| Aha! A place for the "Gor" series!
John Norman's "Gor" series - "Tarnsman of Gor", "Assassin of Gor",
"Slave Girl of Gor", and so on - is a series of books that started
out as pretty decent fantasy. The early ones contained some interesting
characters who were at least a little bit unpredictable, and there was
some amusing interaction between them. Furthermore, in the beginning the
whole "women are meant to be slaves" business was dealt with rather
tongue-in-cheek - or at least it seemed that way to me.
I stopped reading them after about the eighth one. At that point,
the "soft-core porn" side of things began to take over, and I suspect
that the publishers issued instructions to include considerably
more sex (all of which could have been - and probably is - generated
by a computer program). My husband continues to read them; he SAYS
it's in the hope that the writing will improve someday, but I'm not
so sure. :-)
Just out of curiosity - has anyone seen any really good SF (or fantasy!)
that handled "sex scenes" well? The only example I can think of offhand
is a McCaffrey short story about a human female escaping from the aliens
who had enslaved her people; she winds up helping another one of the aliens
(who are basically large, strong humanoids - and I do mean LARGE) hide
from a vengeance-bound foe, and they have a lovely time thenceforth.
(I think it was McCaffrey, but it might have been LeGuin.) Anyway, other
examples will be noted (and probably read!) with interest.
-b
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| Bradley has included a fair amount of sex (including homosex) in her
Darkover novels. One of the more marvelously delicate sex scenes in sf
that I can recall was in one of McCaffrey's Pern books, I think it was
the second or third of the juveniles.
Then, of course, there's THE GODS THEMSELVES, by Isaac Asimov...
****
re: Gor
I've only read the first three. One and two were ludicrous, but read-
able, heroic fantasy. The third (PRIEST KINGS OF GOR) was quite interesting.
Not enough to make me continue, though, especially with what everyone says about
them.
re: Silistra series
If there can be >18 Gor books, why not 5 Silistra novels. *Somebody*
likes them, just as there are obviously people that like the Gor books (many
of them women, in fact (no flames, please, God's honest truth)). Don Wollheim
has gone on record not a few times to say that the Gor books sold enough to
support the rest of the line (by now, I'd say that Bradley and Cherryh support
it, too). He publishes the Gor books so that he can afford to publish the more
experimental books.
--- jerry
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