Dancer of Gor

Rating:
Summary: Once again John Norman delivers
Review: Doreen Williamson appeared to be a quiet shy librarian, but in the dark of the library, after hours, she would practice, semi-nude, her secret studies in belly-dancing. Until, one fateful night, the slavers from Gor kidnapped her. On that barbarically splended counter-Earth, Doreen drew a high price as a dancer in taverns, in slave collar and ankle bells. Until each of her owners became aware that their prize dancer was the target of power forces---that in the tense climate of the ongoing war between Ar and Cos, two mighty empires, Doreen was too dangerous to keep. DANCER OF GOR is a John Norman bonus novel---an erotic fever-pitched novel of an alien world where men were all-powerful and women were living jewels of desire. Good for those who wish to learn of kajirae dancing & a pleasant read by all means.

Rating:
Summary: Captive of Gor
Review: I find these books very arousing. Woman need to know that they are wanted but also to serve. In these books women get both, pleasure from pleasing and pleasure from the men, they make them beg for it to the point that they will just submit. Men could take a few pointer from these books in that pleasure department

Rating:
Summary: Repellant wish fulfillment
Review: In "Dancer of Gor", a shy librarian, who studies bellydancing between the stacks after hours, is kidnapped by slavers from the wild planet of Gor. Somehow frozen in a state resembling the Hyborian Age of Robert E. Howard's "Conan" books (and every sword and sandal tale ever told), Gor forces its men to become warriors while the women become "living jewels of desire". On that "wild counter-earth", Doreen not only becomes a slave, but her dancing makes her the local star, even though (as with all slaves) her individual situation approximates a souvenir brought back from a long trip. Whereas modern bellydancers have stressed how liberating and empowering the dance is, that images of slave girls in gauzy skirts is just a Hollywood myth, Gor creator John Norman buys into the myth completely, and Doreen's dancing is only one of the services she is forced to offer as a slave. Driven into exile by an un-wanted competitor, Doreen finds herself in the forefront of war between competing city-states on Gor. For reasons not made quite clear, Doreen's dancing makes her a crucial factor in a massive Gorean civil war - but she remains too much of a slave to extract any power from that position.

I'm ashamed to admit I read "Dancer" - ashamed less from the book's purportedly hot subject matter, but because of how cold and unarousing a book it really is. The brutal treatment typical of slaves in the Gor books, and especially in "Dancer" is little better than that given to animals, and given the pleasure they offer Gor's men, doesn't say anything about that world's male population either. (This is supposed to be a wild and adventurous version of our world, but Gorean men manage to go to extremes for a pitifully shorter and less erotic coupling than paler and weaker Earthmen would aspire to) Not even the author's emphasis on bellydancing - which he assures us really is about female submission - seems to bring out the dance's sexier attributes.

But the worst conceit is Doreen herself. Enamored with the idea of those days of yore (when women were women), Norman crafts a tale of a modern woman's descent into submission. Doreen though, is no spice-girl, and begins the story waiting for her chains. Pondering, if not longing for those days of yore, from the very first page, Doreen is already a slave at the outset. When an advanced party of Gorean scouts first meets her, their leader rhetorically asks Doreen if she's a "modern woman". You've got to wonder how a guy who can cross the gulf of worlds and culture can mistake the timid Doreen for one of those modern women who "destroy men". Unfortunately, Norman robs Doreen of the pretension of being the sort of modern women that Gor-slavers and our own misogynists were meant to break. As a lone and friendless (even among her fellow student-dancers) librarian with time to kill, Doreen is far from the man-destroying modern woman so despised (and prized) by the slavers. Norman's error is in confusing intelligence with strength, which says more about him than bellydancing heroine. Doreen is smart - her slave visions are out of library books and not movies - but submits to the slave collar with little problem. Her smarts however dampen the fun, as she calmly describes the ordeals of being a slave almost as if they were occurring to someone else, and that "other" person doesn't seem worth Doreen's efforts. I've heard all of the canned diatribes about white male wish fullfillment, but never believed there might be something to it until I read this book.

Rating:
Summary: Back on form
Review: John Norman fell down with players of Gor which while godd was not great I have read all 26 books and found that there is a 27 out but not in print and unobtainable????

Dancer centers around the story of a young lithe librarian of Earth who is brought to gor by Kurii Slavers. The start of the book follows her search for truth and capture on Earth by Teibar of Ar.

On her arrival on Gor she is sold to a paga tavern and the owner finds her of interest as a dancer for his customers. She makes friends and enemies and through the work of a jealous rival is stolen and travel across Gor constantly chased and captured til finally she meets Teibar once again and realises that she has loved him from the moment she met him on Earth.

A love story, a bondage treatise, A great adventure as with all Gor books They cover many areas and as with all Gor books should be taken as what they are Fiction, Science fantasy.

This is one of the best in the series and recaptures the Mood of the earliest books perfectly. Ten out of ten (10/10)