The Chronicles of Counter-earth Volume 2
1967, DelRey, NY, 254 pages, with a lurid cover by Boris Vallego
When I was a teenager I read the first seven Gor books, then read the Time Slave title and a good American Indian viewpoint story by the same author, the title of which eludes me. Then I became tired of the constant digressions by the author as to how all women should be slaves, and that a bondage relationship was the only way a man can relate to a woman. The author, like many fantasy writers, devoted long passages to describing the culture he had created. I was beginning to feel that he was promoting bondage sex, and, at age 17, when I finally had sex with a woman—and realized how pointless tying her up would have been—I stopped reading him. To prove my anti-brainwashing instinct right my friend showed me a book on S & M the author wrote, promoting ‘bondage play’. Please dude, get away! Why tie up a woman when they melt from a kiss? Who does that?
Years later I met Banno, a psychopathic Vietnam vet who collected money for an out-of-state drug supplier. The only thing he read was Gor! That scarred me more than the fact that he thought nothing of killing people and then going to the dime store to buy candy for his kids. The last time I saw Banno he tried to pick a fight with me, still sore over the fact that I mentored his boys and taught them how to ‘fight fair’ [box] when he was in prison.
Recently, when a friend of mine gave me this old paperback, falling apart, a lonely survivor of the same print run I read in the mid 1970s, I felt like some old perverted friend had knocked on my door and asked to go have a drink. On the cover an almost entirely naked blonde twists on the hard ground, wrists chained to a stake. A fat slaver with a branding iron and a topknot crouches over her ready to mark her as a commodity. Tarl Cabot, the hero of the Gor novels, of which there are more than 20, stands off in judgment. This is a very faithful illustration of Chapter 21: I Buy a Girl.
Men of the 1970s loved this stuff because it was heroic on the male side and alternately bitchily-wicked, and sweet-submissive on the female side. This is James Bond as John Carter of Mars. Just as Game of Thrones appeals to modern readers with its lurid infusion of real history and medieval culture into a fantastic adult fairytale matrix, John Norman’s blending of historical periods and ancient cultures, as seen from the viewpoint of a sympathetic English gentleman abducted by aliens during a New England hiking retreat, offers both brilliant scenes and a searing realization that life was once far different for men and women.
Gor is a planet were alien ‘Priest-kings’ take abducted humans and breed them for their own purposes. The dominant human culture is based on the classical Hellenic world but with a stifling caste system more severe than that of medieval India. Women are either married in Taliban-like bondage, or paraded and used as naked slave girls. I easily grow weary of the ham-fisted recounting of Gorean customs, which are borrowed pretty ingeniously from known human cultures. Norman facilitates an easy read by writing the story scenes tightly and then presenting the customs in long blocky paragraphs reminiscent of the page-long narrative favored by sedative English authors of the 20th Century. I found this to make for a tight, enjoyable, schizophrenic read. Despite my reservations, I liked it. I can definitely see what Banno liked about it.
Despite the misogynistic theme Tarl is gallant; the kind of selfless liberal he-man that women fantasize about. As with most novelists Norman overdoes serendipity, but that is a mark of his trade. The story itself involves Tarl being re-abducted after an exile on earth, only to find out that his adopted city has been wiped out by decree of the alien priest-kings. His adventures focus on a fabled feminist [not Amazon] city ruled by a cruel woman, Lara, the Tatrix of Tharna. Gor as a setting is consistent and well wrought, with an interesting and very Burroughs-like attention to alien species adapted as draft animals.
Tarl is a likeable and sympathetic hero whose faults are generally tied up with his humanity, which is a rare commodity on Gor. The characters he meets range from caricature-like low-caste supporting characters, to standard upper-class types right out of central casting, with my preference lying with the former, some of which are quite good, if more suited for comics than prose. I have never read any fiction that approaches class and caste in such an extreme manner. It remains part of the appeal; part of the alien sense of living in a time lost. The ancient Roman tale of Androcles and the Lion is adapted to Tarl’s adventure in Tharna, and, like James Bond, never fear, he is not only getting the girl, but not fated to being burdened with her stifling companionship.
This book was purchased from a used book store. I think I shall look for more John Norman titles online. I see no way that these books could be displayed on a contemporary bookshelf. If they were, I am sure, that Hillary, ascendant Tatrix of America, would have them burned.
