TARNSMAN OF GOR [Mass Market Paperback]

The action is fast, the slave girls are few, notably this is perhaps one of the few books with a strong female character. And the thought of Talena follows us and Tarl Cabot himself throughout the books. It is a pity they do not meet again within the first twenty books.

In this book, as in the first 5, Tarl, though probably the mightiest and bravest swordsman on the planet, is still deep down an earth man, which makes the first person writing more palatable. In the later books he is much harsher- ie. a true Gorean male, though his cleverness and exploits are no less brave and amazing.

Another annoying habit that he has used on some occassions is creating words. Louis Carrol did this, as did some other authors too, but they had and have a command of the English language. Norman shouldn't be allowed to make up words from joining two or more every day words together. He is teetering on not being allowed to write at all...not even his name.

It saddens me to learn that John Norman is a college professor. It's no wonder that he teaches philosophy. Half the time you have to ponder hard trying to figure out how he is describing things such as big rocks.

I have read several of Norman's books. Each time I got a massive headache from reading it and had to quit or have my girlfriend translate the story from Norman-ese to English. Even then, we are wondering if that has anything to do with my girlfriend's sudden resurgence of migraines.

In short, Norman's stories are okay, by no means great, but his writing should make us all sorrowfull knowing that these were supposedly written by an educated man.

After reading how he writes his work, I wonder where the publisher's editors were. If anyone handed in a story like this to an English teacher or creative writing teacher, they would surely return it with an F emblazoned on the front.

Gor is a book series that people should read if there are no other books in existance and they really are in DESPERATE need bathroom material.