Since our one year anniversary is on the horizon, I am starting to wax a bit nostalgic (surviving one year for any publication online is a very, very long time) and would like to solicit your help to make our anniversary issue a special one.

I would like to hear from those of you who read THE VOICE, just what the whole Gorean thing has meant to you. Lifestylers, tell us about how it has affected your life, the way you view things, the way you live. Fans of the books, let us hear about how you first found the series, what you thought when you started reading it versus what you came to think of it, and where you might like to see the series go from here. Send your thoughts to GOREAN_VOICE@hotmail.com and we will publish as much of what we get as we can.

Speaking of which, we are still waiting for book #26, Witness of Gor, to come out. I know that the publisher is working hard to see that this becomes a reality, along with the long-awaited magazine we have heard about as well. If you would like to drop them a note and offer support in whatever form you can manage, write: contact@vision.nais.com . The URL of the website (which is undergoing some construction) is http://vision.nais.com/Gor/, which features a B&W sneak peek of Gor Magazine.

Also, support MASQUERADE books, the company who is republishing the first 9 GOR books (if not more) which are available at your local bookstore or at any of the major online booksellers. Buy them, collect them, read them - show the publishing world that John Norman's fiction still has a fan base out there that will spend money to support the story. Unless we do that, I fear we will never see another book in the series.

Finally, a word about honor and thieves. There are some people who are so without a shred of honor, that they would steal the copyrighted hard work of John Norman and send it to another online, in the form of a .zip or .txt file. Know that to disseminate copyrighted material without permission is against the law. These people not only steal monies directly from the author, but they also create an environment that makes publishers wary of sinking the money into publishing **any** new Gor fiction. Why bother to do so, if some elf in a IRC chat channel is going to hand out a free .zip copy of it to your potential customer?

Understand that both the copyright holders themselves, and the author's literary agency have been in contact with those of us online who are aware of these activities, and they are very, very interested in stopping this - and they now have URLS, nicks, names and online addresses. Be warned.

Stealing is a crime - and stealing from a man whose fiction has helped to change the lives of so many people for the better, is a sin. If you are doing it, shame on you. If you are accepting it, educate yourself and stop. There will most likely be an end to it eventually, and I suspect some will be rather sorry they got involved.

Enjoy this month's issue.

Bear-