Tarnsman of Gor

Written by John Norman

Narrated by Ralph Lister

Tarl Cabot has always believed himself to be a citizen of Earth. He has no inkling that his destiny is far greater than the small planet he has inhabited for the first twenty-odd years of his life. One frosty winter night in the New England woods, he finds himself transported to the planet of Gor, also known as Counter-Earth, where everything is dramatically different from anything he has ever experienced. It emerges that Tarl is to be trained as a Tarnsman, one of the most honored positions in the rigid, caste-bound Gorean society. He is disciplined by the best teachers and warriors that Gor has to offer…but to what end?

This is the first book of John Norman's popular and controversial Gorean Saga, a series of novels the author began in 1967 with Tarnsman of Gor and are now considered cult classics. This audiobook is based on the definitive edition recently published by E-Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jun 15, 2010
• ISBN: 9781441843012

John Norman

John Norman is the creator of the Gorean Saga, the longest-running series of adventure novels in science fiction history. He is also the author of the science fiction series the Telnarian Histories, as well as Ghost Dance, Time Slave, The Totems of Abydos, Imaginative Sex, and Norman Invasions. Norman is married and has three children.

Reviews for Tarnsman of Gor

[Tytti Luikku · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent story and marvellous reader. I was completly swipt away to this counter earth story. Funny, imaginative and full of adventure. Too bad it ended already.

[sotonohito · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

I found it in a used bookstore, noticed that it was part of a long series, and thought "hmmm, it can't be too horrible if they published this many sequels". As the astute reader can tell, I was quite young at the time and hadn't realized just how many truly awful sequels are published every year.The Gor series seems to be written as erotica for 1930's era mysogynasts. There aren't even any sex scenes as payoff for reading all the turgid prose promoting the idea that women are sex slaves by their essential nature.Modern books offer better philosophy, better storytelling, and better sex. My advice is to ignore the Gor series.

[madmaxwell_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

While I have heard of the infamous Gor Series over the years from associates and friends, I had never took the time to actually read one of them, assuming I knew all I needed to know from the gossip I heard. I eventually broke down and read the first title in the series one night, needing something quick and self contained to sate my fiction appetite. All I can say is that Tarnsman of Gor was nothing like I expected at all. On one hand, it wasn't as bad as I had heard, the gratuitous sexual material nonexistent and the pervasive chauvinistic themes extremely low-key. On the other hand, it was not nearly as entertaining as I have heard it claimed to be. It was a pretty mediocre first person narrative of a generic fantasy land, nothing more, nothing less. While I understand it laid the foundation for the numerous following titles in the series, this first entry is no where near as epic as fans would have you believe. The book is thankfully short, and the action flows quickly, and there were times when I anxiously awaited what was going to happen next, but they were few and far between, as the book followed a fairly predictable storyline. The writing style is clear and concise, if a bit on the simplistic side, and at times, it seems the author just wanted to use obscure terms in place of commonplace words, just to prove that he had an English degree. If you're looking for something quick to read, with some interesting fantasy/action moments, give the book a try. Though if you're looking for something with a little more meat, I would suggest you try elsewhere, perhaps the John Carter of Mars series.

[stevetempo_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Very pulpy...nothing serious...just a good quick escaping read in the tradition of older science fiction and fantasy.

[terpsichoreus · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The first of the infamous S&M fantasy series of the world of Gor is a rather unremarkable adventure book. Taking cue from Burroughs' John Carter of Mars, Norman gives us an Earthling sent to survive on savage, alien world. However, instead of John Carter, a cowboy and Civil War vet right out of Wister's 'The Virginian', Norman's hero is a mild-mannered British professor. His transformation from comical figure to unrivaled warrior is swift and inexplicable. Such a man might learn to become a soldier, to wield a sword, but that isn't good enough for Norman. His hero becomes literally the greatest soldier and swordsmen on his new, savage home.However, Norman does not want us to question his plot or characters. He gives us a wild, melodramatic, unbelievable adventure without a hint of lightheartedness. Indeed, Norman seems to take every moment seriously, and with a swaggering machismo that dares us to laugh at it.When Terb son of Terb (trained by Terb the viking to be a Terb-rider) defeats a dozen armed men with his arms literally tied behind his back, we are supposed to soberly marvel at his manliness. We are also meant to maintain this awe through a whole book-full of similarly unbelievable battles. This isn't to say that the fight scenes aren't fun, just that the author doesn't think they are.There is also the training of the giant death-birds that the protagonist learns to ride. The birds are vicious and prone to attacking and even eating their riders. To combat this, the riders use handheld tasers to discipline the birds. There are two problems with this.Firstly, we can imagine that training these birds would be akin to training a large predator, that is, a predator large enough to consider us prey. We can train cats and dogs pretty easily, since they don't consider us to be 'on the menu', but training these birds would be more like training a tiger. This can be done, but its an imprecise science, as even after years of familiarity and training, even a hand-raised tiger can turn on its handler.Beyond that, we don't train them by taser, since this would tend to provoke a fear reaction in the animal. This means the animal is either going to run or fight you. This brings us to the second problem: these are birds.If you threaten a bird, it will just fly away from you and that's the end. Training falcons requires them to see you as the primary source of food, and this training is difficult to maintain. Even well-trained falcons will sometimes just fly off when released to hunt. This requires chasing the thing down, isolating it, and netting it. Now imagine that you're trying to chase and net a tiger through the woods.The training should have looked like a combination between how we train large predators like tigers and how we train animals which could easily escape us at any moment, like falcons. I don't require that an author do that kind of research to maintain realism, but I do require that if he hasn't done the research, he shouldn't then make some hand-waving claim about tasers. Now, back to sex slavery:The first book also only very lightly enters into the recurring theme of female sex slavery which comes to define the rest of the series. That every woman in the book is a slave at one point or another, and is helplessly in need of a man despite her strong will comes only as a minor annoyance in this book rather than an overpowering obsession.The insecurities of the author become all-too-blatant as one reads on. Firstly, Norman requires the fantastical escapism of a hero who is a simple, bookish man (with mommy issues) who becomes an unstoppable killing force (and lover) beholden to no man or god. Beyond this, he also requires a no-nonsense, manly rationalism worthy of Hemingway. Either one alone might be enjoyable, but the schizophrenic conflict between realism and hyperbole becomes a constant strain on the book's tone.The plot is also so circular and serendipitous to sometimes be painful. The constant coincidences move the plot along at a clip, but there is little draughtsmanship in it. Like Jane Austen, every character will return in the climax, everyone will end up married and happy, and all the bad guys will be defeated. Everything will be neatly accounted for in an avalanche of details and events, so much so that the ever-piling climax had me laughing aloud with each new addition.It is not only his plots but his romanticism which resembles Austen. His hero is an ideal in honesty, love, and purity, as well as swordsmanship and willpower. Not only will his somber superman enact a master-slave relationship with his chosen mate, but that relationship will be a pure and courtly love, undying and perfect. That Tarb (Tarb-riding son of Tarb) frees every enslaved woman he finds only makes conspicuous the fact that he the then enslaves them utterly with the purity of his heart's love.It's not enough to enslave a woman, or even to do so against her histrionic strong will, but she must also be enslaved by her own desires and emotions, since the chain will never be strong enough. Of course, it shouldn't surprise us that Norman sees love as slavery, because only complete emotional control of a woman can overcome his personal insecurities.Of course, in that, Norman follows the unbalanced ideals of many marriages and relationships: one need not live on far-off Gor to think that romance may be secured by the simple application of a jeweled band of gold.Norman's writing isn't bad. Indeed, he is often evocative and exciting. He is competent enough to outshine most modern writers, especially in fantasy, but the way his insecurities bleed out from his pen is increasingly awkward.It's like a guy who acts big and tough, except once you were hanging out and he tore his pants on a fence and you saw that he has a tattoo of a cartoon poodle on his thigh. If he showed it off and proudly admitted liking cartoon poodles, that would be one thing, but he's never mentioned it, and he always wears long pants, and you just remembered when he declined to go skinny dipping and just stood on the beach skipping rocks.But now you've seen it, and you can't unsee it. Did he notice you looking? It doesn't matter, because you'll never buy the macho-man routine again, if you ever really did. The illusion is broken.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

If you don't know by now, this is a fantasy work and John Norman's particular fantasy seems to have been submissive women dominated by men. If that's a deal-breaker for you, just pass these by. If you can look past that kind of thing, then you might enjoy some totally trashy escapism of the John Carter of Mars variety. The sex is all off-camera; the misogyny is reasonably restrained through the first few volumes; the action is brisk; the plots uncomplicated; the world fairly detailed; the good guy usually triumphs.I read the first few as a teenager and, while not adding them to my list of favorite books, enjoyed them to one degree or another. However, the series deteriorates fairly rapidly. Though I think there are over 25 entries in the series, I wouldn't even consider much beyond the first five. As the volumes progress, Norman replaces ever more action with someone spouting theories about how happy women are to be slaves. Even if this particular viewpoint doesn't bother you, he becomes just plain boring!

[Charlene · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I read this book over 40 years ago and enjoyed the plot and characters just as much as the first time. It reminds me very much of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Mars series. Good reading.