Interesting

[bladespark]

Apparently Dark Horse has very quietly canceled the Gor books.

I'm curious as to the reason behind it, but I am also quite pleased!

And just so nobody gets the wrong impression, I shall explain why I am pleased. I do not support censorship, but I do support honesty. If somebody wishes to publish the Gor series as fetish material, or even as some sort of semi-pornographic social commentary, that's great. Awesome. More power to them. But the fact that Dark Horse was pushing these as mainstream fantasy, and their promotional materials never once mentioned anything about female slavery, domination, submission, kidnapping, branding, rape, or any of the other icky and/or kinky stuff that's in them really bothered me. I was massively influenced by books that I read as a young person. To the point that I pin my liberal/libertarian political and social stance on the books I read. I was raised in a very conservative household, the only liberal influence in my life was books. And I have a submissive nature and an attraction to some freakish kinks. If I had read those books as a young teen, I am certain they would have influenced my attitudes toward sex and towards D/s relationships. I've got enough screwy stuff in my head without adding in all the "what women really want" crap that's in those books. As a youngster I never would have picked up a book with a back cover blurb saying something like "Tarl Cabot is trasported to the counter-earth world of Gor, where he learns what it means to be a real man by capturing female slaves and having his way with them. Enter a fantasy world where all that women really want is to be enslaved by a real man." But I would have picked up a book with the back cover blurb that Dark Horse gave it. "Part science fiction, part adventure novel, the stories in the world of Gor would unfold to show Tarl Cabot’s growth from a novice to a man whose fate might determine the course of every man, woman, and child on Gor. John Norman’s Gor Omnibus 1 collects the first three novels in the series. Prepare to take a journey to a land of passion and sorcery." That's a dishonest representation of what you're going to get, and I have seen a lot of accounts, in various discussions of this thing, of people who picked up one of the Gor books, having no idea what it was about, and were horrified and shocked when they actually read it. You should not be horrified and shocked to discover what you're reading. A cover blurb should say what's in the book so that you can try it or reject it knowingly. Of course cover blurbs don't say how good a book is, and I don't expect the Gor novels to say that they're one of the worst-written things to ever be published on the front. All blurbs claim that the book is a great book. But most blurbs tell you something about the central theme of the book. It's about adventure, it's about romance, it's about mystery. The Gor novels are about female sexual slavery. The cover should say so.

So! With all that said, I am very, very, very happy to see that the dishonest and misleading version of these books that Dark Horse was preparing to publish has been scrapped. Bravo.

Comments

[scribe-of-stars.livejournal.com]

Maybe they'll outsource it to a place that doesn't mind publishing that sort of stuff?

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Perhaps. There's actually some debate as to whether they've actually canceled the print run itself, or just the public promotion. They may still be printing them and quietly selling them to book stores. Not sure. I'd like to see some kind of statement from them about it, but I doubt we'll get one.

[emirasan.livejournal.com]

My mate for some unknown reason (probably because he has NO taste in literature most of the time) loves the Gor series and even tried to get me to read it. I agree that it is one of the worst things I have ever tried to read.

[greree.livejournal.com]

The Gor Omnibus only has the first three books in the series, and the central theme in the first three Gor novels ISN'T female sexual slavery. The central theme in the first FOUR books is pretty much what Dark Horse says it is. It doesn't get into the female slavery until several books later.

And no, I don't think Dark Horse scrapped the project. Dark Horse is a publisher, not a seller. Every online bookseller is still taking pre-orders for the book, with a delivery date in November.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

http://bellatrys.livejournal.com/tag/gor

From the first book: "In Tharna both the men and the women came eventually to believe the myths or the distortions advantageous to female dominance. …

Yet this situation, socially viable though it might be for generations, is not one truly productive of human happiness. … In a city such as Tharna the men, taught to regard themselves as beasts, as inferior beings, seldom develop the full respect for themselves essential to true manhood. But even more strangely the women of Tharna do not seem content under the gynocracy. Although they despise men and congratulate themselves on their more lofty status it seems to me that they, too, fail to respect themselves. Hating their men they hate themselves.

I have wondered sometimes if a man to be a man must not master a woman and if a woman to be a woman must not know herself mastered. I have wondered how long nature’s laws, if laws they are, can be subverted in Tharna. I have sensed how a man in Tharna longs to take the mask from a woman, and I have suspected how much a woman longs for her mask to be taken."


Now, explain to me how this is NOT about how all females everywhere are supposed to be slaves to men? Please, do tell!

And also, the bit where the triumphant conclusion of the first book is Tarn Whojit raping his princess publicly to prove that she belongs to him, and this is what she really, secretly wanted all along? This is not about sexual slavery how?

If you think a book that glorifies rape and tells us outright how all females really want to be slaves isn't about slavery, then I guess that's your opinion, but I'm going to think you're kind of clueless.

[greree.livejournal.com]

The second thing first. You said:

"And also, the bit where the triumphant conclusion of the first book is Tarn Whojit raping his princess publicly to prove that she belongs to him, and this is what she really, secretly wanted all along? This is not about sexual slavery how?"

I have the first book right in front of me. What you just described doesn't happen. What it DOES say is, "Then, in accord with the rude bridal customs of Gor, as she furiously but playfully struggled, as she squirmed and protested and pretended to resist, I bound her bodily across the saddle of the tarn. Her wrists and ankles were secured, and she lay before me, arched over the saddle, helpless, a captive, but of love and her own free will."

Ok, first thing next. You said:

"Now, explain to me how this is NOT about how all females everywhere are supposed to be slaves to men? Please, do tell!"

Sure. First of all, the first paragraph you cut and pasted in your reply to me had NOTHING to do with female slavery. Nothing at all. I'm not sure why you pasted it there. If anything it was about MALE slavery. It even explicitly says "female dominance." The second part says "...if a man to be a man must not master a woman...", but it isn't talking about slavery. If you read the entire section, you'll see that he's talking about a patriarchy, and not specifically about female slavery. Tharna is a matriarchy, and he's wondering if the people there would be more happy under a different form of government. As a matter of fact, he's worried that if things don't change, Tharna may BECOME a city of free men and female slaves. "Should there ever be a revolution in the ways of Tharna I would pity her women--at least at first--for they would be the object of the pent-up frustrations of generations. If the pendulum should swing in Tharna, it would swing far. Perhaps even to the scarlet rug and yellow cords." The phrase "scarlet rug and yellow cords" means slavery.

I said that female slavery isn't the central theme. I didn't say it wasn't mentioned. Here's another passage from that same book:

"On Gor a woman normally travels only with a suitable retinue of armed guards. Women, on this barbaric world, are often regarded, UNFORTUNATELY, as little more than love prizes, the fruits of conquest and seizure. Too often they are seen less as persons, human beings with rights, individuals worthy of concern and regard than as potential pleasure slaves, silken, bangled prisoners, possible adornments to the pleasure gardens of their captors."

Unfortunately? This passage glorifies female slavery? Here's another, from the first book:

"The caste system was socially efficient, given its openness with respect to merit, but I regarded it as somehow ethically objectionable. It was still too rigid, in my opinion, particularly with respect to the selection of rulers from the High Castes and with respect to the Double Knowledge. But far more deplorable than the caste system was the institution of slavery."

And another:

"The girl I had originally seen had been a slave, and what I had taken to be the jewelry at her throat had been a badge of servitude. Another such badge was a brand concealed by her clothing. The latter marked her as a slave, and the former identified her master. One might change one's collar, but not one's brand. I had not seen the girl since the first day. I wondered what had become of her, but I did not inquire. One of the first lessons I was taught on Gor was that concern for a slave was out of place. I decided to wait. I did learn, casually from a Scribe, not Torm, that slaves were not permitted to impart instruction to a free man, since it would place him in their debt, and nothing was owed to a slave. If it was in my power, I resolved to do what I could to abolish what seemed to me a degrading condition."

Now, just out of curiosity, I found the last passage about slavery in the last book of the omnibus. It was the main character, Tarl Cabot, talking with two other people about finding his Free Companion, Talena, and freeing her from slavery. So no, the central theme of the first three books ISN'T female slavery.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuure it's not. Saying that all that women really want is for men to take off their symbols of rulership, to reverse the "subverting of nature's laws" and for men to rule over them isn't about female slavery. NATURE'S LAWS. Nature's laws that say men rule and women submit. This isn't saying that all women should be slaves, oh no, not at all. Right. Really. Uh huh.

And "Then, in accord with the rude bridal customs of Gor, as she furiously but playfully struggled, as she squirmed and protested and pretended to resist, I bound her bodily across the saddle of the tarn. Her wrists and ankles were secured, and she lay before me, arched over the saddle, helpless, a captive, but of love and her own free will." Is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. Women really want to be helpless. Women really want to be possessions. Women really want to be slaves. That IS the entire point of this book. That is the one recurring theme all through it, how women really want to be owned by men. That's fine and dandy in a fetish book, that makes it clear it's only a fantasy, but not acceptable when you're treating it as an idealized society. Which is it, and does. The way things are on Gor is repeatedly described in glowing terms, as the natural order, the way things should be. THE NATURAL ORDER!!!! The MYTHS that females can rule! SEE the language used here. For every little bit of our earthman cringing at it, there are ten places where it's held up proudly!

READ the reviews I linked to, there are dozens of similar points in them about how females are portrayed in those books. You're reading, but you're not seeing what's in front of your eyes, if you can say that quote I gave you isn't about female slavery!

You know what? You're NEVER going to convince me that there's anything at all worthy of reading in these books, and since you're obviously quite unwilling to admit what they're really saying about men and women, I see no point in conversing with you further. You're obviously on lj solely to argue with people in their own space, and I have very little respect for that. Goodbye.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Pardon, that quote is from the second book, which is also contained in this not-about-slavery omnibus of yours. My apologies.

[malakim2099.livejournal.com]

Actually, if you can find it, MST3K #521 is "The Outlaw", which riffs on a book from a Gor novel. Highly amusing, really.

Personally, I just despise those trashy books. Give me some Weis/Hickman instead. *grins*

[malakim2099.livejournal.com]

Can you tell I'm tired. It's a MOVIE based on a Gor novel. *blars*