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jgkeely 's review for:
Tarnsman of Gor
by John Norman
The first of the infamous S&M fantasy series of the world of Gor is a rather unremarkable adventure book. Taking cue from Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, Norman gives us an Earthling sent to survive on savage, alien world. However, instead of John Carter, a cowboy and Civil War vet right out of Wister's 'The Virginian', Norman's hero is a mild-mannered British professor.
His transformation from comical figure to unrivaled warrior is swift and inexplicable. Such a man might learn to become a soldier, to wield a sword, but that isn't good enough for Norman. His hero becomes literally the greatest soldier and swordsmen on his new, savage home.
However, Norman does not want us to question his plot or characters. He gives us a wild, melodramatic, unbelievable adventure without a hint of lightheartedness. Indeed, Norman seems to take every moment seriously, and with a swaggering machismo that dares us to laugh at it.
When Terb son of Terb (trained by Terb the viking to be a Terb-rider) defeats a dozen armed men with his arms literally tied behind his back, we are supposed to soberly marvel at his manliness. We are also meant to maintain this awe through a whole book-full of similarly unbelievable battles. This isn't to say that the fight scenes aren't fun, just that the author doesn't think they should be.
There is also the training of the giant death-birds that the protagonist learns to ride. The birds are vicious and prone to attacking and even eating their riders. To combat this, the riders use handheld tasers to discipline the birds. There are two problems with this.
Firstly, we can imagine that training these birds would be akin to training a large predator, that is, a predator large enough to consider us prey. We can train cats and dogs pretty easily, since they don't consider us to be 'on the menu', but training these birds would be more like training a tiger. This can be done, but its an imprecise science, as even after years of familiarity and training, even a hand-raised tiger can turn on its handler.
Beyond that, we don't train them by taser, since this would tend to provoke a fear reaction in the animal. This means the animal is either going to run or fight you. This brings us to the second problem: these are birds.
If you threaten a bird, it will just fly away from you and that's the end. Training falcons requires them to see you as the primary source of food, and this training is difficult to maintain. Even well-trained falcons will sometimes just fly off when released to hunt, and then you have to chase the thing down, isolate it, and net it. Now imagine that you're trying to chase and net an escaped tiger.
The training should have looked like a combination between how we train large predators like tigers and how we train animals which could easily evade us at any moment, like falcons or dolphins. Norman fails to do the work necessary to present animal training properly, but in this failure, we get an insight into his character.
The book, like many others of the genre, shows a very simplistic view of power dynamic. Animals, enemies, and women can only be dominated. He has no sense of politics, machination, friendship, or any other subtle form of human interaction. He treats all things with an iron fist, and it always works out. It is the inescapable fantasy of the powerless man: that if he were only mighty enough, he could punch anything into submission, be it pet, friend, rival, or romantic interest. Which brings us back to sex slavery:
The first book only lightly enters into the recurring theme of female sex slavery which comes to define the series. That every woman in the book is a slave at one point or another, and is helplessly in need of a man despite her strong will comes only as a minor annoyance in this book rather than the overpowering obsession parodied in the classic Houseplants of Gor.
The insecurities of the author become all-too-blatant as one reads on. Firstly, Norman requires the fantastical escapism of a hero who is a simple, bookish man (with mommy issues) who becomes an unstoppable killing force (and lover) beholden to no man or god. Beyond this, he also feels a need to conduct himself with a no-nonsense, manly rationalism worthy of Hemingway. Either one alone might be workable, but the schizophrenic conflict between realism and hyperbole becomes a constant strain on the book's tone.
The plot is also so circular and serendipitous that it's painful. Constant coincidence moves things along at a clip, with little draughtsmanship to redeem it. Like a Victorian Romance, every character returns at the climax, everyone ends up married and happy, and all the bad guys get defeated. Everything is neatly accounted for in an avalanche of detailed explanations, so much so that the ever-piling climax had me laughing aloud with each new addition.
It is not only his plots but his romanticism which resembles Victorian dime novels: his hero is an ideal in honesty, love, and purity, as well as swordsmanship and will. Not only will his somber superman enact a master-slave relationship with his chosen mate, but that relationship will be a pure and courtly love, undying and perfect. Tarb (Tarb-riding son of Tarb) frees every enslaved woman he finds only to make conspicuous that he the then enslaves them utterly with the purity of his heart's love.
It's not enough to enslave a woman, or even to do so against her histrionic strong will, she must also be enslaved by her own desires and emotions, since the chain will never be strong enough. Of course, it shouldn't surprise us that Norman sees love as slavery, because only complete emotional control of a woman can overcome his personal insecurities.
Of course, in that, Norman follows the unbalanced ideals of many marriages and relationships: one need not live on far-off Gor to think that romance may be secured by the simple application of a jeweled band of gold. Nor is this unbalanced sexual dynamic uncommon in the fantasy genre.
The writing isn't bad, and can even be evocative and exciting when not stuck in repetitive digressions on the world and Norman's philosophies (As amusingly parodied here). Sad to say, Norman's prose often shows more talent than most modern fantasy authors, even as his insecurities grow increasingly awkward.
It's like a guy who acts big and tough, except once you were hanging out and he tore his pants on a fence and you saw that he has a tattoo of a cartoon poodle on his thigh. If he showed it off and proudly admitted liking cartoon poodles, that would be one thing, but he's never mentioned it, and he always wears long pants, and you just remembered when he declined to go skinny dipping and just stood on the beach skipping rocks.
But now you've seen it, and you can't unsee it. Did he notice you looking? It doesn't matter, because you'll never buy the macho-man routine again, if you ever really did. The illusion is broken.
Don't Miss Terb 2: Terb vs. the Blood Lesbians!
My Fantasy Book Suggestions
His transformation from comical figure to unrivaled warrior is swift and inexplicable. Such a man might learn to become a soldier, to wield a sword, but that isn't good enough for Norman. His hero becomes literally the greatest soldier and swordsmen on his new, savage home.
However, Norman does not want us to question his plot or characters. He gives us a wild, melodramatic, unbelievable adventure without a hint of lightheartedness. Indeed, Norman seems to take every moment seriously, and with a swaggering machismo that dares us to laugh at it.
When Terb son of Terb (trained by Terb the viking to be a Terb-rider) defeats a dozen armed men with his arms literally tied behind his back, we are supposed to soberly marvel at his manliness. We are also meant to maintain this awe through a whole book-full of similarly unbelievable battles. This isn't to say that the fight scenes aren't fun, just that the author doesn't think they should be.
There is also the training of the giant death-birds that the protagonist learns to ride. The birds are vicious and prone to attacking and even eating their riders. To combat this, the riders use handheld tasers to discipline the birds. There are two problems with this.
Firstly, we can imagine that training these birds would be akin to training a large predator, that is, a predator large enough to consider us prey. We can train cats and dogs pretty easily, since they don't consider us to be 'on the menu', but training these birds would be more like training a tiger. This can be done, but its an imprecise science, as even after years of familiarity and training, even a hand-raised tiger can turn on its handler.
Beyond that, we don't train them by taser, since this would tend to provoke a fear reaction in the animal. This means the animal is either going to run or fight you. This brings us to the second problem: these are birds.
If you threaten a bird, it will just fly away from you and that's the end. Training falcons requires them to see you as the primary source of food, and this training is difficult to maintain. Even well-trained falcons will sometimes just fly off when released to hunt, and then you have to chase the thing down, isolate it, and net it. Now imagine that you're trying to chase and net an escaped tiger.
The training should have looked like a combination between how we train large predators like tigers and how we train animals which could easily evade us at any moment, like falcons or dolphins. Norman fails to do the work necessary to present animal training properly, but in this failure, we get an insight into his character.
The book, like many others of the genre, shows a very simplistic view of power dynamic. Animals, enemies, and women can only be dominated. He has no sense of politics, machination, friendship, or any other subtle form of human interaction. He treats all things with an iron fist, and it always works out. It is the inescapable fantasy of the powerless man: that if he were only mighty enough, he could punch anything into submission, be it pet, friend, rival, or romantic interest. Which brings us back to sex slavery:
The first book only lightly enters into the recurring theme of female sex slavery which comes to define the series. That every woman in the book is a slave at one point or another, and is helplessly in need of a man despite her strong will comes only as a minor annoyance in this book rather than the overpowering obsession parodied in the classic Houseplants of Gor.
The insecurities of the author become all-too-blatant as one reads on. Firstly, Norman requires the fantastical escapism of a hero who is a simple, bookish man (with mommy issues) who becomes an unstoppable killing force (and lover) beholden to no man or god. Beyond this, he also feels a need to conduct himself with a no-nonsense, manly rationalism worthy of Hemingway. Either one alone might be workable, but the schizophrenic conflict between realism and hyperbole becomes a constant strain on the book's tone.
The plot is also so circular and serendipitous that it's painful. Constant coincidence moves things along at a clip, with little draughtsmanship to redeem it. Like a Victorian Romance, every character returns at the climax, everyone ends up married and happy, and all the bad guys get defeated. Everything is neatly accounted for in an avalanche of detailed explanations, so much so that the ever-piling climax had me laughing aloud with each new addition.
It is not only his plots but his romanticism which resembles Victorian dime novels: his hero is an ideal in honesty, love, and purity, as well as swordsmanship and will. Not only will his somber superman enact a master-slave relationship with his chosen mate, but that relationship will be a pure and courtly love, undying and perfect. Tarb (Tarb-riding son of Tarb) frees every enslaved woman he finds only to make conspicuous that he the then enslaves them utterly with the purity of his heart's love.
It's not enough to enslave a woman, or even to do so against her histrionic strong will, she must also be enslaved by her own desires and emotions, since the chain will never be strong enough. Of course, it shouldn't surprise us that Norman sees love as slavery, because only complete emotional control of a woman can overcome his personal insecurities.
Of course, in that, Norman follows the unbalanced ideals of many marriages and relationships: one need not live on far-off Gor to think that romance may be secured by the simple application of a jeweled band of gold. Nor is this unbalanced sexual dynamic uncommon in the fantasy genre.
The writing isn't bad, and can even be evocative and exciting when not stuck in repetitive digressions on the world and Norman's philosophies (As amusingly parodied here). Sad to say, Norman's prose often shows more talent than most modern fantasy authors, even as his insecurities grow increasingly awkward.
It's like a guy who acts big and tough, except once you were hanging out and he tore his pants on a fence and you saw that he has a tattoo of a cartoon poodle on his thigh. If he showed it off and proudly admitted liking cartoon poodles, that would be one thing, but he's never mentioned it, and he always wears long pants, and you just remembered when he declined to go skinny dipping and just stood on the beach skipping rocks.
But now you've seen it, and you can't unsee it. Did he notice you looking? It doesn't matter, because you'll never buy the macho-man routine again, if you ever really did. The illusion is broken.
Don't Miss Terb 2: Terb vs. the Blood Lesbians!
My Fantasy Book Suggestions