Xenograffiti by Robert Reginald Page B

FANTASY (1983)
    It is difficult to be fair when writing of John Norman’s Gor novels. On the one hand, they have sold in the aggregate perhaps five million copies, making this series one of the most popular contemporary novel sequences in imaginative literature. On the other hand, they have been almost universally castigated by the critics, who claim that they are poorly written and highly derivative and that they espouse a philosophy of cruelty and sexual bondage that is at best morally reprehensible.
    John Lange (pronounced “lenj”) is a curious candidate for such controversy, being in real life a mild-mannered professor of philosophical logic at a New York university. So shy is he of publicity that for years after publication of his first novel, he refused to reveal his identity or address to fans, having all his mail forwarded through his publisher; it has only been in recent years that he has consented to appear at a few fan conventions and to be interviewed by the press. Even now, he makes no effort to publicize his work or to cater to the desires of his readers. He keeps his professional work completely separate from what he considers to be a private avocation.
    Yet the controversy continues. The first Gor novel, Tarnsman of Gor , appeared in 1966 from Ballantine Books. Thereafter, the books were published at the rate of one volume a year in the following order: Outlaw of Gor (1967), Priest-Kings of Gor (1968), Nomads of Gor (1969), Assassin of Gor (1970), Raiders of Gor (1971), and Captive of Gor (1972). The eighth book, Hunters of Gor , although announced by Ballantine, was ultimately rejected by Betty Ballantine and sold to Donald A. Wollheim at DAW Books; it appeared early in 1974. Thereafter, DAW released seventeen more novels in the series before killing it: Marauders of Gor (1975), Tribesmen of Gor (1976), Slave Girl of Gor (1977), Beasts of Gor (1978), Explorers of Gor (1979), Fighting Slave of Gor (1980), Rogue of Gor (1981), Guardsman of Gor (1981), Savages of Gor (1982), Blood Brothers of Gor (1982), Kajira of Gor (1983), Players of Gor (1984), Mercenaries of Gor (1985), Dancer of Gor (1985), Renegades of Gor (1986), Vagabonds of Gor (1987), and Magicians of Gor (1988), the twenty-fifth and final volume in the series.
    Tarl Cabot, a college professor at a New England school, is kidnapped by an alien spaceship while on a camping trip and awakes on Gor, a planet that has been artificially moved into an orbit on the opposite side of the sun from Earth. Gor is a barbarous world peopled by cruel warriors bound into a rigid caste system that segregates men and women partly by innate ability, partly by heredity. Tarl’s father, Matthew Cabot, is the administrator of a Gorean city; he orders that his son be trained for the highest caste, the warriors. The younger Cabot soon learns the use of the sword, spear, and knife, and he is trained to fight aboard the fierce tarns, giant birds that carry their warrior-masters into battle. Weaponry on Gor is strictly limited by the unseen Priest-Kings, who use their superior technology to destroy attempts by inventors to introduce gunpowder or other modern improvements in their armaments. Tarl is determined to discover the secret of the Priest-Kings, and he penetrates their stronghold. There he participates in a civil war between two factions of the antlike creatures, a conflict that destroys much of their headquarters. The surviving Priest-Kings enlist Tarl on a crusade against the Kurii, the Beasts, bear-like enemies of the Priest-Kings who threaten to take both Earth and Counter-Earth as their new home. The Kurii’s original world has been destroyed; they now survive only in space bases and ships, from which they conduct periodic raiding parties on the two planets. The Kurii remain unaware of the Priest-Kings’ helplessness; consequently, they fear to invade either world directly, but conduct clandestine operations against both.
    Tarl is waylaid on his first mission as