Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Don't judge a book by its...reputation, September 25, 2000
By A Customer
This is the first Gor book that I have read. I have known about them for decades but had dismissed them as trash without ever having read one because of their reputation for misogyny and the promotion of bondage. During a recent trip to a used book I came across a copy of Priest-Kings of Gor with a cover by Boris Vallejo that intrigued me. It showed a barbarian standing over a slave girl with what I took to be a golden idol of a gigantic insectoid creature in the background. (As it turned out, the "idol" was a living Priest-King!) I was in the mood for "guilty pleasure" so I bought it. I expected to get slam-bang action, lurid writing, a no-brainer story, and lots of politically incorrect pornography. Boy, was I wrong! The story has its share of action but it also has a fair amount of exposition and character development. The writing is far from lurid. It actually has a somewhat stilted feeling to it that I associate more with Victorian prose than with modern writing. The story was reasonably complex and the cultural background was surprisingly detailed. What impresses me most about this book, however, is the convincing presentation of an alien with a truly ALIEN perspective, the Priest-King of Gor, an intelligent creature whose sensorium is based on olfaction rather than vision. I've been reading science fiction for more than 40 years and I can't think of a book that has done it better. Oh, yeah, the bondage stuff. It's there but not as prominent as in the other Gor books, I'm told. And there is no pornography...whatever sex there is in this book (I don't remember any!) occurs offstage. Nevertheless, anyone with feminist views is advised to stay as far away from this book as possible. For everyone else it's a hell of a good read!
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cabot meets Priest-Kings and becomes their Emissary, December 25, 1998
By A Customer
In this, the 3rd episode of the Counter-Earth saga, Tarl Cabot has determined to enter the forbidding Sardar mountains where the Priest-Kings, legendary rulers of Gor are believe to reside, and demand an accounting from them for the destruction of his beloved city Ko-Ro-Ba.Cabot learns the true nature of Priest-Kings, and becomes enmeshed in their machinations as a not-unwilling paladin in a power struggle between factions of the Priest-Kings. He eventually learns of the reason for the destruction of Ko-Ro-Ba, and how his own choices may doom or save the Counter-Earth. As of this writing, I just recently re-read this novel, and enjoyed just as much as the first time. Some may pooh-pooh Norman's writing as appealing only to adolescents, and deride his themes and pseudo-psychological theorizations as perverted or denigrating, but Norman's work is pure, unadulterated escapist fiction, where evil receives its just desserts, and you can lose yourself for a time.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Welcome to the Continuing story of Gor, May 25, 2005
Tal and welcome to the third book of the Gorean Counter-Earth series. Or Counter-Urth as some might say. Again we find ourselves with our hero Tarl, he has headed out from Tharna and is in the Sardar Mountains looking for the dreaded, feared, and mystical beings called the Priest Kings. The reason he has done this is because he wants to know why his city is in ruins, why his loved ones are gone...and he finds this out, and he finds out much more than he bargains for. Here in the lair of the Priest Kings he finds friends and enemies, he finds the meaning of honor, of friendship, and an almost cosmic realization of how wide the universe truly is. The Priest Kings, he finds out, are a dying race...yes they hold unbelievable powers (something one might akin to the Time Lords of the Doctor Who series, if one is familiar with that series) but they are definitely not gods as the usual Initiative or Gorean Free for that matter believes. They are an ancient race that has knowledge of manipulating time and space and distance and gravity. What I love about this is how well it develops the concept of the Priest Kings and how they are similar (in some small respect) and different than the known Goreans... which is Tarl, as an example in the novel. By the end of the book, as noted in another review, one sees how Tarl's relationship with the Priest Kings will develop His own relationship with Himself and Gor through Nomads of Gor, Assassin of Gor, and Raiders of Gor...
What is interesting about this novel is how well developed the concept of social darwinism is by comparing the society of the Priest Kings to that of humans, in this case, Tarl, and the other Goreans. The meaning of caste, of order, and of respect and honor, is spliced and dissected and integrated in how the heroes (PKs and human heroes) bind together to fight against the villain and those whom...social darwin speaking...follow him because of his standing in what is called the Birth Order from the Mother (mother of the Priest Kings). While social darwinism has always had a problem, most notably when you see how it is worked out in Russia and in Hitler's Germany, the SD of Gor is quite different. And in some respects, is above that of our politically correct, postmodern society. The idea is that a Man is meant to truly be a Man, one of Honor and Dignity. This isn't one race above others, such racism is meaningless and pointless and wicked, instead you are divided by castes...a caste system that is strict, yes, but a Free can be moved up and down depending upon His or Her skills and abilities and willingness to work hard for His/Her future. There is no room for haughtiness, for such people are taken down quickly by their own falseness. There is no room for laziness, for such people are showed to be the fools they are. Both ways, rightly so, end with these such peoples tripping over themselves and falling victim to their own poor judgement. You and I must do what is right, we must fight and believe what we believe, and stand up against anything and everything that dares to come in our path...whether it is in the form of terrorism, diseases such as AIDS and cancer, crime in our streets, or whatnot. Even if you and I disagree on something, say such as my religious beliefs and yours, as long as we remain respectful, tolerant but willing to agree to disagree openly instead of pandering to one another, then there is strength being built in society.
So what future does Tarl have on Gor? We shall see!
Winds!
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