Return to the Planet of the Complete Bloody Psychopaths - Endgame.

[bellatrys]

aka "Outlaw of Gor, © 1967, John Norman

Oh, before I forget - we do find out what colour Tarl's eyes are in Book II -
"I first met Tarl Cabot at a small liberal arts college in New Hampshire, where we had both accepted first-year teaching appointments. He was an instructor in English history and I, intending to work for some three years to save

Comments

You deserve a vacation and an award for standing up to the torture that is Gor

[smurasaki]

Seriously, I hope you can sit down with a _good_ book and recover now. If the Gor crap get worse than this, I don't even want to think about it and I'm glad you aren't going to read it. I am also now horrified that this yech was still being published when I got into sci-fi/fantasy in the 80s. Apparently I had the good sense (or, more likely, good luck) not to buy any.

I still can't believe one of these things got published much less twenty-some. Even if you ignore all that is wrong (so incredibly wrong) with the world of Gor, the writing is terrible. As people keep boggling, there's a lot of fanfic, and not even _good_ fanfic, that is better written. Did he slip some of whatever the hell he was on to the editors or what? And, for that matter, did he send some to Dark Horse, because after this...if the brilliant person who said "Hey, let's reprint Gor!" wasn't chemically altered, I have no explanation at all.

Mac

[thirstygirl]

I can't work out *why* they need to be re-printed at all. It's not like there is a serious shortage of the originals lurking in great unloved piles in every secondhand bookstore in the land?

I think I read the first one and some HIDEOUS one called Slavegirl of Gor [?] many years ago. I was 13 and not really a feminist yet but I revolted at the idea that what those uppity educated college girls needed was to be kidnapped and enslaved on an alien planet to teach them what real happiness was. Esp as the heroine?/patsy?/placeholder for All Those Women Who Wouldn't Sleep With Norman? FALLS IN LOVE WITH her owner who not only beats her but also BRANDS HER as punishment for something she hadn't done. Turns out she decides she still 'deserved' it because she hadn't embraced the idea of slavery with as much enthusiasm as she should have.

It was one of those baby-steps towards feminism moments.

[archangelbeth]

I have not read all of this -- gotta get the kid to school -- but this? even in NH (where schools have been known to lengthen winter hols to save heat) Christmas vacation doesn't last thru Feb.

I went to UNH. It stands for University of No Holidays. I suppose this may have changed from when John-Tarl was in the area, but... Um... Perhaps it was some private university he taught at. >_> *headdesk*

[violaswamp]

One doesn't know whether to laugh or to vomit. It's tough to do both at once.

I have to go watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer as soon as I can--or maybe some of that Elise Sutton crap--just to get the taste of this out of my mouth. A brutal reminder that men really do hate us. Not all men, of course, but a disturbing number, given how mainstream these books once were.

[smurasaki]

I may be too optimistic, but really, the only man involved who clearly hates women is the author himself. Given how badly the books were written, it's entirely possible that the editor never read them and this was a case of Conan sells, what submissions are described as like Conan...ah...we'll publish Tarnsmen of Gor. And then when it sold, to a mixture of misogynists and sci-fi/fantasy readers who didn't realize what they bought until it was too late, they published more. Basically, never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity. After all, there are people men and women alike who find the books hilarious because they either don't realize the author is serious or find him to pathetic and crazy to worry about. (And don't know that here are nutcases out there who live this. I'm all for anything goes between consenting adults, but this is a fantasy that seems likely to abandon the consenting part

Go hang out on Fark for a while

[bellatrys]

or Slashdot or on the political feminist blogs - the concern trolling *by self proclaimed liberal guys* is bad enough, and by the run-of-the-mill hipster types? The ones who ran a tech blogger into hiding instead of speaking at a tech con with death/rape threats because she was daring to talk about interfaces and programming like she was a real human being this past year?

. I've encountered more man hating women, but I figure that's just my bad luck.

I doubt you recognize them, because the "civilized" misogynists pass as polite and civil, until you cross them. (They're like the vampires in Buffy, that way.) And pretty much any speaking out about sexism counts as "crossing." They also may think that they want "the best" for us women - the problem being that their idea of what's good for us is only different in minor specifics from Norman's.

Any guy who defends, frex, Larry Summers' speech and claims he was persecuted by the forces of political correctness - is my enemy.

oh, and don't forget the survey

[bellatrys]

wherein 30% of US college males admitted that they would commit rape, if they knew they could get away with it, cited in this followup survey by the same researchers,"This study found males, more than females, held rape-tolerant attitudes and lower empathy for rape survivors. This finding supported previous research on how gender significantly influenced rape attitudes and empathy for rape survivors (Ageton, 1983; Borden et al., 1988; Deitz et al., 1982; Field, 1978; Malamuth & Check, 1981). Feild (1978) had found that more males than females held traditional views on women and that females had more rape-intolerant attitudes since they were more susceptible to the crime of rape than men (Field, 1978). Borden et al. (1988) also found that males held less rape intolerant attitudes than females and showed less empathy. Deitz et al. (1982) found support for the hypothesis that females would exhibit greater empathy for the rape survivor than would males. The significance between gender and rape attitudes was verified in the research of

[fledgist]

Now, you've got to sit down and read somebody who really can write, create characters, build worlds, and make perfect sense. Susanna Clarke, for example.