art by Boris. I may not like reading about the Gorean philosophy on sexual roles for men and women, but I can't get enough of Boris' artwork depicting it.

6.) Raiders... - 1971. Tarl Cabot goes to Port Kar, pirate capitol of scum and villainy, and learns the meaning of shame. More Boris art on the cover of the Del Rey edition.

7.) Captive... - 1972. A new character, Elinor Brinton, is captured on Earth and becomes a slave girl on Gor. The first time this is done, it may be slightly creative and a little interesting, but it is a radical departure from the earlier books and I consider it to be the beginning of the end. At least Tarl Cabot has a few pages at the end, to tie this book into the rest of the series. This is also the last book published by Ballantine books, which I think is significant in the content and direction of the rest of the series.

8.) Hunters... - 1974. Tarl Cabot goes to the Northern Forest and meets amazon type women. This seems to be the first time there was a break in John Norman's writing, undoubtedly related to his switch to Daw books as a publisher.

9.) Marauders... - 1975. Tarl Cabot goes to the land of the Norsemen and meets Viking type Marauders.

10.) Tribesmen... - 1976. Tarl Cabot goes to the Tahari desert.

11.) Slave Girl... - 1977. Earth girl Judy Thornton enslaved on Gor. Again. No Tarl Cabot at all.

12.) Beasts... - 1978. Tarl Cabot goes to the Arctic ice pack and meets Eskimo type people.

13.) Explorers... - 1979. Tarl Cabot goes to the equatorial rain forests.

14.) Fighting Slave... - 1980. Earthman Jason Marshall is enslaved and forced to fight in a pit on Gor.

15.) Rogue... - 1981. Jason Marshall wanders free on Gor.

16.) Guardsman... - 1981. Jason Marshall earns a homeland.

17.) Savages... - 1982. Tarl Cabot goes to the great plains and meets American Indian type savages. Note - If you like this, John Norman also wrote "Ghost Dance" in 1970, a similar type story about real American Indians. I'm impressed that he kept the writing schedule he did on the Gor novels, and still wrote other books on the side. He also wrote "Time Slave" in 1975.

18.) Blood Brothers... - 1982. Savages and Blood Brothers are a two-part set. Just recently read this conclusion to Savages. Brings closure to Ubar of the Skies.

19.) Kajira... - unread. Another Slave girl story.

20.) Players... - 1984. Tarl Cabot joins the Carnival. Cos goes to war with Ar.

21.) Mercenaries... - 1985. Tarl Cabot returns to Ar again to try to save it.

22.) Dancer... - unread. Another Slave Girl novel? This is where I stopped even looking in the bookstore.

23.) Vagabonds... - unread.

24.) Magicians... - 1988, unread.

25.) Witness... - 2002, unread. I read on amazon that this is a story about Marlenus with amnesia, told by a slave girl.

26.) Prize... - unread. This is not yet published.

This was always one of my favorites of the Gor books because of the constant misfortune befalling Tarl Cabot. Usually he is the master of the situations in which he finds himself, but that is not the case here. It makes for a welcome change, and sets up his rediscovery of his true self in the following book.

This is Volume 8 in the Gor series and Volume 7 of the Tarl Cabot saga since the protagonist in the previous volume was someone else. After the disappointment of Captives of Gor I was hoping that Norman would get back on track with this story but, alas, it was not to be. The book is 370 pages long and has a flimsy plot that would normally support a book about half that length. The rest of it is taken up by Norman's obsession with female enslavement. Every time Cabot binds a slave (which is frequently) it is described in excruciating detail with loving description of the devices used and types of knots employed. This may be fine for the bondage crowd but for the rest of us it's just plain booorrriiinnnggg! Also, the level of violence against women and outright sadism seems to have escalated compared to the first 6 volumes. Another flaw in the book is the outrageousness of some of the scenes. I've complained about this with Assassin of Gor but none of them in that book can compare to this one: Cabot knowingly walks into the stockade of his enemy Sarus of Tyros where he is quickly locked in and surrounded by 55 Tyrosians and 22 panther girls all of whom have good reason to kill him on sight. He demands that they give up their prisoners immediately or he will kill everyone there. A melee ensues. Guess who wins. Oh, puh-leeze. One final complaint: In the past Norman's thoughts on bondage had been presented as part of the plot. You could always maintain the fiction that Norman didn't really believe the things he was saying, that they were there for the sake of the story, the Gorean ambiance if you will. In the final chapter of this book, however, for the first time Norman seem to step out of the shadows to lecture the reader on how Gorean philosophy can be justified by Darwinian principles. The arguments are easy enough to refute but this is not the place for it.

Hunters of Gor introduces us to a brand new geographic area of Gor for the first time since Nomads of Gor (Book #4). Like Nomads of Gor, Hunters of Gor showcases both the denizens and the flora and fauna of the area (Northern Forest). Simply put, the Panther Women are absolutely incredible! For the second time John Norman showcases them in all their resplendent glory! Women who are not afraid of men and who are in fact able to give as good as they get. I loved this premise! It was first alluded to in the fifth book; Assassins of Gor.

The Northern Forest is a coniferous forest land biome that hosts outlaws and Panther Women. Both of these groups cannot co-exist. So naturally there is great conflict between males and females when they encounter one another. The exception for this is at the trading/exchange points where booty is traded to merchants for the sundry goods of Gor.

The story has Tarl Cabot entering the forest to save his long lost love Talena from the degradations of slavery. Talena has been captured (Since Captive Of Gor), and is in the custody of Slavers. With a detachment of his men he journeys up the Laurius River in search of his former Free-Companion. But before he can intercept her he is captured by Panther Women. However, Marlenus of Ar rescues him from the ignominy of a gang rape by Panther Women. After his rescue, Tarl becomes embroiled in the machinations of Marlenus of Ar, who himself is later captured by warriors from Tyros.

This is when Tarl Cabot is at his best. By the end of this book Norman showcases the ruthless skill Tarl Cabot uses to dispatch his foes while wrapping up the riveting plot. This will set the table for Marauders of Gor, the direct sequel of Hunters of Gor.

The descriptions of the forest floor and its animals are surreal and truly engage one's full imagination. This is a book that can only hook you to the Gor Series right on through to Explorers of Gor (Book #13) and Blood Brothers of Gor (Book #18). These novels showcase a bonanza of Gorean locales that truly will mesmerize any true Gor fan! By all means you must buy this and the above mentioned books!

A. Nathaniel Wallace, Jr.

While I enjoy the Gorean series for adventure and some fantasies I will first give a bit of background of myself. I am far from a politically correct woman and celebrate the enjoyment of consensual safe exciting BDSM with my life partner for years. I can also appreciate BDSM fantasies that are too heavy to act on, they are simply fantasies. However, I think John Norman's constant bombardment of his philosophy that women are never happy unless they are slaves broken down in the the cruelest manner possible crosses a line. The cruelty towards slaves gets worse with every book. A few examples, using women as live bait in the water to hunt for rats, keeping a woman in a freezing room for hours until her lips turn blue and she submits. To me this is a flaw in his writing. I know he is a professor of Philosophy. All I can imagine is that he might have had women in positions of authority over him or bad experiences with women. Just like Michel Angelo painted some of the people he disliked in hell in his very famous ceiling painting, these same women may have turned up as female characters in his Gor novels.

This might have been the best Gor book to date. Tarl Cabot / Bosk of Port Kar gains more depth of character, more experience, and though he spends all book coming off like Jack Know-it-all, in the end he finds out he could have saved himself a lot of time and trouble if he had just listened to his friends who know better - but I get it, it IS hard when you think you know better than everyone else... I share his weakness.

Once I had doubts after first reading HUNTERS OF GOR, placing it further down on the short list of really good Gor novels than I now do. A second reading was instructional, a third enlightening. I believe HUNTERS is almost as good as PRIEST KINGS; and it completes the transformation of Tarl of Bristol into Bosk of Port Kar begun in RAIDERS OF GOR.

If you have doubts, start reading HUNTERS again. You'll discover you're 50 pages in before you know it, the story flow is that engrossing. In the northern forests Bosk duplicates the same archery heroics at the end of HUNTERS as he did in the beginning of RAIDERS when slavers attacked the rencers in the marshes. The former New England professor turned red-tunicked warrior takes out dozens of enemies sniping with a longbow from the brush. Both times are convincing.

I'd originally forgotten Cabot's inner dialogues in HUNTERS are funnier than anything that left the mouths of NOMADS' Harold or PLAYERS' Boots Tarsk Bit. There is an underlying comedy of manners going on when Bosk reflects often and at length about the Kajira known as Vella (Elizabeth Cardwell) after bumping into her in a tavern in the Gorean backwater Lydius. Our man from Bristol would've bought and freed her in a heartbeat, but not Port Kar's newest noxious resident. Bosk leaves Vella to stew in her own juice after a visit to one of the tavern's alcoves since the serving wench comes with the price of a cup of paga. Cabot suffers defeats real and imagined at the hands of panther girls and Marlenus; plus mental setbacks aplenty as his delusional ambitions, nonexistent renewal of vows with Talena, and Telima doing a runner on him drive him nuts. So throughout the book he takes petty comfort in his lot being superior to Vella's, who previously disobeyed his wishes in the Sardar and, worse, went bye-bye on his Ubar of the Skies. At least a dozen times in various portions of the novel Bosk's thoughts turn to Miss Cardwell and, as his self-esteem shrinks and his paranoia grows, he reiterates: 'She had gambled, she had lost.' The embittered gag gets funnier and funnier each time he repeats it.

The single most hilarious comment in any Gor book occurs when Bosk becomes thoughtfully concerned that a coffle of slave girls he's secured in the woods might grow hungry or malnourished during his absence. To correct this situation he brains a Gorean rat and feeds it to them raw. I had to stop reading for several minutes after Norman induced a laughing fit via Cabot's deadpanned delivery of the line: 'One girl did not care to feed.' Friends who've also read the book told me the same hilarity overtook them.

Before the fat lady sings Tarl/Bosk recollects the honor he lost back in RAIDERS in HUNTERS OF GOR, in retrospect one of the finest hours of the Counter-Earth cycle.

By the eighth installment in the Gor series, John Abnorman had almost completely jettisoned the Burroughs pastiche of the early books and by now had given the series over completely to his obsessive topic: women are only happy when they are enslaved. They love being raped and even beg for it. They are joyful when a knife is held to their throat, or when they have a chain around their neck and have to heel, like a dog.

After the first six books, one Gor book is pretty much the same as another. There is a wafer-thin plot, which is just an excuse for windy disquisitions on why woman should be enslaved, raped, and beaten, because it's what makes them happy. It's worth noting that the women in the series are almost all abducted from Earth, as if Earth girls are somehow more attractive than plain old Gorean girls. Perhaps Abnorman is indulging his fantasies about some of his educated female colleagues.

Incidentally, Abnorman loves to use the words "incidentally" and "interestingly" ad nauseam, during his lengthy lectures of Gorean culture. Sometimes he will say "incidentally" two or three times in a single page. In one book (I think it's this one) he actually says "Incidentally and interestingly". Interesting.

90% of these books are more or less xeroxed from the same boilerplate. It's the same tired old scenario every time, with a mere excuse for a plot. After the first six books in the series, which were a lot of fun, I browsed through a few later installments, hoping to find something like adventure entertainment. But there's not enough to make it worth wading through the incredible tedium of interminable dialogues on slavery, over and over and over again.

Incidentally and interestingly, there is no actual sex in these books. There are allusions to it but no actual descriptions. In that sense, interestingly, it is perversely a bit like Burroughs, whose romanticism was extremely prudish.

Still, this series enjoyed a cult following in the 70s and 80s, and appeals to those who like S & M. Whatever floats your boat ...

A lot of people seem to think Norman goes off track during Captive and thereafter. I disagree. Captive is different but still goood. Hunters is as good as any of the previous books. If you llked the first 6, you'll like Hunters. It's no better, nor worse than those books.

I started reading the series from the beginning and am progressing through it, just having finished reading the "Hunters of Gor."

The story line was good and answered a few questions about Elizabeth Cardwell and Talena but left me wondering if the was the last we might read of Miss Elizabeth Cardwell of New York.

As has been the case so far, Tarl finds himself in situations that appear to have no way for him to extricate himself from and yet he manages to escape and survive.

I like it though. Granted, the prose is somewhat stiff at times (a characteristic of the novels I've read so far) but I cannot help finding myself caught up in Tarl's adventure and anxious to see how they turn out.

Most of the major characters have been mentioned in the previous books so it is just not Tarl that we learn more about. I think this reappearance of previous characters makes for interesting reading and helps to build an interest for later novels. It left me curious to obtain the next volume in the series to see how Tarl fares upon his return to Port Kar after being grievously wounded.

For the most part I found the book mostly readable and at times rather enjoyable. A good read for fans of the Gor series.