Some years ago I poked through a number of the Gor novels in etext format. It was a weird combo of not all that bad sci-fi writing, blended with a way too detailed submission/domination master-slave fetish. The initial book(s) really weren’t all that bad, but they got progressively more hackneyed as the series played out.
Anyway… is there any feasible way the Gor world could be made into a movie, or is the sub-dom theme too difficult to handle, even today?
I’ve not seen either movie (I only know of them because of compulsive prying through my dog-eared copy of VideoHound’s Golden Movie Retriever). These are the first two books in the series, and if I remember correctly the BDSM theme hadn’t set in yet; I imagine that a film based on some of the later volumes would appeal to a fringe audience at best.
(I stopped reading the series after the fifth or sixth book not so much because of the theme — I found that “meh” at best — but because Norman’s writing style, never outstanding even at the start, became unbearable.)
The first book, Tarnsman of Gor, was a good read, with an interesting, if kind of difficult to accept premise. It was somewhat Burroughs-like.
The second book, Outlaw of Gor introduced the sex. The sex became rapidly more a part of the books after that, to the point that the seventh book, Captive of Gor, was damn-near a sex-slave how-to manual. IIRC, it didn’t even have JTarl Cabot in it.
I kept buying and reading them, not for the sex, but because I wanted to find out if Tarl Cabot ever would find his “wife” again, and whether the city that was razed by the Priest-Kings ever would get back its place in the scheme of things. After a while, I realized he didn’t ever intend to deal with that, because he simply liked writing about sex slaves. The guy’s mind must be a really interesting (NOT) place. :dubious:
You and me both. I enjoyed the first 5 or 6 novels, and even the sexual aspects added to the plot. But I got turned off by the dom/sub stuff, and all the sex. And I was a teenaged boy at the time!!!
I’ve never read the novels, but I just wanted to point out that *Outlaw of Gor * was one of the funniest fuckin’ MST3K outings ever.
"Cabot!..Cabot!!"
They actually got better around #12 or so, then rapidly went south. Assassin and Nomads were the best, IMO.
Sure, you could make a series of movies out of them. Just dump all the Dom/Sub crap. Hollywood changes the details and stories all the time! 
I made it to #20, although by that time I was buying them out of habit. Back in the '70s, I was a huge fantasy fan. A good part of my bookcase glowed canary yellow from all the DAW paperbacks.
I got rid of them a few years back, but I wish I hadn’t. The Gor books would have gone for a mint on eBay!
And, yes, the first couple of books were the keepers. The sex was sub Beeline books quality and ladened with dollops of idiotic philosophy.
Really? I’ve got the first 8 or so volumes somewhere!
Looking at ebay only the very first original “red cover” Ballentine version are getting much money.
I poked into these simply because of my love for world creation and seeing what others come up with. I got into three or four before the series lost me. I agree the first book was pretty good, if not decent.
I’ll never forget this one time I went into a used bookstore asking about ‘Gor’ books and the man behind the counter gave me the most derisive sneer of a “No” I’ve ever received.
The story could be done, but as soon as the media let out the basis of the stories, the religious right would come out of the woodworks to stop the film for corrupting the world. Despite the removal of any sex, dom/sub, etc…
– IG
Except that he did. By book V, Assassin of Gor, Ko-Ro-Ba was a going concern again, with the Priest-Kings’ blessing. Talena reappeared in Book IX (Marauders…), where she scorned Tarl for his (then) crippled state and his (earlier) perceived cowardice in submitting to slavery in Book VI (Raiders). There was a later come-uppance in Book XXV (Magicians) but Tarl, after demonstrating to Talena that he could enslave her any time he liked, let her go free with the warning that he was keeping an eye on her.
I suspect that you can find books about the place with far more sex and far more BDSM, but what turns out to be too hard to swallow is the suggestion that male dominance of females is biologically validated. 
I’ve not seen the films, but I’ve heard it said that they stink like a big steaming heap of tharlarion dung.
I agree with those who said that they stopped reading after the first 5 or 6. It had potential, but he became too obcessed with the slave aspect.
Actually, I was under the impression that the vast majority of the objections to the Gor series had come from liberal/progressive side of the spectrum re the offensiveness of the dominant male / submissive female ethos of the series. The books are not all that explicit sexually, and the aforementioned male=master perspective would hardly shock the sensibilities of many fundamentalists.
Having never read the series, but having a basic I sea, a few years ago I ventured into a Gorean chat room.
To say that the Gor novels have appeal to the BDSM community is a sheer understatement.
Every conversation was done in character; anyone not in character was expected to shut up or leave. Watching the slaves spout admiration for their masters as the masters role-played out gladiator style combat matches with slaves as rewards was entertaining, for a short time.
must learn to preview :smack:
idea…
Oh, I guess I should weigh in here.
The Gor novels can’t be made into movies as written because American audiences would never buy into a couple of basics of Gorean society:
Frankly, many if not most American’s would agree with statements 1 and 2 even if you got rid of the terms “nonconsensual.” (In fact, many on this supposedly enlightened board have seemingly failed to understand that distinction.)
Hell, I’m the biggest fan of the Gor novels on this board that I know of, and I buy into statements 1 and 2. I also seem to be one of the few people capable of reading the Gor novels as fantasy (even though it’s kinda obvious that Norman himself buys into the whole “women as natural sex slaves who would be happier in chains” thing.)
That said, there’s several ways to make the Gor novels as movies, one of them rather obvious.
The obvious one: present Gorean society exactly as written, but have the protagonist not personally buy into it. Have it be the story of an Earth girl happily kidnapped and transported to Gor, but have the story be all about her (ultimately successful) attempts to escape Gorean sex slavery. Have the Goreans be EEEE-VILLLL. The Gorean women could be inexplicably all for their sex slavery and the Earth woman could spend time trying to straighten them out about the superiority of more egalitarian relationships.
Basically, you would be treating the Goreans the way the 1920s and 1930s filmmakers treated the Romans – lots and lots of scenes of those scandalously naked slavegirls in scandalous bondage, having scandalous sex, redeemed by the escape of the Earth girl from it. (Same thing could be done from Tarl Cabot’s POV, except presumably he wouldn’t personally be a sex slave, just a mighty warrior who disapproved of it and hence fought many other mighty warriors who did, while teaching Gorean slavegirls the delights of missionary position sex in bed with the lights out and covers up.)
Another method of making a Gor movie: take out that whole nonconsensual thing with some handwavium explaining how everybody on Gor is there because they like the sex slavery. A lot. Basically “Planet of the Maledom/Femsub Warriors and Slavegirls.” You could even have the method for being transported to Gor being a matter of wishing mightily that you could be on a Maledom/femsub planet – sorta like Peter Pan and neverland, if you will. Or Dorothy and Oz.
Once you’ve established that the sex slavery on that version of Gor is consensual, you take the sting out of it for enough folks that it might work.
There’s another way of making the Gor movies work as well:
Make them comedies. Have the Goreans be stupid, inept slavers (it’s not a far cry from Gor as written). Humor would take the sting out of the Gor novels. It’s completely alien to the Gor novels as written, but hey, it would probably work quite well.
There, three ways to handle the Gor novels which could include mucho scenes of hot slavegirls bieng all naked and slavish and doing sexual slavegirl scenes. What more could you want?
I just came in here to say that if any of you folks have young daughters in the house that are voracious readers, please hide your Gor books better than my father did. They’re really not something a 12-yr-old should find tucked away behind the Asimov paperbacks.
I hope I’m misreading you here, but are you in fact saying that you agree that nonconsensual sex and bondage are the way to a girl’s heart?
LOL.
That is all I can say to that.
– IG