Tal Goreans,
Greetings visitors,

Welcome once again to the Booknotes column. It is time to lift the lid on Volume Eleven of the Chronicles of Counter-Earth, “Slave Girl of Gor”. Of the preceding ten books, all save one have been narrated by Tarl Cabot (calling himself “Bosk” for some of the time), and the one exception was the story of Elinor Brinton, a spoiled heiress who spent some time being thoroughly unlovely, unlovable and unloved until tamed by the uncompromising Rask of Treve. In between times she also served as an unwilling agent of Kurii in their war against Gor, the Priest-Kings and Tarl Cabot. The obvious challenge facing the author in this book is to avoid writing “Captive of Gor” all over again. Let us see how well he manages this.

Chapter One

Our narrator awakens in the grass of an alien world - as she is quickly able to determine, to her terror and bewilderment, from the different sense of weight in herself, from the clarity and purity of the air, from a certain sense of cleanliness in the surroundings. But, as she is nude, collared and chained to a massive rock, and has an uneasy memory of being attacked, held helpless by a strong man, and apparently chloroformed unconscious, she is not altogether of a mind to view her surroundings with complete detachment. The feel of the air itself and the sense of enlivenment it induces in her are both wonderful; but they do not compensate for the misery and horror that she feels, and she collapses in a faint (which was, the reader may remember, something of a habit for Miss Brinton too).

Chapter Two

Harsh hands and voices awaken her and she finds herself confronted by two men who seem to be refugees from the set of a sword-and-sandal movie. They bark incomprehensible commands at her and she is utterly intimidated both by their powerful mien and their complete indifference to her sense of personal space. Under their gaze she trembles, wondering what the status of women must be in a world where the men are like this; and when she dares to utter so much as a whisper she is at once cuffed into silence.

Unfortunately for Judy Thornton, English major and poetess, she cannot understand what it is they want of her, and they appear to be very short on patience, which is not a quality to muchly cheer a helpless, nude, chained female in the presence of armed men. Indeed, it appears to be all up with her: she cannot respond to the strange query “Var Bina, kajira?” and even begging (in English, naturally) to be their slave is not likely to help her, though she senses that such is a fitting and proper request for a woman such as her to make of men such as these.

But just as Judy, most beautiful girl at her college with the possible exception of anthropology major Alicia Nevins, is about to have her throat cut, a third man enters the scene; another scarlet-clad swordsman with apparently not a care in the world, who offers the other two a cheery greeting and receives a somewhat surlier one in reply. While the newcomer looks her over, Judy ponders her words of a few moments ago and finds her plea for slavery, though spoken in a desperate bid for life, strangely liberating. She poses as well as she can for his viewing pleasure, and senses that when the newcomer speaks he is demanding to be given her; then he utters the words “Kajira canjellne”, drawing an annoyed look from the other men but apparently conforming to some code of behaviour that Judy does not understand.

A duel then takes place, on which Judy looks with dread, unable to understand how men can possibly stand and fight each other with deadly weapons. The men, though, seem to be on familiar ground. After a short passage at arms the newcomer defeats one of Judy’s captors, leaving him wounded but not yet dead; he then engages the other, the one who would have cut Judy’s throat, who tries one or two sneaky tricks but is soon mastered, surrenders, and is permitted to depart with his wounded comrade.

The victor now inspects the spoils, which hands Judy another dose of culture shock, as she is not used to being treated as an animal; and she begins to fight the bit, a little, at least in her mind. He briefly tries talking to her and plainly grasps that she cannot understand him; wanders off, as though to scout out clues as to where she might have come from; and finally frees her feet and marches off, either confident that she will follow or completely indifferent as to whether she does or not. Judy follows, having no other protector in this dangerous world, and soon finds that she will be permitted to follow him. Indeed, he allows her to make herself useful by carrying his shield, which may be slightly more usefulness than she was counting on.

She reflects on the strange experiences of the preceding few hours, not least her reaction to these mighty, fierce men. But Judy rebukes herself, for she has been well educated in the knowledge that men and women are virtually identical, though her principle emotion, following this warrior under the light of the three moons, is a desire to run to him and lay her head on his shoulder.

During the course of their trek, in which Judy is forced to exert herself much more than she is used to, she wonders how it might be possible to put their relationship on a proper footing. Men, she knows, are meant to be eager to please her. When he feeds her, she shifts position from the uncomfortable and demeaning kneeling posture in which he has put her into a more egalitarian attitude and addresses a few sociable words to him, though knowing he cannot understand her, indicating a proper gratitude for his exertions on her behalf.

Whereupon he nearly knocks her block off with a single slap.

This approach, not to be recommended to the amateur, instantly convinces Judy, who has never been struck before, that she absolutely must be submissive and obedient, that this man is able to compel such and that, by implication, there is no bar to his doing so, whatever she may have previously considered normal. As time goes by she digests this and finds it oddly compelling - not that she is in any hurry to be struck again, nor enjoyed it the first time, but that the contrast to the diffident boys of Earth, whose advances had not much interested her, strikes new and exciting chords in her.

Continuing their journey, and briefly encountering a six-legged creature that Judy does not recognise (but we may well do), the pair covertly observe a passing procession, perhaps of a wealthy bride with her wedding gifts. Judy is beginning to think that she understands the rules: some appropriately submissive behaviour from her, and her captor will do much as she pleases. But she says that she was soon to learn that ignorance and foolishness such as this would not be long tolerated on Gor.

Chapter Three

It is a few days later, in the camp of her captor, that we find Judy tending a brazier and crossly looking on a fellow slave, named Eta. Much to Judy’s relief, or not, this mighty man has not put her to any shameful use, and she wonders irritably if this is because she is not pleasing enough. She is also quite plainly jealous of Eta, who seems to be on good terms with her captor, albeit obviously his slave.

Judy’s reception in the camp has been amiable enough, though her captor’s comrades-in-arms cheerfully discussed her as though she was a mere property-animal - this much is plain from their demeanour, though she still does not understand the language. Again, she views this with mixed emotions, a kind of excitement warring with irritation at such un-politically-correct treatment from mere uneducated savages. She is put to menial labour and plenty of it, which she performs sulkily, admitting to us that she did actually beg to be raped while they were on their journey.

While Judy carries on with the task of tending the brazier, in which a branding iron is heating (and this puzzles her, for there is no livestock in the camp), she recollects the previous evening’s after-dinner entertainment, in which she and Eta served wine to the men and Eta was subsequently recruited into a game of blind-man’s buff in which she is both quarry and prize. (Judy tells us, from the standpoint of knowledge acquired later, that a variant of the same game, Girl Catch, can even be used to adjudicate minor border disputes between rival cities.) She looks on in horror as poor Eta is put to sexual use by no fewer than four men in succession; and she also looks on Eta with a mixture of anger and envy.

Returning to the present, Judy finds out what the business with the brazier is all about as she is bound, held helpless, and branded. The experience is deeply psychological (the physical impact of a fourth-degree burn is probably nothing to be casually laughed off, either) and not least of this is the indelibility of the mark that has been put on her. She thinks again of her rival, Alicia Nevins, and of the Earth boys she knew, wondering how they would react if they saw her as she is now.

Her captor now takes the trouble to teach her a word of Gorean: “Kajira” - and Eta shows Judy her own brand so that she will understand better what has just occurred. For what it is worth, Eta’s brand is the cursive K while Judy’s is a stylized flower, the “Dina”, and she tells us a good deal about this, again on the basis of knowledge that she will not actually acquire until later in the story. And, thinking about it, Judy soon concludes what a “Kajira” must be, and what the phrase “La Kajira”, taught her by Eta, means.

Judy is fed, slave style; is taught to serve meat and drink to men, which she divines she had better learn how to do extremely well and with the utmost alacrity; and is then summoned to the tent of her captor. He gives her a draught of slave wine, puts aside his weapons and gear, and proceeds to thrust himself upon Judy. But she, acutely aware of sexual realities as never before in her life - “so weak, so vulnerable, so soft, so helpless, so feminine” - responds with rapture as she is laid on the furs, and declares her love for her Master even as he pushes her legs apart.

So, much in contrast with “Captive of Gor”, in which a good deal of the book had passed before Elinor even met her Master and still longer before their union was consummated, Judy has become a branded and used sex slave before she has even learned three words of Gorean, still less found out the name of the man who owns her. Let us give her time to adjust to her new status, and rejoin her in another month, in the second instalment of “Slave Girl of Gor”!

I wish you well,

Socrates