Witness of Gor

Rating:
Summary: What a waste
Review: I have read all of the Gor books. When he writes about the action he is great but when he writes about the male female relationships it gets boring. I mean we have read the same thing in all of the books, we get it already. He has dragged this story out for 5 books as is. To not progress the story line at least a little further was stupid. I waited 14 years for this crap!!!!! Just end the story already. If he thinks the reason he got another chance to complete the story was because of the slave/master relationships in the book he is wrong. I admit there are some devoted readers that love that(based on the sale prices for Slave Girl) but most of us like the political plotting and sword play. Oh well. Maybe the next book will take place in AR.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome Back to Gor! But it could have been better.
Review: John Norman as his best when he is romantic. The romance was done badly in this most recent Gor book.

Please don't be surprised if I class these BDSM books as romances. What makes a book a "romance" is that the girl always, by contrivance of the author, ends up in the arms (and the chains) of the one man in the world who is Meant For Her.

In Norman's earlier books, the girl would at first hate and resist, flee or betray, be caught by, and surrender to, the man Meant For Her.

Despite the sick and savage elements of whips and chains, there is still a version of romance in Norman's writing, a true love that conquers all obstacles.

But in WITNESS, the viewpoint character, a slave-girl kidnapped from Earth, doesn't fall in love, does not flee or betray or hate, and is not found and conquered again by her one and only True Love.

Instead, as an afterthought, in a very late chapter, she does end up with the clerk or guard that first opened the crate she was shipped in and stamped her papers, but this fellow is clearly a nobody.

He is never given a name or a description, and has nothing to do in the plots or adventures of the planet Gor.

My impression is that Norman was near the end of his manuscript, decided he needed a love interest, flipped through the pages near the beginning, and picked a male character by closing his eyes and stabbing a page with a pin. It was a slap-dash and careless ending.

She could have fallen in love with someone else. In one scene, the main character was supposed to be sent to torment the mysterious prisoner of the Pits of Treve with her allure, a half-mad creature whom she fears and hates. I anticipated scenes where the girl would come to pity the prisoner, hate yielding to human sympathy; pity then yielding to admiration as she detected his hidden strengths. This would culminate in a love affair (which, on Gor, involves utter surrender on the part of the girl). Ah! That would have been a satisfying scene, showing that love can be found even by a brain-damaged mad peasant in the deepest dungeon (or is he a peasant, really?).

I was disappointed that nothing of the relation between the slave-girl and the prisoner she is supposed to be serving (and tempting) ever takes place. She spends weeks or months in the cell with this guy, but not a single line of dialog between them, not a single onstage scene, is shown.

Had she been the love-interest of the mysterious prisoner, her (and our) interest would have been engaged during the action and intrigue surrounding his escape attempt. As it was, the whole book seemed a little flat and detached.

It would have been easy to convince me that the slave-girl was pretty damn impressed with the brain-damaged peasant after he offs half a dozen trained killers. Or I might have been convinced she was impressed with the hideously deformed Master of the Pit, once she saw his humanity and wisdom behind his gruesome face. I might have even been convinced she could fall for the Warlord of Treve, a kingly figure whose troubled inner nature she glimpses. These were the characters that were onstage, doing mighty deeds, and these should have been the ones attracting the heroine's reluctant love. I was not convinced that she could have fallen in love with the receiving clerk in the slaver's warehouse.

This welcome formula (girl hates guy, girl caught by guy, girl falls for guy) is followed in the secondary characters, told with the proper Dickensonian coincidences and plot twists. The ghastly and deformed Master Of Pit finds love, as does the haughty captive free woman the main character is sent to guard. But the main character's tale has neither romance nor passion in it.

What is the point of writing about a love slave if she doesn't fall in love?

Also missing from this book were descriptions. Earlier books had vivid visual descriptions of the wild and strange world of Gor, her peoples and their civilization. The writing here lacked that vividness.

This is not to say there is not a good scene in the book once in a while. My favorite was one where the secret prisoner, apparently brain-damaged, turns out to be tougher than he looks, and is trying to escape from a squad of Assassins sent to kill him. This is exciting action and well done (particularly well done is that bit of business with the dead urt in the water).

I can give it two stars for the occasional action scene.

Rating:
Summary: Welcome Back to Gor! But it could have been better.
Review: John Norman as his best when he is romantic. The romance was done badly in this most recent Gor book.

Please don't be surprised if I class these BDSM books as romances. What makes a book a "romance" is that the girl always, by contrivance of the author, ends up in the arms (and the chains) of the one man in the world who is Meant For Her.

In Norman's earlier books, the girl would at first hate and resist, flee or betray, be caught by, and surrender to, the man Meant For Her.

Despite the sick and savage elements of whips and chains, there is still a version of romance in Norman's writing, a true love that conquers all obstacles.

But in WITNESS, the viewpoint character, a slave-girl kidnapped from Earth, doesn't fall in love, does not flee or betray or hate, and is not found and conquered again by her one and only True Love.

Instead, as an afterthought, in a very late chapter, she does end up with the clerk or guard that first opened the crate she was shipped in and stamped her papers, but this fellow is clearly a nobody.

He is never given a name or a description, and has nothing to do in the plots or adventures of the planet Gor.

My impression is that Norman was near the end of his manuscript, decided he needed a love interest, flipped through the pages near the beginning, and picked a male character by closing his eyes and stabbing a page with a pin. It was a slap-dash and careless ending.

She could have fallen in love with someone else. In one scene, the main character was supposed to be sent to torment the mysterious prisoner of the Pits of Treve with her allure, a half-mad creature whom she fears and hates. I anticipated scenes where the girl would come to pity the prisoner, hate yielding to human sympathy; pity then yielding to admiration as she detected his hidden strengths. This would culminate in a love affair (which, on Gor, involves utter surrender on the part of the girl). Ah! That would have been a satisfying scene, showing that love can be found even by a brain-damaged mad peasant in the deepest dungeon (or is he a peasant, really?).

I was disappointed that nothing of the relation between the slave-girl and the prisoner she is supposed to be serving (and tempting) ever takes place. She spends weeks or months in the cell with this guy, but not a single line of dialog between them, not a single onstage scene, is shown.

Had she been the love-interest of the mysterious prisoner, her (and our) interest would have been engaged during the action and intrigue surrounding his escape attempt. As it was, the whole book seemed a little flat and detached.

It would have been easy to convince me that the slave-girl was pretty damn impressed with the brain-damaged peasant after he offs half a dozen trained killers. Or I might have been convinced she was impressed with the hideously deformed Master of the Pit, once she saw his humanity and wisdom behind his gruesome face. I might have even been convinced she could fall for the Warlord of Treve, a kingly figure whose troubled inner nature she glimpses. These were the characters that were onstage, doing mighty deeds, and these should have been the ones attracting the heroine's reluctant love. I was not convinced that she could have fallen in love with the receiving clerk in the slaver's warehouse.

This welcome formula (girl hates guy, girl caught by guy, girl falls for guy) is followed in the secondary characters, told with the proper Dickensonian coincidences and plot twists. The ghastly and deformed Master Of Pit finds love, as does the haughty captive free woman the main character is sent to guard. But the main character's tale has neither romance nor passion in it.

What is the point of writing about a love slave if she doesn't fall in love?

Also missing from this book were descriptions. Earlier books had vivid visual descriptions of the wild and strange world of Gor, her peoples and their civilization. The writing here lacked that vividness.

This is not to say there is not a good scene in the book once in a while. My favorite was one where the secret prisoner, apparently brain-damaged, turns out to be tougher than he looks, and is trying to escape from a squad of Assassins sent to kill him. This is exciting action and well done (particularly well done is that bit of business with the dead urt in the water).

I can give it two stars for the occasional action scene.

Rating:
Summary: Long time coming....worth the wait for diehard fans
Review: ok, I admit it-I have all the books, I've read all the books. Yes, they should probably come with warning lables: 'caution, known to brainwash', but, I couldn't put it down. Yes, John does tend to repeat himself, but (again) the story has it all: mystery, intrigue, honor, love, hate, sex. It's told from a woman's point of view, like several others in the series. I miss Tarl, I'm not sure who 'prisoner #41' is..but then it's been a long time since I read the rest of the series, maybe it is Marlenus....I really thought it was Tarl/Bosk of Port Kar. (ouch, showing ignorance here...huh)(hence anonymous-sorry). Read some of the other books reviews, you'll get a good idea of the controversy and the emotions attached to the books and yes, they do change, they evolve, maybe he does go 'too gorean', you have to make that call for yourself... But, again, Hello! this is sci-fi, maybe he did start out with an idea from ERB...maybe it was a joke...but you don't get 26 (27-'Prize...' is in the works now) books printed without the demand, interest, passion to possess, now do you. John has an eye for detail and an ability to express emotion, the peoples of Gor are varied, vastly different, but also familiar, the creatures complex and strong. I wish we lived as one with our world as they do...wish there were not the lies we live with everyday.

Rating:
Summary: Slow start, but ultimately classic Gor novel
Review: Perhaps John Norman needed to warm up after his 14-year hiatus from the world of Gor, because the first 400 pages of Witness are nearly interminably dull. Whether the talk of the "natural domination" of men over women thrills or offends you, 400 pages of it is certain to bore you to tears.

However, once you hit that 400 page mark, the book becomes classic Gorean adventure, with all of the skill, daring, courage, and honor Gor fans have come to love. The slave girl Janice, from whose point of view the book is written, is caught up in intrigues in the prison pits of Treve. There, she is given the task of administering to a mysterious prisoner, Marlenus of Ar, who is suffering from amnesia and believes himself to be only a peasant. A Cosian team of assassins is sent to find and murder him, and the adventure begins when Janice's master, the deformed pit master, finds the assassins' task to be less than honorable.

Rating:
Summary: At last, a new Gor book
Review: The last of 25 books in the "Gor" series, "Magicians of Gor", by John Norman was published in 1988. I have waited 14 years to read the 26th book in the series, "Witness of Gor", which was recently published in book form this August. It is difficult to describe the feeling of pleasure and anticipation when I finally held this new book in my hands.

The book is told from the point of view of Janice, an earth girl who has been kidnapped and brought to Gor. She has been enslaved and trained to the collar. She is then sold to the City of Treve, which is secretly located in the Voltai mountains. Terrence of Treve assigns her to duties in the sub-terranean prison pits deep beneath the city. There she befriends the Lady Constanzia who is being held for ransom. Janice has been bought for special duties. She is to look after a mysterious prisoner who is chained alone in one of the deepest and most isolated cells in the pits. The prisoner is Marlenus, Ubar of Ar, the largest city on Gor. He has lost his memory and believes himself to be one of the caste of peasants. Every day he asks the pit master, a deformed ugly monster of a man with honor and kindness in his heart, if is it time for planting. On Gor the harvest can mean life or death for peasants. Every day the pit master says "No".

One day 200 warriors arrive from Ar in a surprise tarn attack to try to free Marlenus. All are killed in the attempt. The Ubar of Cos the enemy of Ar decides not to risk further attempts to free Marlenus. He pays a team of assassins to come to Treve and execute Marlenus. They have permission from the rulers of Treve for this but Terrence and the pit master do not think that being murdered while chained in an underground cell is an honorable way for any man to die. When the assassins enter the cell, Marlenus once more asks the pit master if it is time for planting. This time the answer is "Yes". A primeval urge is awaked in Marlenus and he must do whatever is necessary to escape.
I cannot tell you what happens next without spoiling the book for you. If you are a John Norman fan, this book is for you. It is over 700 pages long and some would argue that it should have been shorter. After a 14-year wait, I was glad for every page.

Rating:
Summary: Too long by 1/3
Review: While capturing some of the magic that made the first 8 Gor books great reads, it spends too much time going into the private thoughts of the main character as she "revels in her bonds". I found myself skipping over pages at a time to get to the meat of the story, which I found to be underdeveloped in favor of the philosophical aspects of women being submissive to a strong man.

The author is clearly stuck in the '70s and '80s as he has yet to acknowledge that militant, anti-male, PC feminism peaked well over a decade ago and is largely regarded as the machinations of psychotic man-hating/envying lesbians (Andrea Dworkin comes to mind) by nearly everyone. As this sort of psychotic garbage exists mainly in hyper-liberal university campuses, his stories don't resound the way they used to as he pointed out the obvious fallacies of such political viewpoints of society. No longer do his books exists as roadmaps to claiming your masculinity in the face of oppressive "feminism" that sought to emasculate men and created such whining losers as the "sensitive new age guy" persona.

The story should have delved much deeper into the political landscape of the conquest of Ar by Lurious of Jad, the effects this had on Treve and the actions of Rask & Terence and other important figures. Also needing to be developed was the back story of Dorna the Proud, now the personal slave of Rask, Ubar of Treve. More insights into the society and history of Treve would have been appreciated as this has always been one of the more mysterious cities that he referred to in his previous novels. Finally, the story should have delved into Marlenus more than it did. Marlenus is one of the great underwritten characters of Gor, and this would have been a prime opportunity to develop him more and bring more insight into they character.

Rating:
Summary: Too long by 1/3
Review: While capturing some of the magic that made the first 8 Gor books great reads, it spends too much time going into the private thoughts of the main character as she "revels in her bonds". I found myself skipping over pages at a time to get to the meat of the story, which I found to be underdeveloped in favor of the philosophical aspects of women being submissive to a strong man.

The author is clearly stuck in the '70s and '80s as he has yet to acknowledge that militant, anti-male, PC feminism peaked well over a decade ago and is largely regarded as the machinations of psychotic man-hating/envying lesbians (Andrea Dworkin comes to mind) by nearly everyone. As this sort of psychotic garbage exists mainly in hyper-liberal university campuses, his stories don't resound the way they used to as he pointed out the obvious fallacies of such political viewpoints of society. No longer do his books exists as roadmaps to claiming your masculinity in the face of oppressive "feminism" that sought to emasculate men and created such whining losers as the "sensitive new age guy" persona.

The story should have delved much deeper into the political landscape of the conquest of Ar by Lurious of Jad, the effects this had on Treve and the actions of Rask & Terence and other important figures. Also needing to be developed was the back story of Dorna the Proud, now the personal slave of Rask, Ubar of Treve. More insights into the society and history of Treve would have been appreciated as this has always been one of the more mysterious cities that he referred to in his previous novels. Finally, the story should have delved into Marlenus more than it did. Marlenus is one of the great underwritten characters of Gor, and this would have been a prime opportunity to develop him more and bring more insight into they character.

Rating:
Summary: Too long by 1/3
Review: While capturing some of the magic that made the first 8 Gor books great reads, it spends too much time going into the private thoughts of the main character as she "revels in her bonds". I found myself skipping over pages at a time to get to the meat of the story, which I found to be underdeveloped in favor of the philosophical aspects of women being submissive to a strong man.

The author is clearly stuck in the '70s and '80s as he has yet to acknowledge that militant, anti-male, PC feminism peaked well over a decade ago and is largely regarded as the machinations of psychotic man-hating/envying lesbians (Andrea Dworkin comes to mind) by nearly everyone. As this sort of psychotic garbage exists mainly in hyper-liberal university campuses, his stories don't resound the way they used to as he pointed out the obvious fallacies of such political viewpoints of society. No longer do his books exists as roadmaps to claiming your masculinity in the face of oppressive "feminism" that sought to emasculate men and created such whining losers as the "sensitive new age guy" persona.

The story should have delved much deeper into the political landscape of the conquest of Ar by Lurious of Jad, the effects this had on Treve and the actions of Rask & Terence and other important figures. Also needing to be developed was the back story of Dorna the Proud, now the personal slave of Rask, Ubar of Treve. More insights into the society and history of Treve would have been appreciated as this has always been one of the more mysterious cities that he referred to in his previous novels. Finally, the story should have delved into Marlenus more than it did. Marlenus is one of the great underwritten characters of Gor, and this would have been a prime opportunity to develop him more and bring more insight into they character.

Rating:
Summary: The Gor Line is Revived, with an exciting climax to come!
Review: Witness of Gor, is in my opinion, the best Gor book to date. It constitutes a return to Norman's early adventure style of writing (which, to me, is lost in the middle chapters of Magicians of Gor), a more clearheaded and judicious representation of his own philosophy of human nature, and the introduction of both a new setting and a new slate of characters, while bringing back earlier ones and letting the reader know of their fates. The treatment of the protagonist, an earth woman brought to Gor as a slave girl, as having no name, and for all practical purposes, no earth identity, accomplishes a stroke of genius. That is, this device lets even the male reader see through her eyes as the "witness of Gor". The reader shares her naïveté in this new world precisely because he or she lacks her history and is thus unable to see her from a distance, critically. Instead, the reader must view things and learn things as she sees them and learns them.

Further, Norman goes beyond the usual philosophic discourses on dominance-submission as the paradigm, which governs male-female relationships, and uses instead a critical ethical dilemma to present honor as an ethical issue. And indeed, the story itself turns upon this ethical issue, in a day when soft politicians, diplomats, public servants and the philosophical ethicists who advise them renounce the very concept of honor, precisely because honor is not negotiable. In this book, Norman emerges not only as a first-rate storyteller-once again-but as the deeply insightful philosopher of human nature and morality that he is.

This latest offering in the Gor series has several further characteristics that make it exquisite. First, he sets the story in the Voltai Range, in the impregnable city of the robber-Ubar, Rask of Treve, a part of Gor of which readers have heard, but never experienced. Second, he pulls the series out of the morass that was "Magicians of Gor", and sets it once again on the road of heightened suspense and adventure to an epic climax in the struggle for dominance of the great city of Ar by the Island Ubarates, Tyros and Cos. Setting the story against that backdrop itself ties up a major loose end from Magicians of Gor and brings the series back to life for those who suffered through the loss of Ar's legions in the delta of the Vosk, the disappearance of its mighty Ubar, Marlenus, and the crass and treacherous rule of his daughter, Talena, as the proxy of Cos. Third, Norman shows here the best character development of any of the books. The figure of "The Tarsk"-the "depth warden" or pit master, he who governs Treve's deep and cavernous prisons-is the deepest, most thoughtful, and most sensitively developed character of the entire series. This massive twisted figure, deformed from birth, but of high intelligence and great cunning and strength, a master of the board game Kaissa as well, becomes the most sympathetic character of the story. Thus the reader suffers with the depth warden when he violates his oath of honor to preserve his integrity in another matter of honor. One actually finds oneself hoping long before the possibility arises in the plot that this great and grave figure does not commit suicide over his actions in the midst of this dilemma. And I note: only someone who himself has a profound sense of honor recognizes that violations of honor necessarily result in one's death, even if that means at one's own hand. Fourth, only an exciting and improbable twist of fate brings the heroine (and the reader) from the dank and dangerous depths of Treve's fortress prison to a surprise, nail-biting conclusion far from that setting. I cannot wait for Prize of Gor, the finale, or at least the sequel.

To sum up, this Gorean tale contains the greatest depth of character development and philosophic thought to which the author has yet risen. He also tells a great story, one that I could barely put down.