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A review by lanko
Tarnsman of Gor by John Norman
2.0
A quick read, one that starts pretty well.
It has this Lovecraftian start with some British academic bookish guy who then gets plunged into unexplainable stuff. A group of people/aliens that can move a planet around the cosmos and can block/manipulate light and radio waves to prevent it from beeing seen.
Our character gets a message from his father dated hundreds of years ago and goes to this world apparently on a UFO.
The world is dominated by the Priest Kings, who also control how much technology is around and only allow people to arm themselves medieval style while giving life extension serums around as well.
Pretty awesome.
But then the story pretty much alternates good and bad moments.
First the MC, who starts interesting becomes a massive Gary Stu with a huge plot armor. His arms training was interesting, but when you realize as the story progresses that those few weeks/months actually turned him into the best fighter this world has ever seen, in a society defined by slavery, honor and warfare, it's a massive suspension of disbelief.
He then tames probably the biggest tarn (an eagle apparently bigger than a dragon) in the world, without ever being mentored how to do and the process, but he does so pretty effortlessly, to also the shock of his arms mentor, a war veteran who's also a tarn rider his whole life.
His plot armor makes him escape and survive impossible deaths multiple times, making it even worse.
During a war he is even analyzing and making massively better siege strategies over grizzed war veteran, without ever having done it before or mentored on such things. His strategy makes the other cities involved go home happy, avoids the razing of the capital and all with minimal losses too.
All this and we didn't even get to the supposed BDSM for what the series is famous for.
And to be fair, it didn't have anything explicit in this volume. But somehow it made it worse.
The MC is so pure of heart and perfect that he frees his slaves and also refuses to enslave the spoiled daughter of the biggest warchief of the world, even when she, believe it or not, begs him to do so.
He's so good this royal spoiled princess actually likes the whole thing and legit wants to be given the leash.
During points of the story you see it was all a ploy but by the end it's insanely clear it's legit how she feels.
If the MC had become someone who actually relished enslaving people, I'd actually find it much more believable than any of this.
The MC is so good that the warchief of the world, who lost his empire because of the MC, one he worked his entire life to build, with actual good reasons, who then also wanders the world as an outlaw, sees everyone trying to destroy his work, sees his daughter apparently enslaved, all this because of the MC (he tries to kill the MC multiple times and fail because of the plot armor)...
But by the end this warchief is happy and begging the MC to give him strong grandsons.
He becomes so insanely influential, liked and powerful that the immortal alien overlords, capable of moving planets around the universe, manipulating light, cosmic radiation and gravity, they all send him back to Earth probably because this Conan dressed sword wielding that doesn't like slavery and caste system is now supposedly a massive threat to their power on Gor!
I wondered if this was all some sort of parody, a joke to the power fantasy of the time Norman was writing but I really had the impression the whole thing was supposedly to be taken pretty seriously.
Maybe the MC falls to the dark side and becomes the overlord enslaving everyone later and maybe that's why the series ends up famous but this first volume is just bad with the amount of Gary Stu power and plot armor involved.
It has this Lovecraftian start with some British academic bookish guy who then gets plunged into unexplainable stuff. A group of people/aliens that can move a planet around the cosmos and can block/manipulate light and radio waves to prevent it from beeing seen.
Our character gets a message from his father dated hundreds of years ago and goes to this world apparently on a UFO.
The world is dominated by the Priest Kings, who also control how much technology is around and only allow people to arm themselves medieval style while giving life extension serums around as well.
Pretty awesome.
But then the story pretty much alternates good and bad moments.
First the MC, who starts interesting becomes a massive Gary Stu with a huge plot armor. His arms training was interesting, but when you realize as the story progresses that those few weeks/months actually turned him into the best fighter this world has ever seen, in a society defined by slavery, honor and warfare, it's a massive suspension of disbelief.
He then tames probably the biggest tarn (an eagle apparently bigger than a dragon) in the world, without ever being mentored how to do and the process, but he does so pretty effortlessly, to also the shock of his arms mentor, a war veteran who's also a tarn rider his whole life.
His plot armor makes him escape and survive impossible deaths multiple times, making it even worse.
During a war he is even analyzing and making massively better siege strategies over grizzed war veteran, without ever having done it before or mentored on such things. His strategy makes the other cities involved go home happy, avoids the razing of the capital and all with minimal losses too.
All this and we didn't even get to the supposed BDSM for what the series is famous for.
And to be fair, it didn't have anything explicit in this volume. But somehow it made it worse.
The MC is so pure of heart and perfect that he frees his slaves and also refuses to enslave the spoiled daughter of the biggest warchief of the world, even when she, believe it or not, begs him to do so.
He's so good this royal spoiled princess actually likes the whole thing and legit wants to be given the leash.
During points of the story you see it was all a ploy but by the end it's insanely clear it's legit how she feels.
If the MC had become someone who actually relished enslaving people, I'd actually find it much more believable than any of this.
The MC is so good that the warchief of the world, who lost his empire because of the MC, one he worked his entire life to build, with actual good reasons, who then also wanders the world as an outlaw, sees everyone trying to destroy his work, sees his daughter apparently enslaved, all this because of the MC (he tries to kill the MC multiple times and fail because of the plot armor)...
But by the end this warchief is happy and begging the MC to give him strong grandsons.
He becomes so insanely influential, liked and powerful that the immortal alien overlords, capable of moving planets around the universe, manipulating light, cosmic radiation and gravity, they all send him back to Earth probably because this Conan dressed sword wielding that doesn't like slavery and caste system is now supposedly a massive threat to their power on Gor!
I wondered if this was all some sort of parody, a joke to the power fantasy of the time Norman was writing but I really had the impression the whole thing was supposedly to be taken pretty seriously.
Maybe the MC falls to the dark side and becomes the overlord enslaving everyone later and maybe that's why the series ends up famous but this first volume is just bad with the amount of Gary Stu power and plot armor involved.