The Gorean Saga by John Norman

The entire Gorean Saga of novels by John Norman is now available in all ebook formats and will be available in September in trade paperback at Amazon.com.

When John Norman’s Gor series started appearing in 1967, the books were originally seen as being in the planetary adventure tradition of books like Edgar Rice Burroughs’s legendary John Carter of Mars series combined with alternate historical heroic fantasy series like Robert E. Howard’s Conan. The books developed a wide and enthusiastic readership over the course of original publication of the series, which ended in 1988.

However, one particular aspect of the society on Norman’s invented world both caught the imagination of the readership and, ultimately, provoked a storm of controversy as the popularity of the books grew. In the universe of Gor, women are invariably regarded as slaves and chattel property of men—and the women wholeheartedly believe that this is the way things should be and everyone is happy with the situation.

Given that the publication of the series coincided with the first phases of development of the feminist social movement in America, perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that a major controversy developed. Nonetheless, the near-disappearance of the entire series from public view was a surprising and baffling result—popular books with an established audience and a successful track record of steady and growing sales became inexplicably unavailable. Norman himself has suggested the possibility of a conspiracy to suppress his work and has, in turn, been accused of paranoia and having a persecution complex. But even those who don’t see conspiracies everywhere are brought to wonder how this series of books defied all publishing expectations and became “lost” to the general public for a period of many years.

In any case, readers no longer have to haunt dusty used bookstores and back alleys to get their full fix of the wonderfulness that is Gor and E-Reads and Fictionwise are proudly making available the entire run of the series in downloadable file formats for all versions of the online reading experience.

A courageous and daring print publisher (Dark Horse) is beginning the process of bringing the earliest books back into availability in mass market omnibus form as well—but why wait when you can have them all on your reading device Right Now? Start at the beginning with Tarnsman of Gor or just buy the whole set right away. You won’t regret the investment and you’ll have a splendid opportunity to learn what the fuss is all about and make up your own mind about Gor.

Are you game?

Readers and fans interested in learning more about John Norman and his Gorean world can visit John Norman's Chronicles of Gor.

- Richard Curtis