Raiders of Gor

Rating:
Summary: Tarnsman Tarl Cabot becomes Captain Bosk of Port Kar
Review: After his most popular Gor novel, "Nomads of Gor," and his magnum opus, "Assassin of Gor," John Norman has Tarl Cabot head off in a new direction in this 6th volume of the Counter-Earth series. I think "Raiders of Gor" is a notch below those two, on a level with "Priest-Kings of Gor," which is certainly a comparable novel from the series since it also redefined Tarl Cabot's role on Gor.

We have heard mention of Port Kar in the earlier books and now Tarl Cabot is visiting the cesspool of Gor. The city has no Home-Stone and power belongs to those strong enough to take it. However, on his way to Port Kar, on a mission in service to the Priest-Kings, Tarl Cabot has an experience with transforms him from the Tarnsman of Ko-ro-ba into Bosk, captain of Port Kar. One of the consequences of this change is that Bosk is not inclined to serve the will of the Priest-Kings in their battle with the Others. But even in Port Kar, the coming war for the control of Counter-Earth is part of the power politics of the Council of Captains.

"Raiders" focuses much more on the Tarl/Bosk character at the expense of some of the wonderful supporting characters Norman had created in the previous couple of novels, although there are a few (e.g., the slave-boy Fish). But whatever faults the rest of the novel might have for fans of the series, the sequence in which Bosk decides to stay and fight for Port Kar is one of the dramatic highpoints of the series.

"Raiders of Gor," at least for me, was the last really decent John Norman novel for a long time ("Marauders of Gor" was the next one that was up to this level). After this point what is usually described as the Gorean Philosophy becomes more dominant than the adventures of Tarl Cabot in Norman's writings. It is perhaps telling that out of print copies of his novels "Slave Girl of Gor" and "Kajira of Gor" go for more than "Nomads of Gor" and "Assassin of Gor."

Rating:
Summary: Tarnsman Tarl Cabot becomes Captain Bosk of Port Kar
Review: After his most popular Gor novel, "Nomads of Gor," and his magnum opus, "Assassin of Gor," John Norman has Tarl Cabot head off in a new direction in this 6th volume of the Counter-Earth series. I think "Raiders of Gor" is a notch below those two, on a level with "Priest-Kings of Gor," which is certainly a comparable novel from the series since it also redefined Tarl Cabot's role on Gor.

We have heard mention of Port Kar in the earlier books and now Tarl Cabot is visiting the cesspool of Gor. The city has no Home-Stone and power belongs to those strong enough to take it. However, on his way to Port Kar, on a mission in service to the Priest-Kings, Tarl Cabot has an experience with transforms him from the Tarnsman of Ko-ro-ba into Bosk, captain of Port Kar. One of the consequences of this change is that Bosk is not inclined to serve the will of the Priest-Kings in their battle with the Others. But even in Port Kar, the coming war for the control of Counter-Earth is part of the power politics of the Council of Captains.

"Raiders" focuses much more on the Tarl/Bosk character at the expense of some of the wonderful supporting characters Norman had created in the previous couple of novels, although there are a few (e.g., the slave-boy Fish). But whatever faults the rest of the novel might have for fans of the series, the sequence in which Bosk decides to stay and fight for Port Kar is one of the dramatic highpoints of the series.

"Raiders of Gor," at least for me, was the last really decent John Norman novel for a long time ("Marauders of Gor" was the next one that was up to this level). After this point what is usually described as the Gorean Philosophy becomes more dominant than the adventures of Tarl Cabot in Norman's writings. It is perhaps telling that out of print copies of his novels "Slave Girl of Gor" and "Kajira of Gor" go for more than "Nomads of Gor" and "Assassin of Gor."

Rating:
Summary: there but ....
Review: Honour, once lost, can never be regained, only recollected .... Yes, there but for the grace of God go I.
This 6th book in the series remains my favourite, after all these years, as it is the pivot on which the whole series turned. Or would have if John Norman had not lost his way in the detail of Gor's wonderful and fantastic backdrop. But I digress, them great invincible warrior, falls from grace and redisovers his humanity. And a new strength is born in him as he understands his own weakness, and theose of his enemies and allies.

Rating:
Summary: Transition that transcends
Review: I don't think I've ever forgiven John Norman for not completing his last Tarl Cabot adventure because the entire storyline, including the digressions with other principle characters, caught hold of and focussed my reading habits in many, often unexpected ways. These ranged from his awful grammer, over the top humour, repetitious cramming of viewpoints and threatened sadism..... through to a depiction of an entire world whose sole purpose was to fill a man's life with a dream of adventure. (Of course, the female's view of these adventures was not quite at the same level).

The fact that he stumbled when he wrote in 'Raiders' of Cabot's fall from grace is hardly surprising. He had made the character so squeaky clean that nothing he said or did could have eased the transition from idealist to selfish brute. But surely, that change was long overdue, and you have to admit choosing slavery (to a woman, of all things in this storyline!) did a good job of shattering not so much the character's illusions, but the reader's!

The situations he was getting into, leading up to this point, were not for the faint of heart or the Sunday-go-to meeting kind of guy.... and Port Kar was not the kind of place in which the do-gooder Cabot would have lasted very long. Nor, for that matter, was the world of Gor, as it was apparently developing in the mind of the author.

Once past the initial fall from grace, and accepting Cabot's occasional overt lapse into self pity as being a necessary follow on to the same, it's easy to get lost in the tale of a man who had lost his belief in himself but was yet at the same time a man that tamed and claimed the loyalties of hardened pirates and cutthroats, made one of the few (if the Chronicles of Gor are to be believed) successful female slave escapees ever, leap whole-heartedly back into bondage for his sake (ok, she paddled a reed raft rather than leapt, the end result was the same), accepting pain, humiliation and chains just to be at his side.

I said earlier that John Norman's grammer was awful (worse than my own even), but not so his story-telling. The brooding violence of the man Cabot is carefully built until the great sea battle scene.... and just when you expect everything to explode.... he wins!

...and then goes on to the REAL battle. The seige of his Keep. It is there that you see the Cabot of old, not to mention the female's (no slouches in courageous activity themselves) that many men secretly dream of.

It's because of stories like this one that, as I mentioned before, I don't think I've ever forgiven John Norman for not completing his last Tarl Cabot adventure.....

...do I think such a place exists? Of course not. Do I wish I could have been there anyway? Absolutely!

Rating:
Summary: from a Kajira's point of view
Review: I read this book because a man wanted me to understand his fantasy of women. Of all the Gor books, this particular one is the most fun becuase Tarl becomes a man of Port Kar. Port Kar is the center of evil in this world. He was forced to sacrifice his dignity and his freedom, and once freedom was regained, he no longer felt compelled to do what is good and right but to do what suits him. I am a women and I didn't find their treatment of women appalling. In fact, I relished the idea of being a good woman and have since tried harder than ever to be a good Kajira for the man who wanted me to read Raiders. I have been enslaved by Jakob and by Gor. I have been marked with a K. I am happy living in my own private Gor fantasy, although most people would never go that far. I would highly reccomend at least reading Raiders, and the other Gor books, and perhaps incorporating it into a little role playing in the bedroom.

Rating:
Summary: Surprising turning point in Norman's Gor series.
Review: Raiders of Gor is one of the best books of Norman's Gor series (right along with Magicians of Gor).

First of all it features all the expected ingredients of a Gor novel: A lot of bondage situations and non-consensual sex amidst the typical Gor-like setting with adamantine warriors dominating their submissive female slaves. Plus an elaborately carved fantasy world with unique flora, fauna and complex human (and non-human) societies.

But as a welcomed change, our hero Tarl Cabot doesn't wander through this world like the invincible and unaffectable symbol of virtue, law and order he had become in the first 5 books of this series. Instead we discover a darker side of our ideal warrior that Norman exploits to create an intelligent story of downfall and rise-back to power. For the first time I found myself really rooting for Tarl as he first succeeds in establishing himself as a competent swordsman in the anarchic pirate city of Port Kar, to finally become the savior of his newly chosen hometown, when he wards off a large-scale attack on Port Kar by rival seaports.

The only reason that kept me from giving Raiders even 5 stars was the usual exaggeration of Tarl's achievements, like defeating a small armada of war barges with just a longbow and a huge quiver of arrows. Or the flight with his warbird across miles of open sea through a severe thunderstorm. But those minor flaws aren't too crucial to spoil the fun, and whatever you can say of Norman's idiosyncratic and maybe sexist fantasy setting, Raiders of Gor is one exciting fantasy book featuring strife, passion and a fallen hero set to become a morally stained yet emotionally matured elite warrior in a wild and dangerous archaic world.

Rating:
Summary: CITY OF THE DAMNED
Review: Tarl Cabot was a warrior of Gor--the world that earth could never see. Normally he was a proud and mighty warrior, but now he was bound for Port Kar, the only city with no home stone to give it a heart. It was a city of reavers and looters...of outcasts without allegiance. Merchants and pirates stalked its quays beside the beautiful Sea of Thassa. Tarl Cabot was headed for the sinkhole of the planet, a teeming den of iniquity. And that was no place for an honest warrior from Ko-ro-ba. But he was no longer Tarl Cabot, the warrior. Now he was only Bosk...a miserable slave.

Rating:
Summary: CITY OF THE DAMNED
Review: Tarl Cabot was a warrior of Gor--the world that earth could never see. Normally he was a proud and mighty warrior, but now he was bound for Port Kar, the only city with no home stone to give it a heart. It was a city of reavers and looters...of outcasts without allegiance. Merchants and pirates stalked its quays beside the beautiful Sea of Thassa. Tarl Cabot was headed for the sinkhole of the planet, a teeming den of iniquity. And that was no place for an honest warrior from Ko-ro-ba. But he was no longer Tarl Cabot, the warrior. Now he was only Bosk...a miserable slave.

Rating:
Summary: A Hero Humanized
Review: The actual title of this book is "RAIDERS OF GOR". It is sixth (6th) in a saga of 25(+?) novels about the planet Gor, the Counter-Earth, which co-orbits with Earth around our sun (Sol). It is never visible to us because the sun always blocks it. In this volume, Tarl Cabot ventures to the villainous city of Port Kar on the delta of the great Vosk river on Thassa, the Gorean sea. It is filled with great intrigue, sword fights, and a lot of interesting maritime description of ships similar to those that sailed on Earth in distant times (e.g., classic Greek). Like all Gor books, this volume is filled with vivid descriptions of the flora and fauna of an alien world populated with Terran abductees and their descendants. It continues to explore the psyche of the protagonist, Tarl Cabot, who becomes Bosk of Port Kar. Norman explores in "Raiders" the core of Tarl's being by exposing him to a fate which inexorably alters his character but not his supposedly not his ultimate destiny with the Priest-Kings.

Rating:
Summary: Honor can never be regained, only "recollected."
Review: This is one of those odd books that I picked up off a rack in the 70's because of the cover art, and was pleasantly surprised to find a great story, too. This was the first book of the series that I read, but as a measure of it's quality, you do not really need to know anything about the rest of the series to enjoy it. While Tarl of Bristol is an agent of the "priest-kings" it is not really necessary that you know who or what they are. Perhaps it is better that you do not.
Briefly, this is the story of a great warrior who is captured and enslaved while on a mission for his patrons. He is famed in story and song as that world's greatest warrior. Yet, he finds that rather than accept a clean excecution, he instead submits to the fate of slavery. This decision comes as a surprise to him. It totally destroys his self image and his honor. He truly thought that he would accept death before dishonor.
Only one small boy shows compassion to him during his enslavement. When pirates attack the village where Tarl is a slave he manages to escape while his captors are enslaved. While returning to the burned village to recover his weapons and supplies he finds the boy's dead body. The rest of the story deals with the vengeance of what was once the world's greatest warrior against the raiders. Yet Tarl of Bristol knows that, once lost, honor can never be regained- it can only be "recollected."