Customer Reviews

Slave Girl of Gor

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

If you ever wondered what a love story set on the planet Gor would be like, here's your answer. If you were expecting hearts and flowers and violin music, you just don't know Gor! Try instead whips, chains, cages, humiliation, degradation, brutality, and rape. Nevertheless, as hard as he tries,... Clitus Vitellius is unable to suppress his tender feelings, so unbecoming to a Master of the Warrior Caste, toward pretty little Judy. This is the second of the Gor novels to be told from the perspective of an abducted Earth girl enslaved on Gor. Judy aka Dina aka Yata is nowhere near the nasty piece of work that Elinor Brinton of Captive of Gor was. Also, she accepts her slavery much more readily than EB so you would think that her experiences on Gor would not be as harsh. Wrong! This book differs from Captive in several other ways. For one thing it actually has a plot. Unbeknownst to Judy she carries an implanted message to a Cosian agent of the Kurii that has bearing on the interplanetary struggle for control of both Gor and Earth. Of course, after an initial taste of this plot it stops for the next 300 pages or so in order to give the reader a look at what life is like for a slave girl on Gor. If your interest is Gorean lifestyle, you'll like this part. Otherwise, it can be slow going. Another difference from Captive is that there is a fair amount of action especially in the last 150 pages when Tarl Cabot again shows up as Bosk of Port Kar. (Rask of Treve briefly shows up again as well.) The revelation of Judy's hidden message sets up the next novel; however, there is nothing here that seems crucial to understanding subsequent volumes in the series. This is clearly a better novel than Captives but not as good as the action-oriented books.

Someday a literary study of sex slave books is going to be written, and this one is going to stand out as a milestone. This is not to say that "Slave Girl of Gor" is great literature, because it isn't. The writing alternates between tight and clumsy, often wandering into misogynist philosophical rants, and some of these can be downright irrational. But it is one of a group of books that have become both a part of the social canon of BDSM and perhaps the most reviled series in the history of science fiction and fantasy fandom. Yes, it's John Norman's "Gor", and "Slave Girl of Gor" might well be its most sexual and most provocative title.

Getting past the rhetoric surrounding the series, this book is actually not that different from a traditional erotic romance novel, except for the more intense bondage elements and the philosophical ramblings that sometimes get in the way of the story. The sex scenes are not extremely explicit but are hot nonetheless: young, beautiful Judy Thorton wakes up one morning to find herself naked and chained on the planet Gor, and she has a variety of erotic and not-so-erotic adventures as she is trained as a pleasure slave and discovers her love for her "true master" and he gets it through his thick skull that he loves her too. It's all rich material for sex slave fantasies, as the widespread internet subculture based on the Gor books testifies. The extent that this series has influenced newer sex slave science fiction books like Susan Wright's "Slave Trade" or Karen Anne Mitchell's "The Usahar" remains to be seen, but it would be hard to imagine that such an influence isn't there, since Gorean words like "kajira" (slave girl) have become normal parts of the fetish community's vocabulary.

But be warned as well: "Slave Girl of Gor" is at times appalling in its misguided assumptions about men, women, and human nature, which it reduces to a simplistic sociobiology that even with (or perhaps especially with) recent advances in the field, is completely untenable. This would be a stronger book without such asides, but Norman must be given some credit for at least tackling a subject that even today makes so many people uncomfortable.

In short, if male dominant/female submissive sexual fantasies are your thing, this is a book to own.

This book details the experiences of an intelligent college girl who is taken from earth to the planet gor and there transformed into a gorean slave girl. The book for the most part is written from her perspective. As a submissive female myself, I was able to understand her fears and then joy at finding her personnal freedom in being allowed for the first time to be totally female. John Norman brings depth and understanding in this book as he explores the feelings of many women world wide who feel that todays society does not allow us to be the total creatures we were created to be. It is one of the better Gorean novels.

Ok, I have to say that this is the most horrible book ever. I was getting so frustrated trying to find out where I was at in the book, because it would say the same thing every other paragraph!. To say that this book is actually literature would be the biggest lie ever. The whole first chapter accounts for about 2 minutes of just struggling and crying, then talking about how the sky is soooo blue, and then some more crying. It sounds as if the character has ADD because she keeps "realizing" or "remembering" the same things every other paragraph. Please, somebody tell the author to consult an editor before writing a book.

Okay, I think that Slave Girl of Gor is an important book in the history of erotic science fiction and fantasy, and even though it was badly written back in 1977, I was still able to get through it, and there was still some of the exotic world he had created present. And let's face it, back then it was pretty risque stuff, what with abduction and rape and Norman's endless efforts to rationalize his growing misogyny, which had been pretty muted in the earlier Gor books (which is why the first five are pretty fun to read if you want a good adventure story with some sexual naughtiness thrown in).

But then came the internet, and then the fans of the Gor novels got organized, and then Norman decided to go through his books and rework them. Since I remembered Slave Girl of Gor from the old days, I thought I'd have a look at the new version. And I read it, and I cringed, because Norman, no master of prose before, actually managed to make the writing significantly worse with his revisions, which seem to consist mostly of adding the same sort of long philosophical diatribes that doomed the books before. Now maybe I'm foolish, but I would have thought that he might have put in more sex, since the limitations on that sort of thing are much more relaxed these days than they were in the 1970's. And let's face it, if you're going to buy a book titled Slave Girl of... well anything, you're probably expecting sex, right?

To make matters worse, he actually took out some good stuff from the original; in one scene in a paga tavern, our heroine makes mention of another Earth girl who serves as a dancer in that tavern. In the original, this is one of the rare tight passages that says a lot in a short paragraph. In the new version, half of that paragraph has been taken out for no reason (if you're interested, it's on page 297 of the original and page 353 of the new version).

So why two stars? Well, the basic story is the same, even though you'll have to skim through more babble than before, and the basic story is still a decent one. But be forewarned: Norman did his readers no favors when he decided to "improve" his work.

I began reading the Gor series about six months ago and have so far collected 22 of the orginal 27 books. The bondage and S/M themes that gain strength in each book made me wonder as a male if Norman were simply presenting a kinky and overly masculine perspective.

So I began to examine female writers beginning with Janet E. Morris' Silistra. And whaddayaknow? Norman has talented female counterparts praising bondage from a female standpoint! Amazing! So women do want sex as badly as men!

"Slavegirl of Gor" is the most provocative of Gor's novels up to this point, and is the first to be devoted to the experience of bondage per se from a woman's point ov view. I actually found the depictions of a woman "in her need" unbelievable until compared the same experiences as related by female writers. They described the very same things, down to scratching their nails in the dirt or against walls when their sexual needs could not be fulfilled!

While I am not prepared to follow Norman down the road of male-doiminance/female-submission and S/M, he is able to bring alive every violent, sweating, bleeding, painful sensual moment of the narrative in a way that no other writer does.

Norman also has first-rate character-development, even if his punctuation needs correction. The wealth of historical, cultural and linguistic research that stands behind these books is fantastic, and I say this as a published scholar of ancient and biblical history and languages. It's a shame that the later books in the series are so hard to get.

Holy crap. John Norman Just goes on and on and on about stupid woman hating psychobabble. Time and time again I would find myself thinking: did I skip back 3 pages? He just said this.

It pretty much goes like this: read a couple minutes of story, read 10 pages of ranting, couple of minutes of story, 10 pages of ranting, repeat.

I wish I would have listened to the reviews. Just me coming on here to write a review shows how bad this book was.

Can I have my money back?

This was the worst John Norman book I have read yet.

Dont let the 4 star fool you, this book has problems.

I hesitate to guess, no wait, that isnt true, I love speculating about the how and why...

My guess is that EVEN for the time these were published (1966-1976) the author / publusher took heat for the rape and masochistic themes in the preceeding 10 volumes of this series. Though not really graphic, it would go along the lines of, "And they proceeded to rape her." or "She was a well used slave that night" it had been largely male point of view, in the form of Tarl Cabot AKA Bosk of Port Kar as narrator. Though the theme of submission as the woman's choice also had been freely offered time and again, this volume presents the female point of view from start to finish.

It has all the dominant male / submissive females we have come to love and expect in the series.

I dont have a problem with the rape, as presented it really doesnt qualify as rape to my mind, as the woman is always a slave, and the man always incites her to passion, though often against her wishes to be so incited. That doesnt bother me. I have even come to grudgingly accept the detailed descriptions of items and institutions of Gor, given by a newcomer, or in other volumes than this one, someone who logically wouldnt have any reason to know the first thing about whatever it is they just rambled on about for 2 or 3 pages...

My biggest problem with this book was the ENDLESS, CEASELESS & REDUNTANTLY REPETITIVE RESTATING of things already said over and over. And over. And over. Usually it isnt so bad, maybe because the total volume of the book isnt so long. But of the 552 pages of this one, I think it could have EASILY been cut in half, and not only would it not have detracted from the story, it would have ADDED to it in the form of making it more streamlined and easy to read. I found myself often thinking, why the hell did I read this tonight, it didnt get anywhere. I am in the smae place I started, but now I have heard several more times that her name is Judy Thornton, she is of Earth, etc...

The basic story is interesting if somewhat (as usually) unlikely. But it gets so bogged sown in ruminations that it can be easy to just decide to put it down for awhile.

Probly more like 3.5 than 4, but I couldnt make myself go 3, so there ya go.

The Slave Girl of Gor is a refreshing change in the usually male dominated worlf of Gor. Imagine a wakening confused alone and naked on an unknown world and being faced with death in the first few moments. This is the tale of the slave girl similar to Captive of Gor with a healthy dose of the joys of bondage and slavery, but that is the hallmark of the Gor books after the first 4 or so. It is a tale of love for both the slave girl and the man who claims her body heart and soul. There is action and high seas battles all from the point of view of the slave girl.

The best part of this book is the continuing discovery of the slave girl supposed to reside in every woman. She travels the path of being lost and confused to recognizing the value of feminity as it exsists on Gor. She unfolds as the flower revealing more and more of her thoughts and actions as she moves through the savage landscape of Gor. We see also more of the different subcultures from the rough peasants to the opulent lifestyle of the Turian's and the seedy paga taverns. We are also given more insight to the role of the FreeWoman on Gor and the depths of cunning and skill she must posess to stay free of the chains of slavery. Like the romance novel this book does end happily in the slave girls eyes at least. There are some flaws early on in the book which may distract the reader from the story but these are easily overlooked to those who have read the other books in the series. I strongly recomend this book as it reads both as a romance and adventure.

Speechless.

...or nearly so anyway. This is gar-bajj. What a shame. Double shame actually. First shame is that Norman had such a rich world and ideas and trashed it. Second shame is that I purchased all 28 of the books before realizing this.

The writing is soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad. To say any more is to pull a 'Norman' and be repetitive. Don't buy, save your money, enjoy the hours returned to your life.

You're welcome.