John Norman Introduces Volumes 4-6 of His Bestselling Gorean Saga

Introduction to The Gorean Saga Volumes 4-6
By John Norman

#4 Nomads of Gor
#5 Assassin of Gor
#6 Raiders of Gor

The concept of an unknown planet in our system, of a particular and interesting sort, rather unlike other planets, perhaps a mysterious sister or visitor to more familiar worlds, is quite an old concept.
The expression in Greek, transliterated into English letters, is “Antichthon,” which we may translate as “Counter-Earth.”
The Greeks, you see, had the concept of another Earth, a different Earth, a “Counter-Earth.”
It is interesting to speculate on these matters, to wonder, for example, from whence came this ancient, provocative concept. Had they evidence we do not? Had something touched them, perhaps carelessly, or inadvertently, long ago, at a given moment, a moment which was seldom, if ever, repeated, or, if repeated, repeated more selectively, less obtrusively? In any event, the universe is a mysterious place, and when it first opened its eyes, here or there, in one species or another, for it is through the eyes of its children that the universe sees, it doubtless began to suspect how unusual and strange it was, how sublime, mighty, vast, beautiful, terrible, indifferent, and cruel it was, how lovely, and strange it was.
In any event, speculation on the existence of the Counter-Earth is ancient.
I do not think there is much point in going into the Pythagorean cosmology in which this concept figured.
Suffice it to say that the Greeks, as the expression makes clear, did have a conception of the Counter-Earth.
I find this exciting.
Doubtless there are many Earths, grains of sand washed up on the scattered, endless beaches of space, but let us concern ourselves with one such world, a possible world, which we will call the “Counter-Earth.” Surely it, or something like it, exists somewhere.
Might it lie as close to us as was speculated, or feared, by ancient astronomers and mathematicians, whatever might have been the basis of their conjectures, whatever might have been the foundations for their belief?
One does not know.
Surely somewhere there is a Gor, or something like a Gor. Is it not a mathematical certainty? But perhaps not. But, if not, is it not a tragedy to suppose that our own world is the only world, so to speak, the only world in a cosmos in which galaxies are as plentiful as blackberries, endless horizons of blackberries? Could the universe not do better than produce our world, with its spawn of hatred, pollution, greed, corruption, misery, and fanaticism? One would hope so.
The Gorean world, of course, is not perfect.
To be sure, many would exchange it, quickly enough, happily enough, for ours.
It is surely not a Utopia but who would care to spend one’s life in a Utopia; would you not attempt to escape at the first opportunity? Some seem prisons, others cribs, perhaps padded cells, appropriate enough for any so foolish as to seek them. One notes that most propounders of Utopias wisely forbear specificities, preferring to leave the details of their projected paradises conveniently obscure. In this way, one may fill in matters with much the same liberty as is accorded to the reader of Rorschach blots. Fill in the blank checks as you wish, but, alas, there is no bank on which they may be drawn. Too often the road to paradise leads to the gates of hell. Did not Hegel lead to the Gestapo and Marx to the KGB?
So the Gorean world is far from a Utopia. It is replete with hazards and perils, and there are humans there, and humans come with natures, natures forged in the smithies of hunger, suffering, and war; natures alert to the small sounds of a predator’s paw, to the broken twig and dislodged pebble, to the scent of game, to the menace of strangers, to the grace of a lonely, uncaptured female, to the scarcity of resources. Human beings are complex, rich, and deep. Would you have them otherwise, really? But Gor is a green world, a fresh world, a world unpolluted, a world such as our Earth might once have been, and may never be again. One misses the grasses of Gor, flowing in the wind.
Let us embark on some remarks, having to do with Gor. There are many premises on which this unusual series is based, and it will not be remiss, I suppose, and it might be helpful, to call our attention to two or three of these. There is much to be said concerning each of these premises, incidentally, but the constraints of time and space effectively militate against any extensive explanation, against informative, multiplex detail.
1. Gor is near. Presumably it is an immigrant to our solar system, governed by masters of gravity, perhaps having sought a viable sun, deserting a dying star, and may emigrate, should it be deemed judicious, and be the will of her masters.
2. The word ‘Gor’ in Gorean means “Home Stone.” Gor and Earth have a common star, which we call Sol, and which in Gorean is spoken of as “Tor-tu-Gor,” which would translate as “Light upon the Home Stone.” It is not easy to convey to one unfamiliar with Gor the nature, the meaning, of the Home Stone, so we will not attempt to do so, certainly not within our present limits. Let it be said that a city, a town, a village, will have a Home Stone; too, even a peasant’s hut is likely to have its Home Stone, and the peasant, in his hut, with its Home Stone, is, in effect, a ruler, a king, a monarch, a Ubar. A human being without a Home Stone is a fragment, a leaf at the mercy of the wind. He is alone, shorn of fellowship. He lacks brethren. Who will care for him? Should he be in need, who will stand with him? Those with whom he shares a Home Stone. Without a Home Stone how is he important? How shall one justify his existence who has no Home Stone? The humans of Earth, and their domiciles, and their cities and towns, many of them, it seems, lack Home Stones. One wonders if they understand the emptiness of their skies, their poverty.
3. The human being is not the dominant life form on Gor. That form is the Sardar, or, as Tarl Cabot, whom one will encounter in the series, will have it, the “Priest-King.” These are the masters, even the gods, of Gor, at least for those limited to the First Knowledge. They have imposed technology restrictions on humans on Gor. It is, after all, their world, and they see no point in risking its ruination at the hands of a reckless, unsupervised hominid species, one brought to Gor over millennia, largely for aesthetic and scientific purposes. Gor, for the Priest-Kings, you see, is rather like a zoological or botanical garden, or an observational laboratory, if you wish, which they have stocked, bit by bit, with an interesting variety of species, exotic and otherwise, from throughout the galaxy, over millennia, as it pleased them. Priest-Kings, on the other hand, it should be noted, while enforcing their technology restrictions on humans, particularly those dealing with weaponry, transportation, and communication, accord human beings almost total freedom, allowing them to behave much as they like, killing one another, loving one another, whatever be their wont.

I wish you well,
John Norman.

Note from E-Reads: Readers and fans interested in learning more about John Norman and his Gorean world can visit John Norman's Chronicles of Gor.

John Norman Introduces Volumes 1-3 of His Bestselling Gorean Saga

Introduction to The Gorean Saga Volumes 1-3
By John Norman
#1 Tarnsman of Gor
#2 Outlaw of Gor
#3 Priest-Kings of Gor

Our spirits rouze at an Original; that is a perfect stranger, and all throng to learn what news from a foreign land ...
Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

Rules, like Crutches, are a needful aid to the Lame, tho’ an Impediment to the Strong.
Edward Young, Conjectures on Original Composition (1759)

The Gorean series, to the best of my knowledge, is the longest, most complex, most carefully worked out single-world series in the history of science fiction, or, if you prefer, adventure fantasy. On the other hand, the Gorean series has grown, like a forest, in “foreign lands.” It is not really science fiction, as that genre is normally understood, nor is it adventure fantasy, in the usual way that genre is understood. It transcends genres and its ships beach on unusual shores. For better or for worse it is an “Original,” and it bears all the interest of a new literary form, and risks all the perils of the same. The Gorean books, unlike much science fiction and adventure fantasy, have their affinities not with the politically filtered, formulaic multitudes that today burden the shelves of bookstores teetering on the brink of bankruptcy but serious literature. The Gorean books are not literary baby food. They are more than adventure fantasy, so to speak. They are also, in their way, intellectual, philosophical, and psychological novels. They contain ideas, and, as if that were an insufficiently grievous fault in itself, the ideas do not in all instances echo, propound, and promote the narrow, politically correct nonsense insisted upon by the small number of wary, insecure individuals who, for the most part, control what you will and will not be permitted to read. A fox, it seems, is feared in the hen house. Hence the blacklisting, to which E-Reads, a nonestablishment house, is unwilling to subscribe. More power to them, and to others, who believe in a free press, oppose censorship, favor diversity, despise intolerance, and, in general, do not much care to be told what they may and may not think, and what they may and may not do.

Perhaps one or two further observations might be in order.

The Gorean books are written for adults, not in the sense of WOW, but in the sense that the ideas, the vocabulary, the depth of literary engagement, and such, is beyond children, as well as, apparently, some critics. In any event, the Gorean books are written for adults, highly intelligent adults, and highly sexed adults, of both sexes. Too, they are written for the whole adult, intellectual, psychological, and emotional. They recognize the radical centrality, for example, of sexuality in human life. Most science fiction and adventure fantasy seems to be written for one-fifth of the human being. The Gorean books are written for the whole human being. Further, they are aware of the whole human being, and not the mere one-fifth of a human being which many writers confuse with the entire human being. I wonder if they understand the other four-fifths exist, or give any thought to the true nature of that other four-fifths. Too, of course, ideas, and sexuality, in their ways, frighten many people. I find that surprising, but it seems to be true. Some people would rather die than think, just as some others who can think would rather die than act. I have tried, in my way, to do both, to inquire, to learn, to think, and to act, for example, by writing books which do not eschew or deny that other four-fifths of our minds and hearts. Naturally, this has disturbed a number of people, writers of stagnant juveniles who would like to restrict an entire genre of literature within their own limited horizons, mediocre editors, fearful of a free literature, who are less editors than political partisans intent on imposing their own views on a dwindling readership, and the moral cretins and sexual retardates with which science fiction is so abundantly blessed. They have every right, of course, to deny themselves inordinate pleasures, and they have every right to try to persuade you to deny yourself inordinate pleasures, but you, too, in these matters, have a right, which is that of declining to enter into their small, dark, ugly, Puritanical world.

Secondly, I fear I am a “stranger, from a foreign land,” so to speak. I am a foreigner from the point of view of an establishment. I arrived from nowhere, certainly uninvited, and soon resented as an intruder. Worse, I never bothered to establish credentials, or sue for citizenship. I have not condescended to flatter an establishment, though I understand the value of such a thing in securing acceptance and advancement. I do not do that, as I find it distasteful. Similarly, I have never cultivated large frogs in small ponds. So I am an outsider, kept on the margins of the pack. As yet I have not been picked off by the leopards. I am grateful, of course, for the success that I have known, in millions of books sold, prior to the blacklisting, movies made, and the world-wide Gorean phenomenon on the internet, a country not yet under the tyranny of a single, intellectually uniform, politically motivated establishment. This success, of course, is not due to being favored and advanced by the contemporary exponents of monothink, but to my work, and my readers. The market, when it was open and free, was kind to me. One tends to be grateful for such things. I have never written for others, but for myself. To write for others is to be a hack, or, worse, a white-collar prostitute. I do not disparage individuals who write as the political winds blow, or the polls of editors indicate, but I have never done it. In evolution, it is said that genes cast the dice, and the environment selects the winning numbers. That is, in effect, what I did. I wrote as I would, as honestly, as well, as authentically, as I could. And then I waited to see what would happen, and I was much pleased. I have striven for greatness. I do not expect to achieve it, of course, but what is the point of writing, or of doing anything, if one does not strive for that? I have set my course by that star. What else is worth doing? I would rather fail in that voyage than stay at home. Wouldn’t you?

I wish you well,
John Norman

Note from E-Reads: Readers and fans interested in learning more about John Norman and his Gorean world can visit John Norman's Chronicles of Gor.

The Client From Hell

The Client From Hell
By Richard Curtis

Introduction

Writing is extremely hard work, and writing funny is one of the hardest kinds of writing there is. The world is such a tragic place that it does not, it seems to me, require great creativity to depict its misery; any good journalist can do it. But to show it as silly against all evidence to the contrary--oh, that is very hard to do. For that reason, of all the things I have had published I am proudest of my humor.

I produced a lot of it when I was a full-time professional writer, and I enjoyed some gratifying successes. Several humor pieces appeared in Playboy, garnering a couple of the magazine's annual awards in the Best Satire category. As evidence I submit two foot-high lucite monoliths in which are embedded silver bunny medallions engraved with my name. They serve as bookends in my office.

The exigencies of starting my literary agency compelled me to stop writing, however, and that's how it stood until I began writing a column for Charles Brown's science fiction trade publication, Locus. The subject of my column was the publishing business.

Those of us who toil in that trade don't always have either the opportunity or the objectivity to see the comical aspects of what we do. For one seeking a dark view of our industry there is much confirmation: publishers gobbling each other up, dedicated editors summarily released from long-held jobs, an antique and horrifyingly wasteful system of distribution, books orphaned and ruined by corporate indifference, cruel inequities between a pampered handful of best-selling authors and a host of desperately underpaid and unappreciated ones--well, I could go on and on. And I did, chronicling these and other harsh realities in my column for twelve years.

As time went by, however, I achieved a bit of perspective, and began to see the ridiculous side of our enterprises. The world is indeed a tragic place, and if you take for your measure of tragedy such horrors as the destruction of the World Trade Center in the United States, mass starvation in Ethiopia, chemical genocide in Iran, murderous warfare in Israel, and floods in Bangladesh, then the horrors of orphaned books, underpromoted authors, and bankrupt publishers do seem petty, pathetic, and preposterous by comparison.

Besides, even at their most earnest, authors and publishing people are very funny. Maybe that is because we consider ourselves descendants of Eighteenth Century wits, the bearers of the torch of reason that illuminates human folly. Or maybe it's because the dispositions of writers and editors are, more often than not, sunny. And why should they not be? Compared to workers in most other fields, publishing people have it pretty easy. As for authors, though they are an oppressed class, you only have to hold their oppression up against that of South African miners or Mexican farm laborers to keep things in proportion.

Most of the lampoons in this book were originally published in Locus. I am grateful to Charles Brown for tolerating their appearance in its pages, as he told me on more than one occasion that he did not feel his publication is the appropriate forum for satire.

As for the poems, toward the end of 1986, the phenomenon of editorial job-hopping in the publishing industry reached such a frenzied state that I was compelled to pen a few score lines of good-humored Iambic tetrameter about it. These were accepted by Publishers Weekly, the magazine of the publishing trade--in large measure, I believe, because they included the only known rhyme with the name of the then-Bantam executive, Lou Aronica. After the first one, and for several years thereafter, PW editor John Baker called me every autumn requesting another. He seemed to be under the impression that poetic inspiration is seasonally guaranteed, like the running of maple sap. Luckily, the turbulence of the publishing world proved to be unending, and as long as publishers went on devouring each other or playing musical chairs or overpaying for dreadful books, I endeavored to rise to the challenge of setting it all forth in rhyme.

Fair reader, you are well advised not to linger over the specific names of the personalities who populate these poems. Instead, read them for the gist, as you might read a Milton poem laden with classical references. (Not that I would presume to compare myself to Milton, unless you mean the late television comedian Milton Berle.) In fact, the faster you read the poems, the more you will appreciate the frenetic madness of the last decade. I will, however, be happy to annotate the names for scholars sifting through the midden of that once-great civilization known as book publishing.