The Complete John Norman

The previous article in this series, entitled Donald A. Wollheim, Publisher, which was published on May 1st, 2002, contained an error concerning the first edition of Marauders of Gor, which I was listed as having Richard Hescox as the cover artist. Actually, Frank "Kelly" Freas created that picture, in addition to the interior illustrations. The Freas cover was used until the seventh printing, while the eighth printing cover was done by Hescox, and used until the sixteenth printing. The seventeenth printing, strangely enough, shows the same Hescox painting, but mirrored, so with Tarl on the right instead of on the left.

Thanks, Mark, for making me aware of the error.

Intermezzo

At the start of 1977, the Gor series is booming in the United States and the United Kingdom, and besides being available in English, the series is also gaining momentum in German, French, Japanese and Dutch.

In England, the initial release by Sidgewick & Jackson has ended, and Tandem Publishing in London has taken over the British publication rights. The first ten Gor books, up to Tribesmen of Gor, have been published within the Tandem Science Fiction imprint, and both Tarnsman and Outlaw are already in their third printing. During the cause of 1977, however, Tandem Publishing is taken over by London based publisher W.H. Allen, and the series is reprinted, first as Universal, and later, starting in 1978, using the Star Books imprint.

In 1973, München based publishing house Wilhelm Heyne, has released Gor Die Gegen-Erde (Tarnsman of Gor) and Der Geächtete von Gor (Outlaw of Gor), both translated by Thomas Schlueck and with coverart by Dutch artist Karel Thole. The series has been continued in 1974 with Die Priesterkönige von Gor (Priest-Kings of Gor), Die Nomaden von Gor (Nomads of Gor) and Die Meuchelmörder vor Gor (Assassin of Gor), all with Frank & Zaugg coverart, in 1975 Die Piratenstadt von Gor (Raiders of Gor), Sklavin auf Gor (Captive of Gor) and Die Jäger von Gor (Hunters of Gor), in 1976 Die Marodeure von Gor (Marauders of Gor), in 1977 Die Stammeskrieger von Gor (Tribesmen of Gor) and finally in 1978 In Sklavenketten auf Gor (Slave Girl of Gor), with coverart by Esteban Maroto.

In September, 1975, Paris based publishing house Nouvelles Editions Opta, has started the first French translation of the Gor series within their imprint 'Collection Aventures Fantastiques', a Science Fiction/Fantasy list started in 1968 by editors Alain Doremieux and Jacques Sadoul, later edited by Michel Demuth and Jacques Bergier, and, from 1980, by Daniel Walther. In the fourteenth issue of 'Aventures Fantastique', Tarnsman of Gor - Le Tarnier de Gor and Outlaw of Gor - Le Banni de Gor, are released in a numbered edition of only 5120 copies, translated by Arlette Rosenblum and with striking interior artwork by Jean-Pierre Stholl.

In the Netherlands, the Dutch translation of the series, published in 1976 by Uitgeverij Scala B.V., Rotterdam, is released as 'De Vogelmannen van Gor' en 'De Goden van Gor', both translated by Bert Rozenboom, as number 18 and 24 of their imprint Scala SF Reeks. Other authors represented by Uitgeverij Scala and published within the same imprint were Alfred E. van Vogt, Jack Vance, Michael Moorcock, Robert Silverberg, Keith Laumer and Philip Farmer. There is no cover artist information in the books, so in May, 1999, I wrote a letter to the publisher, by now Uitgeverij Scala B.V., Hoogland, trying to get more information on the cover artist, but I never received an answer.

Finally, in Japan, the Tokyo Sogen Company, Inc. has begun to publish the Japanese translation of the series, starting with Tarnsman of Gor in December, 1975 and Outlaw of Gor in January 1977, both translated by Takebe Hon-ichiro.

In the United States, Ballantine Books continues to reprint the first seven books of the series, while DAW is releasing his new titles and reprinting their previous ones. John Norman is hot, riding the highest waves and on his way to a best-seller status, or, at least, so it seems...

Yellow Logo Edition - First Printings

Slave Girl of Gor

In March, 1977, John Norman publishes the eleventh volume of the Saga of Tarl Cabot, Slave Girl of Gor, as DAW Books = SF 232 UJ1285, with coverart by Gino D'Achille.

Slave Girl of Gor

Tarl Cabot had resumed his allegiance to the Priest-Kings, the non-human but benevolent rulers of Earth's orbital twin planet, Gor. And accordingly Tarl knew that the battle for the possession of the planet was under way - the Kurii, the beastlike invaders, had made their plans.

There was a girl, once Judy Thornton of Earth, found in the wilderness of Gor. Captured, as such lovely strangers were on that ruthless world, she was to undergo the training that would make of her a slave girl of great value. But unknown to her captors was the fact that she was a tool of the Kurii, that she carried a programmed message that imperiled the future of Gor. It was for possession of her mind and body that Priest-King and Kur-monster battled, wile a planet went its way unsuspecting that its very fate was also locked within the slave collar that graced her neck.

^{DAW, Slave Girl of Gor, 1977}

After nine books featuring the red-haired Tarl Cabot, this is the second of the so-called slave books, in which John Norman looks at his fictional planet Gor through the eyes of a female protagonist. Just like Elinor Brinton in Captive of Gor, Judy Thornton is kidnapped from Earth and slowly finds her way into Gorean slavery in a romantic love story set against the harsh but beautiful barbaric backgrounds of Counter-Earth.

"You are a secret dream, which I scarcely dared dream, come true to me, Master," I said.

"And you to me, Slave," said he.

"Will you truly be hard with me, Master?" I asked.

"Yes," he said.

"Will you truly, though you care for me, keep me as full slave?"

"Yes, Slave," he said.

"Subject even to discipline, if I displease you?" I asked.

"Subject to discipline, at my pleasure, whether you displease me or not," he said.

"My bondage then will be absolute," I said.

"Of course, Slave," he said.

I reached out timidly, to touch him. I kissed him, tenderly, on the shoulder.

"I love you, Master," I said.

"Be silent, Slave," he said, irritably.

"Yes, Master," I said.

He then touched me with sweetness, and tenderness, and I held him closely, but did not speak, lost in his touch, for I, a slave, had been forbidden to speak. He made gentle love to me then, which, I knew, might become abrupt or brutal as he chose. There were a thousand ways to have a slave girl and I did not doubt but what Clitus Vitellius was master of them all. How joyful I was. He was dominant over me. I was subject to him. I was his, completely without qualification. It is impossible for me to express my feelings. Perhaps this is why he had warned me to silence, that I might not try to speak, but would be content to feel what could not, in any language, be spoken. So I did not then try to speak, but, rather, contented myself with turning to the tasks of love.

^{DAW, Slave Girl of Gor, 1977}

Beasts of Gor

In March, 1978, the twelfth book of the Gorean Saga is released, entitled Beasts of Gor, and published as DAW Books = SF 280 UJ1363, with coverart by Gino D'Achille.

Beasts of Gor

On Gor, the other world in Earth's orbit, the term beast can mean any of three things:

First, there are the Kurii, the monsters from space who are about to invade that world.

Second, there are the Gorean warriors, men whose fighting ferocity is incomparable.

Third, there are the slave girls, who are both beasts of burden and objects of desire.

All three kinds of beast come into action in this thrilling novel as the Kurii establish their first beachhead on Gor's polar cap. Here is a John Norman epic that takes Tarl Cabot from the canals of Port Kar to the taverns of Lydius, the tents of the Sardar Fair, and to a grand climax among the red hunters of the Arctic ice pack.

^{DAW, Beasts of Gor, 1978}

A imaginary planet is a very big stage, and John Norman uses the adventures of his protagonists to research and examine both the sociological, psychological as well as the philosophical values of various ancient cultures on Earth, which are mirrored into his Gorean background. Beasts of Gor features the Inuit culture, the Eskimos or Red Hunters that roam the ice-fields of the northern polar circle.

But under the surface, the author is looking at the dark side of Gor, the ugly side; not the slavery or the sex, not the ignorance and minor differences of its people, no, those are not really ugly, merely controversial and easily misunderstood; but the real danger to civilization is much darker than slavery, even more natural then sex and much less obvious here on Earth then in that harsh, barbaric environment called Counter-Earth; John Norman now calls upon the beast and its name is aggression - the twelfth volume of Gor is about violence.

This story, in its way, has no clear beginning. It began, I suppose, some thousands of years ago when Kurii, in internecine wars, destroyed the viability of a native world. Their state at that time was sufficiently advanced technologically to construct small steel worlds in orbit, each some pasangs is diameter. The remnants of a shattered species then, as a world burned below them, turned hunting to the plains of the stars.

We do not know how long their hunt took. But we do know the worlds, long ago, entered the system of a slow-revolving, medium-sized yellow star occupying a peripheral position in one of nature's bounteous, gleaming, strewn spiral universes.

They had found their quarry, a world.

They had found two worlds, one spoken of as Earth, the other as Gor.

One of these worlds was a world poisoning itself, a pathological world insane and short-sighted, greed-driven and self-destructive. The other was a pristine world, virginal in its beauty and fertility, one not permitted by its masters, called the Sardar, or Priest-Kings, to follow the example of its tragic sister. Priest-Kings would not permit men to destroy Gor. They are not permissive; they are intolerant of genocide. Perhaps it is hard to understand why they do not permit men to destroy Gor. Are they not harsh and cruel, to deny to men this pleasure? Perhaps. But, too, they are rational. And one may be rational, perhaps, without being weak. Indeed, is not weakness the ultimate irrationality? Gor, too, it must be remembered, is also the habitat of the Sardar, or Priest- Kings. They have not chosen to be weak. This choice may be horrifying to those of Earth, so obsessed with their individualism, their proclaimed rights and liberties, but it is one they have chosen to make. I do not defend it. I only report it. Dispute it with them who will.

^{DAW, Beasts of Gor, 1978}

Explorers of Gor

In March, 1979, DAW publishes Explorers of Gor, the thirteenth book of the series, as DAW Books = SF 328 UE1449 with coverart by Gino D'Achille.

Explorers of Gor

All the glorious panorama of Earth's planetary twin, barbaric Gor, is present in John Norman's latest novel.

When the shield ring of the much feared Kuriifalls into the possession of a mysterious black explorer, it becomes vital to the Priest-Kings that Tarl Cabot himself regain that ancient product of an alien science. His quest brings him to the unmapped interior of the great equatorial rain-forests and into new dangers without parallel.

Here are jungle kingdoms and tropical trade cities, fierce beasts and fiercer men. And at the heart of this full-bodied Gorean novel is a lost city - and a linkage of the loveliest enemy agents ever lured from the cities of far-off Terra.

^{DAW, Explorers of Gor, 1979}

In a Gorean Fellowship of the Ring, Tarl Cabot enters the jungle and winds up rafting down the Gorean equivalent of the Amazon, gets caught and forced into a brief period of slave labor, after which he escapes with a couple of newly found friends. Finally they stumble upon the lost city, and on its walls, they find dim mosaics, some of them showing the clothing of miserable captives being taken from them; others showing them being tied and whipped, or being marked by hot irons and placed in collars; or kneeling, head down, in submission, before their masters; and still others showing them being danced before their masters; or serving them in the most intimate of imaginable pleasures.

In a certain sense, John Norman seems to be setting some kind of example for his female readers. If one presents women only with masculine images, shown in masculine contexts, they will often attempt to conform to these alien models. If one, however, permits them to be aware of genuine female images, presented within contexts of honesty, openness and permissibility, it is natural for them to feel deep biological affinities for what is portrayed. For what it is worth women tend on the whole to be unsuccessful in conforming to masculine images, and tend to take gracefully and naturally to feminine images, toward which they seem to have genetic predispositions. Perhaps that is because that is what they really are, not men but women. For John Norman, sex is not superficial. Not one cell in the body of a woman is the same as that in the body of a man.

"The human being," I said, "is not alien to nature, nor disjointed from it. He is, in some respects, one of its most interesting and sophisticated products. He is not something out of nature nor apart from nature but one of its complex fulfillments. It is not that he is less an animal than, say, the zeder or sleen, but rather that he is a more complicated animal than they. In a sense, given the rigors of evolution and selection, the human contains in itself not less animality than his brethren whom we choose to place lower on the phylogenetic scale than ourselves but more. The human is not less of an animal than they, but more. In him there is, in a sense, that of complexity and sophistication, a greater animality than theirs."

"Peel away the hideous encrustations of your antibiological conditioning," I told her. "Hidden in every cell in your body, in the genetic codes of each minute cell, the product of a long, complex evolution, lie the marvels of which I speak. In the deepest part of your brain lies the provocation to these truths. You are the result of thousands upon thousands of women who have pleased men. Evolution has selected for such women. Do not tell me that you do not know these behaviors. Deny them, if you will, but they have been bred into you. They are a part of your very being. They are, my sweet slave, in your very blood."

"Yes," I said, "consult the animal in you."

^{DAW, Explorers of Gor, 1979}

Fighting Slave of Gor

Again a year later, in March, 1980, John Norman releases his fourteenth Gor novel, Fighting Slave of Gor, as DAW Books = SF 376 UE1522, with coverart by Richard Hescox.

Fighting Slave of Gor

Attempting to save his girl friend from a Gorean slave trap, Jason Marshall found himself kidnapped to that legendary counter-Earth planet. And as such found himself the first "civilized" Earth male to become enslaved in the ruthless chains of Gorean society.

Jason Marshall's startling adventures make constantly fascinating reading as he is made to be the slave of a haughty woman, then into her fighting champion, and finally amid the turmoil of primitive warfare to seek his liberty in order to search for his lost love amid the slave marts of that alien and turbulent planet.

^{DAW, Fighting Slave of Gor, 1980}

In this book, the first of a trilogy within the series, a new protagonist, Jason Marshall is introduced. Jason gets accidentally caught in a slave abduction on Earth, is transported to Gor together with his girlfriend, Beverly Henderson, and trained as a slave gladiator.

At the beginning of the book, John Norman enters his own story.

Then she asked me, "Have you ever heard of the planet Gor?"

"Certainly," I said, "it is a reasonably well-known fictional world." I laughed, suddenly. "The Bermuda Triangle and Gor," I said, "have, as far as I know, absolutely nothing to do with one another." I smiled at her. "If the slavers of Gor have decided to take you, my dear," I said, "they certainly will not sit about waiting for you to take a trip to the Caribbean." I looked at her carefully. She was beautiful. I wondered, if there were Gorean slavers, if she might indeed not be the sort of woman they regard as suitable for their chains. Then again I tensed myself, scarcely daring to move. The thought of the lovely. Miss Henderson as a helpless Gorean slave girl, at the mercy of a man, so aroused my passion that I could scarcely dare to breathe. I held myself perfectly still.

"You are right," she said. "Gor and the Bermuda Triangle have presumably nothing to do with one another."

"I think not," I said.

"You are comforting, Jason," she said, gratefully.

"Besides," I smiled, "if the slavers swoop down and carry you off, perhaps you will eventually, sometime, find a master who will be kind to you."

"Gorean men," she said, shuddering, "are strict with their slaves."

"I do not believe John Norman is the author of the Gor books," she said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"I have been frightened about this sort of thing," she said. "I have met him, and talked with him. It seems his way of speaking, and his prose style, may not be that of the books."

"He has never claimed," I said, "to be more than the editor of the books. They purport, as I understand it, to be generally the work of others, usually of an individual called Tarl Cabot."

There was a Cabot," she said, "who disappeared."

"Norman receives the manuscripts, does he not, from someone called Harrison Smith. He is probably the true author."

"Harrison Smith is not his true name," she said. "It was changed by Norman to protect his friend. But I have spoken with this 'Harrison Smith.' He receives the manuscripts, but he apparently knows as little as anyone else about their origin."

"I think you are taking this sort of thing too seriously," I said. "Surely Norman himself believes the manuscripts to be fiction."

"Yes," she said. "I am convinced of that."

"If he, who is their author or editor, believes them to be fiction, you should feel perfectly free, it seems to me, to do likewise."

^{DAW, Fighting Slave of Gor, 1980}

Rogue of Gor

In March, 1981, the fifteenth volume of the series, Rogue of Gor, is published as DAW Books = SF 424 UE1602, with coverart by Richard Hescox.

Rogue of Gor

Jason Marshall learned the meaning of manhood and the power of women, both dominant and submissive, when he was kidnapped from Earth to the Counter-Earth called Gor. Winning his freedom, Jason set out single-handed to win his own place on that gloriously barbaric world on the other side of the sun.

His intent was to find the girl who had been enslaved with him. But that quest thrust him smack in the middle of the war that raged between Imperial Ar and the Salerian Confederation - and the secret schemes of the pirate armada that sought control of the mighty trading artery of the fighting cities.

^{DAW, Rogue of Gor, 1981}

It seems that John Norman has always been a supporter of many a famous anthropological short-cut, but after "Man, The Story-teller", "Man, The Hunter" and "Men, The Natural Masters", he, too, seems a fervent supporter of the "Man, The Dancer"-theory, in which the Laetoli footsteps are seen as a remnant of the first known Afarensis shuffle, and in which face-to-face sex, cooperation, language and singing, bipedalism and the leaving of forest are explained by our innate desire to dance rather than by our desire to hunt. After Gor, belly-dance will never feel the same.

She was performing a need dance, of a type not uncommon among Gorean female slaves. Such a dance usually proceeds in clearly defined phrases, evident not merely in the expressions and movements of the girl but in the nature of the accompanying music. There are usually five phases to such a dance. In the first phase the girl, dancing, feigns indifference to the presence of men, before whom, as a slave, she must perform. In the second phase, for she has not yet been raped, her distress and uneasiness, her restlessness, her disturbance by her sexual urges, must become subtly more manifest. Here it must be evident that she is beginning to feel her sexuality, and drives, profoundly, and yet is struggling against them. Toward the end of this phase it must become clear not only that she has sexual needs, and deep ones, but that she is beginning to fear that she may not be, simply as she is, of sufficient interest to men to obtain their satisfaction. Here, need, coupled with anxiety and self-doubt, for she has not yet been seized by strong men, must become clear. In the third phase of the dance she, in an almost ladylike fashion, acknowledges herself defeated in her attempt to conceal her sexuality; she then, again in an almost ladylike fashion, delicately but clearly, with restraint but unmistakably, acknowledges, and publicly, before masters, that she has sexual needs. Then, with smiles, and gestures, displaying herself, she makes manifest her readiness for the service of men, her willingness, and her receptivity. She invites them, so to speak to have her. But she has not yet been seized by an arm or an ankle, or by her collar, a thumb hooked rudely under it, or hair, and pulled from the floor. What if she is not sufficiently pleasing? What if she is not to be fulfilled? What if she must continue to dance, alone, unnoticed. At this point it becomes clear to her that it is by no means a foregone conclusion that men will find her of interest, or that they will see fit to satisfy her. She must strive to be pleasing. If she is not good enough she may be chained, unfulfilled, another night alone in the kennel. There are always other girls. She must earn her rape. Too, if she should be insufficiently pleasing consistently it is likely that she will be slain. Goreans place few impediments in the way of the liberation of a slave female's sexuality. In this phase of the dance, then, shamelessly the woman dances her need and, shamelessly, begs for her sexual satisfaction. This phase of the dance is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. The fifth, and final phase, of the dance, is far more dramatic and exciting. In this phase the girl, overcome by sexual desire and terrified that she may not be found sufficiently pleasing, clearly manifests, and utterly, that she is a slave female. In this portion of the dance the girl is seldom on her feet. Rather, sitting, rolling, and changing position, on her side, her back, her belly, half kneeling, half sitting, kneeling, crawling, reaching out, bending backwards, lying down, twisting with passion, gesturing to her body, presenting it to masters for their inspection and interest, whimpering, moaning, crying out, brazenly presenting herself as a slave, pleading for her rape, she writhes, a piteous, begging, vulnerable, ready slave, a woman fit for and begging for the touch of a master, a woman begging to become, at the least touch of her master, a totally submitted slave. The fourth phase of the dance, as I have mentioned, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Collared She-Sleen. This portion of the dance, the fifth portion, is sometimes known as the Heat of the Slave Girl.

^{DAW, Rogue of Gor, 1981}

TO BE CONTINUED

I wish you well.
Simon

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