Players of Gor (Gor)

Rating:
Summary: Just plain excelent
Review: Another excelent edition to an excelent series. It has more of a comedic edge then the other novles in this series. It's a nice change.

Rating:
Summary: good book underneath
Review: This one had alot of that female slave philosophy. It was perhaps most annoyingly shown in the cheap predictable plays the Players held, where every single free woman was either a slave in disguise or ended up as one, and of course deep down wanted to be one anyway. The wiping of fingers in slave girl's hair was particulary vile.

Having said that, this book was still a valuable Tarl Cabot book that continued the story line and had many good parts that warranted the overall 5 stars.

For one it starts out with the oddest mystery. The Priest kings want Tarl dead. What this means we don't know certainly it might mean that Misk, Tarl's loyal brave and modest Priest king friend is dead and there was change in regime. Or perhaps it's another Kurii trick.

Either way Tarl ends up fleeing Port Kar and going incognito a while. Without giving away the details he ends up investigating a strange city with the help of some Players (actors/musician/Kaissa players) caste of Gor. It seems as if a Kur is being held there. We later find out this Kur's true story and the Cos/Tyros plot to finally conquer Ar begins.

The side characters are particulary good in this Gor novel. Scormus of Ar and Boots and the actor that plays the General of Ar at the end are great. Boots when he is not sprouting slave dogma is probably one of the funniest characters Norman has created in the cycle.