Close, but he was a bit-part player and sideshow hand in a small travelling theatre/fairground show group that had a resident Kaissa-playing “monster” actually the self-exiled supergrandmaster Scormus of Ar under a hood. Players is pretty darned good, btw - the digressions-to-action ratio is lower than in many of the later books, and there is much that is played very well for grins. There are similar incidents in some other books that I can think of:
[ul]in Nomads of Gor, Harold of the Tuchuks has just aided the Wagon Peoples in storming the city of Turia, and while the action is going on, he contents himself with a young Turian woman under a wagon - but he is gentle about it and she expects to be enslaved once the battle is over. (Actually, in contrast to the later books, he sends her on her way and instructs her to tell anyone who asks that she is Harold the Tuchuk’s slave, but he says that this will not be true, so plainly he intends for her to go free.)
[li]in Slave Girl of Gor, Judy Thorton has just been traded to Tup Ladletender, a tinker, and when it starts raining they take shelter under his cart, where he puts her to his service - but he is her new owner, not borrowing her.[/li][/ul]
As I say, this sounds like one of the last books - Mercenaries, Vagabonds or Renegades, all of which I’ve read but none very often.
And yet to many that is exactly where the Gor books’ chief values lies. De gustibus…
Yeah, it’s definitely not “Maurauders of Gor.” Maybe “Mercenaries.” I think I threw in an IIRC when I mentioned the title, and I meant it. Marauders did have some pretty nice brief scenes, too … the captured village women getting bent over the steersmen’s seat and taken in front of their formerly free peers was one, and there was a feast description that included slavegirls bent over the feast table and used while the feast goes on around them. Maybe a couple of sentences out of the whole scene, but still, very strong imagery.
I think it’s a tribute to Norman’s skill in introducing those sexy slavegirl bits throughout the story that makes people THINK they are pornographic.
There’s an easy solution to that … I just skip over the sections where it becomes clear that the protagonist is going to be raving about “negativistic, antibiological” feminist-type stuff and go on to the action. These sections tend to come in huge expository lumps. And Norman’s far from the only author who benefits from this reading technique. Whenever Robert Parker’s protagonist starts mooning over his relationships with his girlfriend (or in the Jess Stone stories, his alcoholism) I just skip over that section, because I know it won’t change the plot one bit and will be pretty much the same as the previous expository lump. Makes Parker and Norman MUCH more readable.
It’s exactly why a lot of people hate them. I think for many people these sections of the Gor novels were just too offensive to ignore. I also think that a lot of people who express dislike of the “pornographic” nature of the Gor novels are actually mostly upset about the Gorean philosophy. Which is a whole 'nother kettle of fish.
And yet again, there are a shizzle-lizzle of people who subscribe to the philosophy. Amazingly, this includes an enormous number of women who aspire to be Gorean-style slaves (mostly without the liability to summary execution, of course, but as has been said elsewhere, in practical terms this tends to be a don’t-step-on-the-cracks-or-the-bears-will-get-you issue even on fictional Gor let alone a planet where there are severe legal repercussions to be considered), and I probably know of more Gorean slaves than Gorean Free Women. I know I personally went “Whu…?” when I found out about it, but it’s definitely out there.
For that matter, a great deal of Gor-philosopher advocates get seriously ticked off at those who see only the bondage and slavery aspects, and would probably get on your case, E_C, as much as have certain citizens hereabouts. They argue very properly that if you only want to play at tying up and beating, there is no shortage of available material.
The MIT Science Fiction Society (MITSFS) has a collection of SF porn that they normally keep hidden away. Even though I was (still am, arguably) a member, I didn’t know about it until I ssaw the photo they submitted for the yearbook one year – it was a picture of items from that collection. Interesting stuff, but I’ve never read any of it, and don’t kbnow if it’s any good.
One thing that has happened as a result of the Internet is what I think of as “home-grown porn”. There are a lot of sites storing and making available literature people write themselves. This ranges from genuine literature on a small scale to fan fiction to outright porn catering to folks with specialized interest. There is a lot of sf-based porn on the Internet, and it’s available in a variety of flavors, including plain vanilla.
The OP asked for a good mix of SF and porn. Liquid Sky was SF, I suppose, but barely porn… and hands down the worst movie I ever saw: overlong, poorly-written, poorly-acted, and nonsensical. Jeez, it was bad. I saw it about 15 years ago and still shudder at the memory.
Perhaps it’s not so suprising when you consider that some of the Gor novels are very much like romance novels. Consider the plots of “Slave Girl of Gor,” “Dancer of Gor,” and “Kajira of Gor.” In all three, a woman is kidnapped and brought to Gor by slavers, where she encounters a man she is strangely attracted to, or who is strangely attracted to her. She is separated from him by circumstances of various kinds, and then wanders around having adventures but always mooning about that original guy she met, who’s also searching for her. The big happy ending occurs when the two are reunited and finally get around to admitting that they love one another.
If that’s not a romance, I don’t know what is, and it’s a fair description of those three novels. So, if the Gor novels are romances, maybe a lot of women who read romances are “prepared” to like Gor novels. And other Gorean type stuff.
I get along fine with Goreans as a general rule. I’m not a Gorean, and don’t pretend to be. I just like the Gor novels as fiction. They’re welcome to take the philosophy seriously if they want to. But I don’t seem them trying to argue it anywhere where people would give such a philosophy the waxing it deserves. Wouldn’t last five minutes on the Dope on Great Debates.
Kurt Vonnegut is also the author of “The Big Space Fuck,” a very tongue in cheek sendup of both genres simultaneously. It appeared in Again, Dangerous Visions, which also included the aforementioned “In the Barn” by Piers Anthony and “Time Travel for Pedestrians” which is about a past life regression on psychedelics while masturbating.
“The Big Space Fuck” is pure satire about propagating the human race by filling a rocket with “jizzum” and shooting it into space. “In the Barn” was a bit sensational at the time for its explicit subhuman sex. The editor of the Dangerous Visions books, Harlan Ellison, should be the first name mentioned for the convergence of sex and SF. But he often merges the two at some dark level where squeamish readers may not want to go. Not what I’d consider titillating, therefore doesn’t count as porn. Plenty of dark sex, not much fun sex.