Re: John Norman's "Gor" Novels-- Worth Reading?
Sea Wasp
> X-No-Archive: Yes
>
> Hi All:
>
> I recently bought a whole bunch of '50s and '60s paperbacks at a
> garage sale, including some "Gor" novels by John Norman.
According to everything I've heard, the first X Gor novels -- where
"X" varies between 3 and 5 -- are reasonably serviceable Sword and
Sorcery novels. After that point, they descend farther and farther
into bondage and slavery softcore porn, this being Norman's obsession.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Dave Simchak <daves...@mailinator.com> wrote:
>
>
>X-No-Archive: Yes
>
>Hi All:
>
>I recently bought a whole bunch of '50s and '60s paperbacks at a
>kind of cool, and similar to the Edgar Rice Burroughs and other such
>novels with which they were intermingled when I bought them. I was
>wondering if they are worth reading-- I like the "lost in space" type
>old pulp sci-fi, and I certainly couldn't beat the price.
>
>As an aside, if anyone can recommend some good, pulp, Edgar Rice
>Burroughs-type pulp authors, I'd much appreciate it.
>
>Dave
The first couple are reasonable Burrough's imitations, but after that they
go off into lots of B&D porn and bogus science on how women are naturally
inferior and need to be dominated by strong men. It's a real shame and
I can't think of another series which took such a drastic (and bad) turn.
In my opinion, your best bet, and my favorite, for a neo-Burroughs series
is the "Dray Prescot" saga by "Alan Burt Akers" (a pseudonym for Ken Bulmer).
These are all out of print, but should be easy to find on amazon or one of
the other used book sites.
Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Gene Ward Smith
@bignews2.bellsouth.net:
> The first couple are reasonable Burrough's imitations, but after that they
> go off into lots of B&D porn and bogus science on how women are naturally
> inferior and need to be dominated by strong men. It's a real shame and
> I can't think of another series which took such a drastic (and bad) turn.
>
> In my opinion, your best bet, and my favorite, for a neo-Burroughs series
> is the "Dray Prescot" saga by "Alan Burt Akers" (a pseudonym for Ken
Bulmer).
> These are all out of print, but should be easy to find on amazon or one of
> the other used book sites.
>
I concur--try Dray and forget Gor. Even the first book was crap IMHO.
Dan Goodman
> X-No-Archive: Yes
>
> Hi All:
>
> I recently bought a whole bunch of '50s and '60s paperbacks at a
> garage sale, including some "Gor" novels by John Norman. They look
> kind of cool, and similar to the Edgar Rice Burroughs and other such
> novels with which they were intermingled when I bought them. I was
> wondering if they are worth reading-- I like the "lost in space" type
> old pulp sci-fi, and I certainly couldn't beat the price.
In my experience, there's only one way to tell if a novel is worth
reading: Open it at random, and read a bit of it.
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://dangoodman.livejournal.com
mirror 1: http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
mirror 2: http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Default User
> Dave Simchak wrote:
>
> > X-No-Archive: Yes
> >
> > Hi All:
> >
> > I recently bought a whole bunch of '50s and '60s paperbacks at a
> > garage sale, including some "Gor" novels by John Norman. They look
> > kind of cool, and similar to the Edgar Rice Burroughs and other such
> > novels with which they were intermingled when I bought them. I was
> > wondering if they are worth reading-- I like the "lost in space"
> > type old pulp sci-fi, and I certainly couldn't beat the price.
>
> In my experience, there's only one way to tell if a novel is worth
> reading: Open it at random, and read a bit of it.
Yeah, if he's already bought the books, starting reading the earliest
one, stop when they fail to entertain. Whether that's the first line or
the deeper in (or never) will be a personal choice.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
BP
<daves...@mailinator.com> wrote:
>X-No-Archive: Yes
>
>Hi All:
>
>I recently bought a whole bunch of '50s and '60s paperbacks at a
>garage sale, including some "Gor" novels by John Norman. They look
>kind of cool, and similar to the Edgar Rice Burroughs and other such
>novels with which they were intermingled when I bought them. I was
>wondering if they are worth reading
Caveat: I read the first 6 or 7 books in the series almost 30 years
ago, and haven't read any of the more recent ones. Based on that, I'd
say the first 4 or 5 books were OK, but then "Anita Blake syndrome"
hit and the stories got pushed aside by weird BDSM stuff about how
women were meant to be sex slaves of men (hmm, since those stories
actually predate Anita Blake, maybe I should say rather that Anita's
series fell to Gor Syndrome?).
However, even the later ones had cool cover illustrations - either
Vallejo or some imitator.
> I like the "lost in space" type
>old pulp sci-fi, and I certainly couldn't beat the price.
Hmm. I'm not seeing any significant points in common among "Lost in
Space", "old pulp sci-fi", and the Gor books, so I'm not really
getting what you mean here...
BP
loua...@yahoo.com
> > I like the "lost in space" type
> >old pulp sci-fi, and I certainly couldn't beat the price.
>
> Hmm. I'm not seeing any significant points in common among "Lost in
> Space", "old pulp sci-fi", and the Gor books, so I'm not really
> getting what you mean here...
Note lower case. I think he's referring to the fact that whatsisname
from Earth, the hero of the Gor books, starts his adventures by
becoming lost. In space.
Moriarty
wrote:
> Dave Simchak wrote:
> > X-No-Archive: Yes
>
> > Hi All:
>
> > I recently bought a whole bunch of '50s and '60s paperbacks at a
> > garage sale, including some "Gor" novels by John Norman.
>
> According to everything I've heard, the first X Gor novels -- where
> "X" varies between 3 and 5 -- are reasonably serviceable Sword and
> Sorcery novels. After that point, they descend farther and farther
> into bondage and slavery softcore porn, this being Norman's obsession.
What he said, except there's no sorcery involved, just lotsa swords.
In my case X=5. Gor is one of those series where the formula is "keep
reading until your enjoyment stops then put them down and never read
another one because they *won't* get better".
Unless you happen to like badly written B&D pseudo-porn, in which case
by all means keep reading.
-Moriarty
Kurt Busiek
Tarl Cabot?
Does he have an Earth name or something -- Tarleton, maybe? -- or is
his name just "Tarl"?
kdb
Splicer
of the 13th book. The philosophizing to plot ratio was completely tipped
towards the former by this point and I think Norman had become a too
absorbed in the philosophy he had created for Gorean society. I'd
reiterate that the first three or four are decent S&S/adventure stories -
anything after this becomes increasingly unreadable.
As to Norman's philosophy: If you're into BDSM, you might get something
out of them that would titilate you but even those moments are few and far
between. The misogyny of the books has been noted but, to be honest, I
don't really care much if fictional characters are mistreated. I think you
get a disturbing window into Mr. Norman's bitterness regarding, perhaps,
some women in his life. Some of the books contain women who seem like
thinly veiled people from Norman's real life who have been transferred to
his world for their comeuppance. I find these things rather distasteful
but in the end it's no skin off my nose.
As adventure it's ok for a while - as BDSM lit, it could be better.
Gene Ward Smith
> As to Norman's philosophy: If you're into BDSM, you might get something
> out of them that would titilate you but even those moments are few and far
> between.
There's titilation in "The Cognitivity Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the
Claims of Philosophy"? Who would have thunk.
Splicer
> There's titilation in "The Cognitivity Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning
> the Claims of Philosophy"? Who would have thunk.
>
Stop, you're making me hot.
Mike Schilling
> There's titilation in "The Cognitivity Paradox: An Inquiry
> Concerning
> the Claims of Philosophy"? Who would have thunk.
Retitle it _Neo-Empiricists of Gor_, stick a half-naked woman on the
cover, and you'd have something hot.
Alexey Romanov
AFAIR, his name is Tarl -- a common Gorean name -- because his father was
from Gor (I have no idea what he was doing on Earth.)
--
Alexey Romanov
Howard Brazee
Splicer <nom...@nomail.com> wrote:
> I read the first 12 before I bounced away in the first couple of chapters
> of the 13th book. The philosophizing to plot ratio was completely tipped
> towards the former by this point and I think Norman had become a too
> absorbed in the philosophy he had created for Gorean society. I'd
> reiterate that the first three or four are decent S&S/adventure stories -
> anything after this becomes increasingly unreadable.
I got 9 books before the same thing happened. I bet the first few
books aren't as valuable to their current market, but I wasted too much
time before I gave up.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
At first, I thought it was kind of an interesting twist. Cabot got
enslaved by a woman, and that experience twisted him so that by the
time he escaped, he had completely bought into the main prevailing Gorean
man/woman staus quo. I expected that to last for a while, and for him
to then have some other life twist that brought him back onto a better
track. It never haappened..
Mike Schilling
Actually, his name was simply "Carl Talbot", but he suffered from
extreme dyslexia.
Quadibloc
> Dave Simchak wrote:
> > I recently bought a whole bunch of '50s and '60s paperbacks at a
> > garage sale, including some "Gor" novels by John Norman.
>
> According to everything I've heard, the first X Gor novels -- where
> "X" varies between 3 and 5 -- are reasonably serviceable Sword and
> Sorcery novels. After that point, they descend farther and farther
> into bondage and slavery softcore porn, this being Norman's obsession.
Given the *name* of the original poster, I'm wondering if this is the
_nom de plume_ of a troll. One illuminated by the Male Light.
The first half of the first one Gor novel was definitely readable
science-fiction - the set-up of the plot. Since the third novel
promised a meeting with the enigmatic priest-kings of Gor, I waded
through the series up to that point, but it was unappetizing within
the first three books.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> > Note lower case. I think he's referring to the fact that whatsisname
> > from Earth, the hero of the Gor books, starts his adventures by
> > becoming lost. In space.
>
> Tarl Cabot?
>
> Does he have an Earth name or something -- Tarleton, maybe? -- or is
> his name just "Tarl"?
I always wondered if the author had a friend whose name was Carl
Talbot.
John Savard
Quadibloc
> Splicer <nom...@nomail.com> wrote innews:Xns9A6262C5...@127.0.0.1:
> > As to Norman's philosophy: If you're into BDSM, you might get something
> > out of them that would titilate you but even those moments are few and far
> > between.
> There's titilation in "The Cognitivity Paradox: An Inquiry Concerning the
> Claims of Philosophy"? Who would have thunk.
I think the reference is to the philosophy expressed in his novels,
not his separate professional work at his day job. :)
But this reminds me of a MAD magazine satire which shows an unethical
publisher advertising a textbook on economics with the blurb: "What
strange new law did Gresham make women submit to?"
John Savard
Gene Ward Smith
9db1dd...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com:
> "What
> strange new law did Gresham make women submit to?"
>
What grim new law lay behind the fairy's tale?
Christopher Henrich
<a7e10d84-9400-48f7...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
LOL. I had no idea MAD magazine got anywhere near that level of
intelligence.
--
Christopher J. Henrich
chen...@monmouth.com
htp://www.mathinteract.com
William December Starr
Alexey Romanov <alex...@mail.ru> said:
> AFAIR, his name is Tarl -- a common Gorean name -- because his
> father was from Gor (I have no idea what he was doing on Earth.)
Teaching English Lit at a small New England college, iirc.
--
William December Starr <wds...@panix.com>
William December Starr
Splicer <nom...@nomail.com> said:
> I read the first 12 before I bounced away in the first couple of
> chapters of the 13th book. The philosophizing to plot ratio was
> completely tipped towards the former by this point and I think
> Norman had become a too absorbed in the philosophy he had created
> for Gorean society. I'd reiterate that the first three or four
> are decent S&S/adventure stories - anything after this becomes
> increasingly unreadable.
For me, N equaled 5.
Which doesn't change the fact that I started the series at no. 7 and
yet stuck with it. My only excuse is that I was at *exactly* the
right intersection of sexual alignment (hetero) and hormonal levels
(raging) when I hit them.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
Ah, so you aren't familiar with it at all?
--
My webpage is at http://www.watt-evans.com
The seventh issue of Helix is now at http://www.helixsf.com
Mike Schilling
>> LOL. I had no idea MAD magazine got anywhere near that level of
>> intelligence.
>
> Ah, so you aren't familiar with it at all?
MAD, for instance, came up with this, which I am reminded of almost
every day:
"A superpatriot is someone who loves his country while hating 97% of
the people in it."
Rebecca Rice
> In article <19nab0rikc2zt$.1matd4jk...@40tude.net>,
> Alexey Romanov <alex...@mail.ru> said:
>
>> AFAIR, his name is Tarl -- a common Gorean name -- because his
>> father was from Gor (I have no idea what he was doing on Earth.)
>
> Teaching English Lit at a small New England college, iirc.
>
uppity Earth women? One has to wonder about Tarl's mom, and
how that relationship worked.
Rebecca
erilar
Christopher Henrich <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
I haven't read one lately, but back when I did, it was pretty
intelligent satire at times.
(I have a couple ancient MAD comic books in the attic; I don't think it
called itself a "magazine" in the early days.)
--
Mary Loomer Oliver (aka Erilar)
You can't reason with someone whose first line of argument is
that reason doesn't count. --Isaac Asimov
Erilar's Cave Annex: http://www.chibardun.net/~erilarlo
Brion K. Lienhart
> In article <chenrich-03C9C6...@news.verizon.net>,
> Christopher Henrich <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>
>> In article
>> <a7e10d84-9400-48f7...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>>> But this reminds me of a MAD magazine satire which shows an unethical
>>> publisher advertising a textbook on economics with the blurb: "What
>>> strange new law did Gresham make women submit to?"
>>>
>> LOL. I had no idea MAD magazine got anywhere near that level of
>> intelligence.
>
> I haven't read one lately, but back when I did, it was pretty
> intelligent satire at times.
>
> (I have a couple ancient MAD comic books in the attic; I don't think it
> called itself a "magazine" in the early days.)
>
When did the Comics Code Authority get established? AFAIK, that's when
they changed from a comic to a magazine. It used to have intelligent
satire. I still pick it up in the supermarket and look through. These
days it's 95% boogers & fart jokes.
Brion K. Lienhart
Well, for a horny teenager in the mid 70's (before internet pr0n) they
were pretty "interesting". I still gave up after book 6-8 or somewhere
in there.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<dra...@chibardun.net.invalid> wrote:
>In article <chenrich-03C9C6...@news.verizon.net>,
> Christopher Henrich <chen...@monmouth.com> wrote:
>
>> In article
>> <a7e10d84-9400-48f7...@d21g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
>> Quadibloc <jsa...@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>
>> > But this reminds me of a MAD magazine satire which shows an unethical
>> > publisher advertising a textbook on economics with the blurb: "What
>> > strange new law did Gresham make women submit to?"
>> >
>> LOL. I had no idea MAD magazine got anywhere near that level of
>> intelligence.
>
>I haven't read one lately, but back when I did, it was pretty
>intelligent satire at times.
>
>(I have a couple ancient MAD comic books in the attic; I don't think it
>called itself a "magazine" in the early days.)
It changed format from comic book to magazine between #23 and #24.
Lawrence Watt-Evans
<bri...@lienhart.name> wrote:
>When did the Comics Code Authority get established?
October 1954.
William December Starr
Rebecca Rice <philos...@sbcglobal.net> said:
> Did the books ever explore Tarl's dad's interaction with uppity
> Earth women? One has to wonder about Tarl's mom, and how that
> relationship worked.
If I recall correctly (always possible, I suppose), near the start
of the first book we got a bit of a "background briefing" from Tarl
(the first six books were all first-person narrated by him[*1])
about his life prior to being taken (back?) from Earth to Gor, and
it didn't say anything about his pre-Gor social or sex life, or
about his mother. It *may* be that he believed himself to be an
orphan until he was re-united with his father on Gor. And I don't
think that the subject of Mom came up when he was talking with Daddy.
*1: The conceit, at least in the early books, was that he was
writing about his adventures and giving the manuscripts to
members of Gor's Scribes Guild, who treasured and fervently
protected all instances of the written word even if they were
in languages that they couldn't read (i.e., English), and that
the pages then somehow -- presumably through the subtle
manipulations of the same forces that moved him around from
planet to another -- found their way to an acquaintance of
Cabot's back at that small college where he used to teach.
Martha Adams
"William December Starr" <wds...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:fri9nf$ese$1...@panix3.panix.com...
I've tried two or three times to read one of Norman's
Gor books; but I never could do it. I don't like
them.
I've met Norman at a few Cons in the New England area,
but not recently. And his wife. Not a trace recently.
Does anyone know where they are now?
Titeotwawki -- mha [rasfw 2008 Mar 16]
Joseph Nebus
>erilar wrote:
>> I haven't read one lately, but back when I did, it was pretty
>> intelligent satire at times.
>>
>> (I have a couple ancient MAD comic books in the attic; I don't think it
>> called itself a "magazine" in the early days.)
>When did the Comics Code Authority get established? AFAIK, that's when
>they changed from a comic to a magazine.
It turns out that may simply be luckky coincidence, if the
Comics Should Be Good urban-legends page has done its homework right:
http://goodcomics.comicbookresources.com/2006/04/06/comic-book-urban-legends-revealed-45/
The change, in short, was William Gaines trying to keep hold of
Harvey Kurtzman by letting him become a magazine editor, for Mad, instead
of jumping to a staff position at Pageant Magazine. That it kept Mad out
of the Comics Code universe was a happy side effect.
--
Joseph Nebus
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Splicer
> I've met Norman at a few Cons in the New England area,
> but not recently. And his wife. Not a trace recently.
> Does anyone know where they are now?
>
The last time I saw him was at a con at Stony Brook University on Long
Island but that was at least five years ago. He was his old self -- bitter
about what he perceived happened to his writing career.
I always thought his ego got in the way of whatever career he might have
been able to salvage writing about Gor and BDSM and associated
philosophies. He fancied himself a mainstream SF writer and seemed to
demand respect from his fellow writers and shelf space next to Larry
Niven. The reality was that his writing skills were fair and he was badly
in need of an iron heeled editor but perhaps would have carved a niche
with a publisher like Ellora's Cave. Some of the work there, loaned to me
by a friend, is so poor that it makes Norman (and many one shot Star Trek
novelists) seem like Pulitzer Prize winners. I think he could have had a
career had he been able to keep the stories to a basic pulpy plot
(including dominance/submission scenes) and peddled them where they might
be received more openly.
Kay Shapero
@s37g2000prg.googlegroups.com>, jsa...@ecn.ab.ca says...
Same here. Liked the Priest Kings, but the humans failed the Turing
Test.
--
Kay Shapero
http://www.kayshapero.net
Address munged - to email use kay at the domain of my website, above.
cliff wright
I read a couple of John Norman's "Gor" counterearth novels many years
ago. Probably at least 20 but haven't come across any lately.
Not that that worries me at all. The amazing thing this thread produced
was that the author was married!!!
From his novels I'd gained the idea that he must be absolutely
frightened of women. Why else would he think up such a weird society
?
Alternatively I suppose he might just be a VERY reactionary Muslim.
Recently I came across a VERY strange bloke on a UK TV show who claimed
to be a follower of Norman's ideas. The odd thing was he managed to find
several submissive women to live with him.
However with my Scandinavian and Celtic background I have never enjoyed
the company or even the idea of submissive women.
Cliff Wright.
Gene
> From his novels I'd gained the idea that he must be absolutely
> frightened of women. Why else would he think up such a weird society
> ?
Because he was kinky. Duh.
Dorothy J Heydt
He was, IIRC, a professor of English at some Eastern college or
the other.
OK, Wikipedia (#include grain of salt) says his name is John
Frederick Lange Jr. and he's a professor of philosophy ...
currently at Queens College, SUNY ...
"His rise may in part be attributed to the willingness of
rebellious or disaffected Americans during this period to
consider his social alternatives; alternatively, it may be that
his works were available in venues where overt male-dominant
sado-masochistic pornography was not."
"The extent to which Norman intended this philosophy to be taken
literally, rather than as a vehicle of sexual fantasy, is
debatable."
Dorothy J. Heydt
Vallejo, California
djh...@kithrup.com
Martha Adams
news:K8E6G...@kithrup.com...
I've met John Norman, and his wife, at sf cons in the
northeast a few years ago, but not recently. Maybe
he no longer goes to cons.
I have on at least two occasions purchased one of his
Gor books (used) since I think that if I'm interested
in sf my reading should include something by Norman.
Just so when people talk about them, I'd know what
they were speaking of.
But with the best intent, I could not even get very far
into the book, and while I have a way of hanging on to
things, I don't know where they are now.
Titeotwawki -- mha [rasfw 2008 Oct 07]
J. Clarke
None of this is incompatible with being kinky. Most people who are
don't talk about it much outside of the alternative lifestyle
community.
--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
John Savard
wrote, in part:
>Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>> "The extent to which Norman intended this philosophy to be taken
>> literally, rather than as a vehicle of sexual fantasy, is
>> debatable."
>
>None of this is incompatible with being kinky. Most people who are
>don't talk about it much outside of the alternative lifestyle
>community.
True enough, but the story is that he tried to write a book as badly as
he could... and then got stuck writing more, because it was so
successful.
John Savard
http://www.quadibloc.com/index.html
Dorothy J Heydt
What I've been told, from various sources, is that when he first
started writing Gor books, young males, dizzy with testosterone
overdose, wanted to read porn but couldn't get any except in the
kinds of stores they wouldn't be allowed into because of their
age ... except they could go to the bookstore and buy Gor books,
which were the next closest thing. Naturally, they gobbled them
up. Time passed, genuine hard-core porn became more readily
available, and the young males went for that instead and ignored
Gor; DAW stopped publishing it, and Norman muttered "censorship".
So I've been told.
David Johnston
I've read his "Imaginative Sex" when I was much younger and that
wasn't fiction. I'm confident that story is false. His kinks and his
dislike of 70s womens lib seem entirely sincere.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
Except when he started writing Gor books, they weren't borderline
porn. And when they became that, they weren't "normal" porn.
And for that matter, mainstream bookstores were full of things
like _The Happy Hooker_ & _Coffee, Tea or Me_.
Ted
Ted
--
------
columbiaclosings.com
What's not in Columbia anymore..
Jacey Bedford
<tednolan>" <t...@loft.tnolan.com> writes
I read some Gor when I was too young to understand what it was all about
except that it was slightly squicky. (Sheltered life in a girls' high
school - what can I say?)
In the 60s and 70s the covers of most SF books made them look like soft
porn even if they weren't. The early John Norman books looked no worse
than Marion Zimmer Bradley etc. until you took them home and read more.
I actually got the first one because a work colleague was heading to the
local bookshop one lunchtime and I asked him to bring me back an Andre
Norton (Witch World) novel and he got it wrong and brought me a John
Norman! Well, what can I say? The covers for both had large-breasted
scantily-clad women.
In those days covers were either a space ship or a woman with few
clothes - sometimes when neither appeared in the actual story. Thank
goodness covers these days are a little better and I don't feel I have
to back them with brown paper before reading them in public.
Jacey
--
Jacey Bedford
jacey at artisan hyphen harmony dot com
posting via usenet and not googlegroups, ourdebate
or any other forum that reprints usenet posts as
though they were the forum's own
Dorothy J Heydt
Jacey Bedford <look...@nospam.invalid> wrote:
>
>In the 60s and 70s the covers of most SF books made them look like soft
>porn even if they weren't. The early John Norman books looked no worse
>than Marion Zimmer Bradley etc. until you took them home and read more.
>
>clothes -
Yup. Six zillion Burroughs covers, e.g.
sometimes when neither appeared in the actual story.
Adrienne Martine-Barnes, _The Fire Sword,_ for an excellent
example. The heroine sometimes goes about in long early-medieval
gowns, sometimes in nothing, sometimes in nothing but a flame-
and other disaster-proof starry cloak. But she NEVER wears a
muslin bikini, which is how she's depicted on the cover.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
My mother made a point of reading John Brunner's _Into the Slave Nebula_
when I brought it home, due entirely to the Freas cover:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/425691501_2dbc40c065.jpg?v=0
Luckily for me, this turned out to be a case where the cover was not
predictive, and she was satisfied that I wasn't reading "adult" books.
Damien Sullivan
>Adrienne Martine-Barnes, _The Fire Sword,_ for an excellent
>example. The heroine sometimes goes about in long early-medieval
>gowns, sometimes in nothing, sometimes in nothing but a flame-
>and other disaster-proof starry cloak. But she NEVER wears a
>muslin bikini, which is how she's depicted on the cover.
And of course the evolution fo Cherry's Morgaine on her covers, from
loincloth to the full plate she probably wore through the story.
-xx- Damien X-)
Dorothy J Heydt
Ted Nolan <tednolan> <tednolan> wrote:
>
>My mother made a point of reading John Brunner's _Into the Slave Nebula_
>when I brought it home, due entirely to the Freas cover:
>
> http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/425691501_2dbc40c065.jpg?v=0
>
>Luckily for me, this turned out to be a case where the cover was not
>predictive, and she was satisfied that I wasn't reading "adult" books.
Heh. *My* mother confiscated Leiber's _The Green Millennium_
with the intention that I should not read it. This was the
cover:
but I don't think she objected so much to the cover art as to the
cover blurbs. IIRC the back cover began, "Sex among the Stars..."
I was, let's see, a freshman in high school, so thirteen. It
would be hard to envision a person LESS interested in sex than I
(including many eunuchs), but I resented being told I couldn't
read something. So I found the book (she'd hidden it under her
underwear) and took it off to school, where it lived in my locker
for the better part of a year.
And there really wasn't any sex in it, just some loose talk.
Ted Nolan <tednolan>
David Cowie
>
> Adrienne Martine-Barnes, _The Fire Sword,_ for an excellent
> example. The heroine sometimes goes about in long early-medieval
> gowns, sometimes in nothing, sometimes in nothing but a flame-
> and other disaster-proof starry cloak. But she NEVER wears a
> muslin bikini, which is how she's depicted on the cover.
>
Is this the edition you're talking about?
http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n1/n7771.jpg
Dorothy J Heydt
Yes. The phrase "muslin bikini", by the way, was Adrienne's
comment.
John
"Jacey Bedford" <look...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
news:HgeAEFrU...@parkhead.demon.co.uk...
> In message <%%WGk.43530$XT1....@bignews5.bellsouth.net>, "Ted Nolan
> <tednolan>" <t...@loft.tnolan.com> writes
>>In article <K8EK6...@kithrup.com>,
>>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
>>>
>
> In those days covers were either a space ship or a woman with few
> clothes - sometimes when neither appeared in the actual story. Thank
> goodness covers these days are a little better and I don't feel I have to
> back them with brown paper before reading them in public.
>
Or a woman on a spaceship with few clothes. Why were there so few clothes on
spaceships?
Kurt Busiek
Spaceships were kept really, really warm, so they wouldn't have to
carry all that extra mass in clothing.
Women tend to have lots of clothes, and the Space Administration was
kindly and avuncular, so they allocated women the same amount of
clothing mass in grams as men, just shared out over differently-styled
skimpy garments.
kdb
Dan Goodman
It's a long way to the laundromat.
--
--
Dan Goodman
"I have always depended on the kindness of stranglers."
Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Expire
Journal http://dsgood.livejournal.com
Futures http://clerkfuturist.wordpress.com
Mirror Journal http://dsgood.insanejournal.com
Mirror 2 http://dsgood.wordpress.com
Links http://del.icio.us/dsgood
Dorothy J Heydt
John <jo...@junk.com> wrote:
>
>"Jacey Bedford" <look...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
>news:HgeAEFrU...@parkhead.demon.co.uk...
>> In those days covers were either a space ship or a woman with few
>> clothes - sometimes when neither appeared in the actual story. Thank
>> goodness covers these days are a little better and I don't feel I have to
>> back them with brown paper before reading them in public.
>
>Or a woman on a spaceship with few clothes. Why were there so few clothes on
>spaceships?
>
There's an exchange in Fredric Brown's _What Mad Universe_ in
which our hero, an editor, has been transported into a universe
modeled after the pulps. He is interviewing a spacewoman, who is
of course dressed in the standard uniform: a bikini. He asks,
"Why do you dress like that? Is it hot in space?" She: "I don't
understand. Of course it isn't hot in space. Mostly we wear
heated plastic spacesuits." "Transparent plastic?" "Yes, of
course. Why do you ask?"
Brenda Clough
Norman is on record as saying that he is absolutely sincere about the
philosophy espoused in the GOR books, and that he wrote them in all
seriousness. His wife (an elderly and respectable lady with white hair
and a cardigan) sat proudly in the audience. She did not look like a
rape victim.
Whether all this was simply a publicity ploy to shill more books is an
open question.
Brenda
John F. Eldredge
That cover came closer to the actual story than the edition I owned,
which had a naked woman riding on a green-striped tiger, fighting sword-
bearing orcs. No such scene appeared anywhere in the book, and it was
science fiction, not fantasy.
--
John F. Eldredge -- jo...@jfeldredge.com
PGP key available from http://pgp.mit.edu
"Reserve your right to think, for even to think wrongly is better
than not to think at all." -- Hypatia of Alexandria
John
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:K8G1n...@kithrup.com...
And you try post these ideas on the NASA website's forum and they get all
kinds of huffy about it.
John
"Kurt Busiek" <ku...@busiek.comics> wrote in message
news:2008100815294350878-kurt@busiekcomics...
Your ideas intrigue me etc.
A Victorian-era steampunk spaceship should properly be discreetely shrouded
in a burka-like curtain, to avoid inflaming the passions, what with all that
lascivious streamlining.
Dorothy J Heydt
Why, no, *Victorians* do not wear burqas. Victorian ladies
occasionally wore a burnoose, around 1890, but they wore a proper
long-skirted gown under it, and a corset and many petticoats and
(for some periods) hoopes, and a camisole and knickers and all
sorts of underwear under that. I don't know how you'd put all
that on a starship.
John
"Dorothy J Heydt" <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote in message
news:K8GHq...@kithrup.com...
> In article <gcjubg$4fk$1...@news-01.bur.connect.com.au>,
snip
>>>
>>> Spaceships were kept really, really warm, so they wouldn't have to carry
>>> all that extra mass in clothing.
>>>
>>> Women tend to have lots of clothes, and the Space Administration was
>>> kindly and avuncular, so they allocated women the same amount of
>>> clothing
>>> mass in grams as men, just shared out over differently-styled skimpy
>>> garments.
>>>
>>
>>Your ideas intrigue me etc.
>>
>>A Victorian-era steampunk spaceship should properly be discreetely
>>shrouded
>>in a burka-like curtain, to avoid inflaming the passions, what with all
>>that
>>lascivious streamlining.
>
> Why, no, *Victorians* do not wear burqas. Victorian ladies
> occasionally wore a burnoose, around 1890, but they wore a proper
> long-skirted gown under it, and a corset and many petticoats and
> (for some periods) hoopes, and a camisole and knickers and all
> sorts of underwear under that. I don't know how you'd put all
> that on a starship.
I leave these problems up to the boffins.
Jacey Bedford
<djh...@kithrup.com> writes
Thank goodness publishers have woken up to the fact that not all of us
want to sit on the bus in the morning looking as though we're reading
something we have to hide from our mothers.
Jacey Bedford
<tednolan>" <t...@loft.tnolan.com> writes
Oooh, ouch. That's a cover and a half.
Jacey Bedford
<jo...@junk.com> writes
Jacey Bedford
<jo...@junk.com> writes
Temperature control?
Lack of laundry facilities?
Butch Malahide
>
> My mother made a point of reading John Brunner's _Into the Slave Nebula_
> when I brought it home, due entirely to the Freas cover:
>
> http://farm1.static.flickr.com/156/425691501_2dbc40c065.jpg?v=0
>
> Luckily for me, this turned out to be a case where the cover was not
> predictive, and she was satisfied that I wasn't reading "adult" books.
Back around 1950 I caught hell from John Sladek's mother for loaning
him my copy of _Avargrra Rvtugl Sbhe_. In this case, there was nothing
very spicy about the *cover* (as far as I can recall), but she read
the book and found the illicit sex. Well, she complained to *my*
mother, and I had to try and explain to her that the book had
redeeming literary value that made up for the nasty stuff.
cliff wright
respectable lady (who doesn't wear cardigans) and I'm an elderly gent
now (69) but I don't think she would accept me having such a
"philosophy", and if she did I would never have married her 43 years ago.
I guess I see Normans books as an extreme form of the very old Edgar
Rice Burroughs school. But Burroughs was MUCH more entertaining and just
as gory! All that without having Deja Thoris as John Carters slave.
Certainly his English "spinoff" in real life was a very Sleazy type indeed.
BTW very amused by the book banning stories. back in about 1953/5 I
borrowed a copy of Dennis Wheatley's "Star of ill omen", the local
librarian came to see my parents about the "lewd" bits in the book.
This was a hardback and just had a cover with a "flying saucer" and no
half naked ladies. Fortunately they were not at all bothered. This was
in small town England.
regards Cliff Wright.
J. Clarke
> Brenda Clough wrote:
<snip>
>> Norman is on record as saying that he is absolutely sincere about
>> the
>> philosophy espoused in the GOR books, and that he wrote them in all
>> seriousness. His wife (an elderly and respectable lady with white
>> hair and a cardigan) sat proudly in the audience. She did not look
>> like a rape victim.
>>
>> Whether all this was simply a publicity ploy to shill more books is
>> an open question.
>>
>> Brenda
> Well Brenda! That is a surprise! My wife is also an elderly and
> respectable lady (who doesn't wear cardigans) and I'm an elderly
> gent
> now (69) but I don't think she would accept me having such a
> "philosophy", and if she did I would never have married her 43 years
> ago.
Some elderly and respectable ladies need to be flogged out of their
cardigans once in a a while and made to kneel and worship their
masters. Others get huffy if one attempts to do so. To each his own.
--
--
--John
to email, dial "usenet" and validate
(was jclarke at eye bee em dot net)
Jacey Bedford
<jclarke...@cox.net> writes
It all largely depends on the state of their knees. I would not kneel to
anyone - but mainly because my knees hurt too damn much.
Jacey
(not quite elderly yet)
Dorothy J Heydt
Heh, me neither, not so much because my knees hurt (though they
occasionally do) as that after I get down there it takes a minute
or so plus something STURDY to grab hold of, to get me up again.
And kind friends who offer me a hand, I have to refuse. They
always mass about half what I do and I'd just knock 'em over. :)
J. Clarke
Since neither of you seem to object to the kneeling on principle, just
on pragmatism, I feel it appropriate to point out that if the pain in
one's _knees_ is the issue, the whip is likely not being plied with
sufficient vigor, and that if one is having difficulty arising,
increasing said vigor periodically until such time as one has arisen
might prove efficatious.
Dorothy J Heydt
You must lead a much more energetic life than I do. About the
only place I would be expected to kneel is in church, and I
make a deep bow instead and nobody has objected yet.
cliff wright
submission aren't they?
Even in my religion we treat the Aesir and Vanir as respected elder
colleagues and NEVER kneel or otherwise humble ourselves before them.
But then until the Xtians came Northern peoples always respected their
women, the Romans were completely amazed about the power that the
"barbarians" gave them.
All a woman who was that submissive would get from me is sorrow and
pity, and a desire to teach her how to respect herself. Give me a feisty
one any day!!!
Cliff Wright
Dorothy J Heydt
>submission aren't they?
>Even in my religion we treat the Aesir and Vanir as respected elder
>colleagues and NEVER kneel or otherwise humble ourselves before them.
If you feel the Aesir and Vanir are no greater than you are,
fine. I know that God is greater than I am and it doesn't bother
me.
>But then until the Xtians came Northern peoples always respected their
>women, the Romans were completely amazed about the power that the
>"barbarians" gave them.
>All a woman who was that submissive would get from me is sorrow and
>pity, and a desire to teach her how to respect herself. Give me a feisty
>one any day!!!
Ahem. I said that God is greater than I am. Not that my husband
is. (Well, he does weigh more.)
J. Clarke
You've never been dumped by a "submissive" because you did not rape
her with sufficient violence.
Don't confuse having weird needs with lacking self respect.
J. Clarke
I never thought of myself as particularly "energetic" but I _do_
anticipate spending the next couple or three days worshipping
"Shingle" and "Roofing Nail", and after that I am going to have to pay
a certain amount of homage to "Tulip Bulb".
Raymond Speer
John Norman's GOR series supposedly were set on a planet whose dominant
culture was exemplified by sovereign city states. Paradoxically, each
and every city state managed to be identical, utterly interchangeable,
despite the lack of a central government or consistent trade. The same
lack of local color can be found in the DEADLANDS series, where if
you've seen one barony, you have seen them all.
No GOR novel is worth reading.
Jacey Bedford
<djh...@kithrup.com> writes
Ah, yes, sadly I grok that entirely.
Jacey
Jacey Bedford
bugger with the whip and apply it liberally until he gave up and went
away.
:-)
Jacey
J. Clarke
Hmm. Methinks that the "chains" part of "whips and chains" may be
called for :-)
Steve Coltrin
Jacey Bedford <look...@nospam.invalid> writes:
> Thank goodness publishers have woken up to the fact that not all of us
> want to sit on the bus in the morning looking as though we're reading
> something we have to hide from our mothers.
Oh, they haven't. Bujold's "Winterfair Gifts" was first printed in
an anthology whose cover art made it look like a box of tampons.
I wanted to hide it inside a copy of _Hustler_.
--
Steve Coltrin spco...@omcl.org Google Groups killfiled here
"A group known as the League of Human Dignity helped arrange for Deuel
to be driven to a local livestock scale, where he could be weighed."
- Associated Press
Marcus L. Rowland
<clo...@erols.com> writes
>David Johnston wrote:
>> On Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:12:29 GMT, jsa...@excxn.aNOSPAMb.cdn.invalid
>> (John Savard) wrote:
>>
>>> On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 23:05:56 -0400, "J. Clarke"
>>><jclarke...@cox.net>
>>> wrote, in part:
>>>> Dorothy J Heydt wrote:
>>>>> "The extent to which Norman intended this philosophy to be taken
>>>>> literally, rather than as a vehicle of sexual fantasy, is
>>>>> debatable."
>>>> None of this is incompatible with being kinky. Most people who are
>>>>don't talk about it much outside of the alternative lifestyle
>>>>community.
>>> True enough, but the story is that he tried to write a book as badly as
>>> he could... and then got stuck writing more, because it was so
>>> successful.
>> I've read his "Imaginative Sex" when I was much younger and that
>> wasn't fiction. I'm confident that story is false. His kinks and his
>> dislike of 70s womens lib seem entirely sincere.
>
>
>philosophy espoused in the GOR books, and that he wrote them in all
>seriousness. His wife (an elderly and respectable lady with white hair
>and a cardigan) sat proudly in the audience. She did not look like a
>rape victim.
>
>Whether all this was simply a publicity ploy to shill more books is an
>open question.
>
>Brenda
I once wrote Gor fanfic, as part of a long Buffyverse crossover Round
Robin set in a world in which Xander runs a bar post Sunnydale, but I'm
not sure that Norman would have approved of my version of things...
http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-11757-266/Methos+Tales+from+the+Barman.htm
Warning: some of the 250+ stories in this sequence are fun, but a few
are pretty dire.
--
Marcus L. Rowland http://www.forgottenfutures.com/
http://www.forgottenfutures.org/
LJ:ffutures http://www.forgottenfutures.co.uk/
Forgotten Futures - The Scientific Romance Role Playing Game
Diana: Warrior Princess & Elvis: The Legendary Tours
The Original Flatland Role Playing Game
Juho Julkunen
says...
>
> "Jacey Bedford" <look...@nospam.invalid> wrote in message
> news:HgeAEFrU...@parkhead.demon.co.uk...
> > In message <%%WGk.43530$XT1....@bignews5.bellsouth.net>, "Ted Nolan
> > <tednolan>" <t...@loft.tnolan.com> writes
> >>In article <K8EK6...@kithrup.com>,
> >>Dorothy J Heydt <djh...@kithrup.com> wrote:
> >>>
> snip
> >
> > In those days covers were either a space ship or a woman with few
> > clothes - sometimes when neither appeared in the actual story. Thank
> > goodness covers these days are a little better and I don't feel I have to
> > back them with brown paper before reading them in public.
> >
>
> Or a woman on a spaceship with few clothes. Why were there so few clothes on
> spaceships?
There are perfectly valid reasons.
http://www.kolumbus.fi/j.julkunen/Misc/uniform.png
--
Juho Julkunen