Borders-verse flashbacks: Gor

[liz_marcs]

So here I am multi-tasking. Working on The Last Tin Soldier (beta notes have resulted in some changes all the way to the very end), checking out the Deep Space Nine episodes I can watch for free online at TV-Links, and checking my FList before toddling off to bed.

So, here I am, riding the kind of high that I can only get by basking in the awesome that is Kira Nerys, when I spy with my little eye from theantijoss_on_IJ that Gor of Losers is making a comeback.

Thanks to Dark Horse.

My irony meter just went off the scale.

Not to mention that I now have whiplash. From Kira to Gor. I need a frigging neck brace.

I tried to read a Gor book. Once. In junior high. (Although I'm very sure that if my dad knew, he would've had a heart attack. No. Make that a zillion heart-attacks.) I'm pretty sure that Gor pretty much planted my aversion-to-writing-smut seed. That shit was just ugly, yo. Me not a big fan of slave games, even consensual slave games. Although if it floats your boat, go and float, says I. Just don't make me wear the ball-gag and nipple clamps and we're cool. 

But even with my relatively innocent eyes, I could damn well spot a rape fantasy. Rape fantasies in and of themselves aren't bad, per se (even if it gets my squick running so hard that my knee starts jerking, if you get my drift). But this was a rape fantasy of a whole 'nother color. This was a rape fantasy for men. It's the really, really ugly shit where all women want it, all women deserve it, and all women will get it in the end. Failure to accept rape as a way of life is a brutal death sentence.

Why?

Because "no" ain't an option for women in Gor-world. Not when they're branded. Not someone chunks a slave collar on them. Not when they get assigned the role of "pleasure" slave, "reserve (virgin)" slave, or "scut work (not sexually attractive)" slave. Not when they get chained to a stone floor because they try to say no. Not ever.

Quick question kiddies: What's the difference between someone who's free, and someone who's a slave?

Answer: It's one word. "No." The power to say it. The power to think it. The power to act on it. One. Word.

Hunh. Guess the Gor books were edumacational after all. Who says the series is a total waste?

Well, actually, I do. Not even Dianetics comes close in the worthless books sweepstakes.

I remember my Bordersverse days rather fondly. I remember most of the customers rather fondly. I remember most of my co-workers rather fondly.

Know what I don't remember fondly? This one regular customer. He was a white male, always impeccably dressed in semi-expensive clothes. Glasses. Loafers. Sandy hair bordering on brown. About my age, more or less. Clean-cut. He looked like the type of guy who was involved in community service, or volunteering for some political organization or another.

Shit. I remember exactly how he looked, despite the distance of some years.

I also remember that he had this vibe. Long before I ever talked to him, I got the "something is just not right with that boy" radio signals so loud that my one tooth filling rattled every time he walked through the door. Straight ladies, gay men...I don't have to explain that whole serial-killer-in-disguise vibe to you, do I? I'm sure you've all had it once or twice. It's a feeling you don't forget. For the rest of you who don't know, the best way to explain it is as if someone's shadow just passed over your grave.

Anyway, I'd seen him around off and on for several months (and I always made it a habit to be elsewhere when he was looking for help). One day I didn't move fast enough and he got me.

Guess what our boy was looking for?

If you didn't say Gor books, then you haven't been paying attention.

Right. Needless to say, my brain went to DefCon 1 so fast that it's a wonder the word "tilt" show up on my eyeballs. Having no choice, however, I had to help Gor-man. A quick look into the database showed that we actually had a copy of the first book around (how, I don't know since they were out of print for a looooong time by that point). It wasn't in science fiction (Thank God!), but in erotica.

But that's not the real creepy part. The real creepy part is that Gor-man was talking about that damn book and how philosophical it was and how deep it was and shit like that. And he was asking my opinion about it.

Holy tomato, I thought to myself. Is this dude actually feeling me out about Gor?

Indeed he was. To be honest, I don't think he was hitting on me. I think he was on a little power trip. Obviously he saw my reaction when he asked for Gor, so I suspected that this guy — who towered over me by a good 6 inches — was trying to rattle my cage.

All he got for his trouble was my serene bookstore look: the one perfected over several years and honed in the fires of born-again customers trying to convert me to the Gospel according to Tim LaHaye, teenagers sneaking into the erotica section, and little kids running rampant in the children's section.

It's a look that's somewhat mask-like, coolly polite, vaguely condescending, and gives the cusomter abso-fraggin'-lutely nothing for their trouble.

Nothing pisses off a power-tripping customer more than that cool, polite wall of hell. They can't get over it, can't get around it, and can't dig under it. Hell, they can't even complain to the store manager about it. In short, they have nuffing! Once that mask is on, you will win power battle every. single. time. Plus, you get the joy of seeing a power-tripping customer go completely out of his or her tree.

Anyway, in the end, I advised Gor-man that if he wanted other books in the series, he'd have to trawl used bookstores, as almost the entire series was out of print. In fact, I expressed polite puzzlement that we had the first book in the series at all, while he expressed shock and horror that it was in the erotica section and not the science fiction section where, in his humble opinion, it belonged.

I saw Gor-man after that, of course (he was, after all, a regular). But he never asked me to help him out again. I did ring him up a few times though. His taste in reading material did nothing to dispel the kree-pee.

Anyway, if you want to be completely creeped out before bed, I highly recommend 7 year-old article from Salon about Gor enthusiasts recreating the series for real. The article is old enough that it's not tucked behind Salon's usual wall o' ads. It's totally free for the reading.

And per theantijoss_on_IJ, check out what Girl Wonder has to say about the Gor revival. Tamorah Pierce has a few choice words, too. Bellatrys_on_LJ has a whole collection of posts on Gor (scroll down to get to the really good, hard-core analysis of Gor). 

In the meantime, I'll be hoping like hell that Dark Horse loses oodles of money and earns a ton of bad publicity for trying to revive Gor.

Now I must cleanse my mind. Yeeeessss. I think I will watch the 'Crossover' episode of Deep Space Nine. Evil Kira in leather. It doesn't get any better than that.

X-posted to IJ, GJ, and JF

Comments

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Here's where I play devil's advocate and feel conflicted.

On the one hand -- Gor is about as disgusting as it gets. Period. I find those stories sick to a level I don't know how to adequately express, and I get off on that particular kink. I freely admit it. They are not my cup of tea.

On the other hand, they're also clearly a fantasy. Women have fantasies at being raped. Men fantasize about raping. I don't see how you can defend the one -- and I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I sure as hell do -- without equally defending the other.

It comes back to the same issue that circled around a few months ago, about how anything resembling child-sex was automatically grounds for calling the author a pedophile (this was not LJ/6A wank, just plain old regular fan wank, and a lot of permutations inside of it; this was one that struck me). Just because you read it, doesn't mean it's something you'd do in real life. Doesn't mean it's something you 'advocate', to use a word that got bandied a lot.

The biggest issue honestly, to me, is that it's easy to look at that and say "oh, god, you disgusting man-thing you" (again, my words, not yours) because it actually happens. Most sexual assaults are by men towards women. Period. Anything that smacks of vaguely condoning that puts our hackles up because it's shit we deal with every day in real life, without the pleasant fantasy barrier between us. There are not many women who do these kinds of things.

But here's where I trot out my personal issues -- just because it's majority doesn't mean there isn't a minority. Because there damned well is. And maybe that's coloring this, because it makes me slightly quicker to, hm, to not want to take sides so easily? I'm not sure how to phrase it, but.

The minute you cross the line between fantasy and reality, then yes. I will call you every name you imply here, and want you locked up forever.

But this isn't reality. It's fantasy. It's just as graphic as anything I've written, it's just as disturbing, and the fact that it has the potential to encourage bad responses is, to me, honestly irrelevant.

I just don't know how you justify one without having to justify the other, particularly as there's no way the demographic who actually might buy that comic is going to hear this. They don't want to. Either their so far along that it's not a question of where they get their fix, but what kind of lengths it takes them to find it -- or they know better and are in it for the fantasy, fully aware that reality is something different.

So. I'm torn.

That said, I hope this particular marketing ploy FAILS massively.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

Gah -- but I sure as hell do defend that right, not put yet more words in your mouth.

You know, it'd be fantastic if I could actually complete a thought.

[janedavitt.livejournal.com]

:;nods:; I hear you. I read them when I was a lot younger and into fantasy, fascinated in a sort of snake/bird kind of way. I had no access to fic that hit my kinks the way I do now (this was 25 years ago) and yeah, bits of them worked for me :;shrugs:;

But so very much of it didn't.

Part of it was the sudden flip the series took early on from, if you took away the slavery aspects, a derivative but not unreadable fantasy with actual plot and some interesting aliens, to a treatise on Women: the subjugation of.

He lost the plot. He lost a sympathetic lead. He made Elizabeth, the Earth woman who tried to change the society and who was intelligent, sassy and brave into one of a gazillion slaves mouthing platitudes.

And he got oh my God, so boring. He'd do an entire chapter on the coins of Gor. No joke. They were travel guides.

And the men who were worshipped by the scores of slaves were deemed worthy of that worship because they had a penis. End of story. They could be cowardly jerks, and many were, but even the best, brightest, noblest woman would still be expected to get off on kneeling to them. Hey, you earn that, mate.

I don't think I could read one now without frothing at the mouth and I really wish they hadn't been resurrected, but I have to say, there was a man who got paid for writing the same book 30 times; got to admire the scam.

Oh -- and I've just remembered what finally pissed me off enough to stop reading. I read them out of order but I got the idea that he was visiting a different Earth culture that just happened to have a counterpart on Gor with the exact same traditions as on Earth (yes. I know). So the lead would go to a country with Eskimos, Vikings, or Red Indians, or whatever. And he'd always sleep with their slaves. Always.

Then he went to The Jungle, with slaves that were black and did he sleep with them? Oh, no. Not once. In fact, he took along white, blonde slaves to use.

I'll put up with a lot to finish a series because I'm like that, but dull AND racist was just a bit too much.

[jakeexperience.livejournal.com]

IAWTC. Despite its many flaws, the series is a fantasy and is not bad because the behavior can and does happen in real life.

[havocthecat]

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME.

Son of a bitch.

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

That was pretty much my reaction.

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

My Gor stories:

1. Waaay back in the late '70's, early '80's, in high school, I worked for WaldenBooks. This was when we had those Godawful paper inventory sheets.

I handled the SF section, and I kept telling the purchasing folks, yep, we still had five copies each of those Gor books. They just weren't sellin'! Eventually I had none, and they fell off the inventory sheet. My blow for non-ickiness, as far as I was concerned. (Not exactly hot sellers in West Texas, truth be told.)

2. I met the man at WorldCon, of all places, many years later. Little, skinny, balding guy. No creep vibes off of him at all. (But you should have seen folks see his badge, do a double-take, and *back away* like he was contagious.)

3. Was at a used book sale and came across a bunch of first editions for 0.50 each; sold them on eBay. Oddly enough, the "Donated by the Girl Scouts of Central Texas" stickers inside the front covers did not detract from their value...

That being said, they are badly written crappy porn, and I can't see why Dark Horse is reprinting them except for the weird cult factor. (Or that "Oooh, we're printing naughty books!" chuckle that guys who run comic book companies always seem to get.)

[liz-marcs.livejournal.com]

I suspect that there is a market for Gor.

I mean, after all, the books are legendary in reputation and because they're also hard to find. A smallish company could make a killing for a relatively small investment. At this point, I suspect the Gor series isn't exactly a high-priced investment. The 2000 article mentioned that the erotica publisher who temporarily managed to get the series to market invested only a few hundred thou and got a new book out of the deal.

So, it could be the naughty factor, or the cult factor, that's part of Dark Horse's decision-making process.

As for your story about John Norman...wow. I'm not even sure how to react to that story. Hell, for all we know, Norman probably writes 'em for kicks or to see how far he can push it. On the one hand, I feel kinda sorry for him.

[brigidsblest.livejournal.com]

The old Salon article on the Gor lifestyle was highly entertaining. If these losers really wanted to recreate that lifestyle accurately, they would be stealing each others' women at swordpoint and gutting any man who tried to stop them.

But that makes for either a short life (after getting gunned down by police) or a long prison term, so they're settling for 'consensual slavery'. *snort* As far as I understand it, the women in those books don't exactly have a choice in the matter. They don't work a paying job, they don't read, they don't vote, and they aren't thought of as real people. Try to take away some Gor-playing woman's job, vote, or internet message board, and watch all Hell break loose.

[tabaqui]

I have no idea how old i was when i first read Gor... Thirteen? Hrmmmm. I dunno. My brother had about ...ten of them, i think. I liked the first one. I liked 'Tarl Cabot' and how he spun around and almost killed his friend, this total off-the-hook 'warrior' reaction, and then they go off and Tarl tells his story and it was very, i dunno, H.G. Wells or whatever, with the style and the aliens and all.

Mostly, i read it for the cheap thrill of 'teh sex' in a *book* that was actually sorta kinda explict. Or, explicit to *me*, at that time, i think. I honestly don't remember how explicit it was anymore.

And i remember getting bored fairly quickly by the sameness of the plot and the sameness of the characters.

They had their 'day', as it were, and i'd be surprised if they actually made any money. They certainly opened my eyes to things that people did/wanted to do that i'd *never* dreamed of before. Otherwise...eh.

They were pretty forgettable.

[nebris.livejournal.com]

Once you've read "The Story of O", Gor is pretty tame actually. ;)

~M~

[humbleminion.livejournal.com]

It's deeply weird, slightly disturbing, and you've probably seen it before, but I am compelled to link to:

Houseplants of Gor!

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

The plant sobbed muchly as Borin laid down the watering can. It was not pleased. Too, it was wet. But this did not matter. It was plant.
"You have been well watered," said Borin.
"Yes," said the plant, "I have been well watered." Of course, it could be watered by its master at will.
"I have watered you well," said Borin.
"Yes, master," said the plant. "You have watered your plant well. I am plant, and as such I should be watered by my master."

//dies

Oh satire, how I love thee.

[nebris.livejournal.com]

I am both a Bondage Master and a sci-fi fanatic [Remember, we've talked about the old BSG] and you summed up my primary problem with Gor in four words: They are badly written. [Very low-rent ripoffs of ER Burroughs' "John Carter of Mars" really..should be called "The Slums of Barsoom"] I don't care that much about the 'moral issues'. The most awful behavior can be well written and I'll happily read it without any qualms at all.

However, this is the major pitfall of writing from an ideologically driven point of view. Just look the Left Behind books. [Slacktavist (http://slacktivist.typepad.com/slacktivist/left_behind/index.html) does a wonderfully vicious job of 'deconstructing' them] It can be done, of course, like CS Lewis and The Narnia books. But it is a tough road.

This is something that I have given a lot of thought to as I myself am doing such and worry about Story vs Ideology. You can get the general idea here (http://community.livejournal.com/e_speaks/31724.html) and read all I've finished so far - plus bits of Works In Progress - here (http://www.livejournal.com/tools/memories.bml?user=nebris&keyword=Witches+Cycle&filter=all). I suspect my struggle to maintain balance between Story and Ideology is at the heart of my slow progress.

~M~

..I freakin' love the evil Nerys..lol

[nocturnalista.livejournal.com]

In ninth grade, I took a Science Fiction Literature class. One of the required books was the first Gor book. Yikes.

As I recall, not only was it stupid, it was disgusting. At the time, I thought it was pretty cool to be able to read such "adult" fare for class, but in retrospect, I do wonder what the heck that teacher was thinking.

Why was it disgusting?

[greree.livejournal.com]

The first four books were pretty much standard sword and sandal. It was only after these that the female slavery themes began to dominate.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

This is the first time I've ever heard of Gor. This parody House Plants of Gor is the closest I've got to the books.

Sounds like a cheapo porn movie with delusions of being philosophy. Maybe if it attracts a bad enough word of mouth it'll make Dark Horse reconsider, dunno how many new female readers Buffy got them...

[bookworm-2005.livejournal.com]

I first encountered the Gor books about 8 years ago, when I was around 18 and canvassing used bookstores and the Library for interesting reading material to while away the boring hours of my night shift. I read one of the later books in the series first, the one where the main protagonist is invading/escaping (never could figure out which) the stronghold of the Insectsiod 'Gods'. I actually enjoyed it, especially the Insectsiod Culture parts, although I did skip over the boring bits! It was mostly about the protagonist's Quest, and how his perceptions of what he thought was reality were changed. There wasn't much sex, and the main female was regulated to the role of spoiled victim, so he had very little interaction with her or any other humans. The whole slave thing was only mentioned in passing, so I just passed it off as cultural relativism and thought no more of it. I liked the book enough that I decided to check out another one from the Library, and that's when Gor was forever ruined for me. That book was all about the sex and slavery, and although I usually enjoy a good kink!fic, I wasn't even able to finish that one - I think it was the Nomads one that was mentioned earlier, but I'm not sure. Anyway, what really turned me off of the whole series wasn't the mediocre writing or the hardcore slavery aspect, it was the underlying thread of 'this is natural, the way things should really be' that ran through the whole thing. It wasn't just that the native Gorians thought that way, which was to be expected, but rather that you got the definite impression that the author himself thought that way and it showed in the stories. What really raised my hackles was the way the Earth Woman (women?) who had the misfortune to end up in Gor adapted/converted so quickly. And not in a 'there are people I love here, have to take the bad with the good' way, either. No, there's a passage in one of the books where she feels sorry for her Earth sisters because they are 'forced' to be Free and she truly believes that they would be happier as slaves, that that is their true and rightful position is society! The spinelessness of the whole situation just sickened me. I kept having visions of transporting a modern woman, perhaps a Marine, into the Gor 'Verse and watching her kick ass, take names, and telling all those would-be 'rescuers' (and enslavers, rescuing a woman on Gor automatically makes her your slave) just where they could stick it!
Huh. Fanfic impulses. Must Resist! Nah, I don't think I could stand becoming familiar enough with the Gor 'verse to write a good fic in it, not even a fix-it fic.
The book gave me the same level of creepiness that I got from a hardcore snuff & cannibalism fic that I once accidentally encountered. The 'if only Magic were real and I could obliviate myself of that' vibe. Yuck. I haven't touched a Gor book since. Major creepiness, yuck, yuck!

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

my serene bookstore look: the one perfected over several years and honed in the fires of born-again customers trying to convert me to the Gospel according to Tim LaHaye, teenagers sneaking into the erotica section, and little kids running rampant in the children's section.
It's a look that's somewhat mask-like, coolly polite, vaguely condescending, and gives the cusomter abso-fraggin'-lutely nothing for their trouble

//snorts Clearly, I need to develop that.

[simonf.livejournal.com]

I would love to know the reasoning behind a company that heavily promoted Joss Whedon and Equality Now all over the web (see this press release for details) but yet feels the need to sell Gor books.

[jgracio.livejournal.com]

€
$
£

[sailorcelestial.livejournal.com]

Have you read the little summary on the Dark Horse website about the omnibus?


John Norman’s Gor Omnibus Vol. 1

Writer: John Norman
Genre: Action/Adventure, Fantasy

When Tarnsman of Gor was first published in 1966, author John Norman introduced the world to Tarl Cabot, a man ripped from his homeland and cast across space to the savage world of Gor, where thousands of kidnapped prisoners toiled as slaves for the all-powerful Priest-Kings.

Part science fiction, part adventure novel, the stories in the world of Gor would unfold to show Tarl Cabot's growth from a novice to a man whose fate might determine the course of every man, woman, and child on Gor.

John Norman's Gor Omnibus 1 collects the first three novels in the series. Prepare to take a journey to a land of passion and sorcery.

I'd say they forgot to mention something....

[wesleysgirl.livejournal.com]

I've never read the books, but always had the impression that they were poorly-written cheesy schlock. I remember there being quite a few of them in the SciFi club library at college, and I assume someone must have read them, but I don't remember ever having seen anyone READING them. But someone must have.

Millions of people read them.

[greree.livejournal.com]

Few will admit it.

[melfinatheblue.livejournal.com]

Um, can we export Zoe there with Jayne's arsenal?
After reading the comments I have a deep burning desire to do this. Oh, and Buffy too.
I'm going to be happy I've not read these now.

[fangirlsays.livejournal.com]

I would pay good money* if someone would write this.

*If I had good money, that is.

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

I've been away of the Gor novels but I never really knew what they were about. I always figured they were more sword and sorcery shtick and since that isn't my shtick I didn't pay attention.

I worked in a comic book store for several years and there was a regular there how set off the meter. He two was a business suited, clean cut, white male. But he never tried to engage me in that kind of conversation. Yeesh! What is the purpose of trying to rattle someone's cage like that? I wish I could manage the blank wall of death. :)

[luridmuse.livejournal.com]

scary/sadly enough there are people who try to "live" the life of Gor in real life.
I've met several who "own" slaves and keep them in cages, and treat them just like the women from the books.

John Norman and Hubbard should go bowling together, since they both wrote up fantasy books people try to live by. ick

Hubbard

[artistshipper.livejournal.com]

Does Norman actually advocate that people live that way though?

Hubbard's far worse in my book. His Pseudo-religion has engaged in so much Fraud, Harassment, and Filing of frivolous lawsuits that even the IRS was intimidated away from investigating them. Any organization that can bully the IRS is way too damn influential for comfort. Especially an organization that runs a friggin' slave-ship in international waters.

Just as an aside...

[controlledfall.livejournal.com]

The episode of MST3K wherein they roast the movie "Outlaw", based on the book Outlaw of Gor, is pretty freakin' hilarious, however. It's got Jack Palance in it!

publishers

[(Anonymous)]

Dark horse brought us the "Star Wars: Dark Empire" series. You were expecting quality work from them?

Though, I must say, this new development brings Dark horse down to rock bottom on my list of publishing companies, below even Jefferson Mills (which is a craptastic publishing company which is as low as you can get on teh customer satisfaction scale), and only barely above Llewelyn (which treats some of it's authors almost as badly as it's customers... and there no honest way of putting it other than to say that Llewelyn blatantly cheats many of it's customers.)

[jadziadrgnrdr.livejournal.com]

Hi, hi

This conversation is fascinating and as an enthusiast of dom/ noncon stories it is of particular interest but really I just wanted to give you a 'big ups' for the Deep Space 9 love and the Browncoat love. "Burn the land and boil the sea. You can't take the sky from me."