Gor
- ''This article is about the fictional planet. In Pygmy mythology, Gor is a mythical elephant and a messenger for the supreme god Khonvoum. Gor is also a town in Granada, Andalusia, Spain.
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2 Books 3 General notes 4 Current state 5 External links |
Series summary
Gor is an intricately detailed world in terms of flora, fauna, and customs. Norman also delights in ethnography, populating his planet with the equivalents of Roman, Native American, Viking, and other races. The Gorean humans have advanced architectural and medical skills (including life extension), but are primitive in the fields of transportation and weaponry -- at approximately the level of Classical Mediterranean civilization. Action, both strategic and tactical/logistical, borrows liberally from historic engagements, such as one city’s maintenance of a “margin of desolation” similar to that maintained at Mesopotamia’s Gu-Edin. Norman is a competent classicist and sociologist, although his prose, fraught with unnecessary punctuation, diction, and tangents, is less solid.
To understand the philosophical and sexual foundations of the series, please see: John Norman.
Most of the books are narrated by transplanted New England professor Tarl Cabot, master swordsman and possibly Norman’s; alter-ego, as he engages in adventures involving Priest-Kings, Kurii, and humans alike. Books 7, 11, 19, and 26 are narrated by abducted earth women who are made slaves. Books 14-16 are narrated by abductee and male slave Jason Marshal.
Besides humans, the main races in his narrative are the insectoid Priest-Kings and the ogre-esque Kurii. Some critics have commented that these antipoles are a warning for moderate human behavior, for the ultra-rationalist, unromantic Priest-Kings see little point in their existence, and the sanguine Kurii who kill anyone, lacking morals to check themselves.
Norman reputedly began the series after wagering that he could write a sword and sorcery novel that would sell successfully. Early entries in the series were simple plot-driven space opera adventures, with later entries growing more heavily theoretical.
Norman’s greatest works are considered his first third. Although sexual bondage and BDSM has always been present, their ubiquity, as well as that of its philosophical and psychological justifications, gradually increased to the point of detracting from the plots. Possible reasons include Norman’s use of his then-popular series to battle the emerging feminist movement, or demand for his books was so great that they were printed without editing. In any case, the significant readership among people uncomfortable with either BDSM or his distracting justifications was lost.
Books
General notes
Current state
Norman has allegedly completed another book, Prize of Gor, which has yet to be printed.