Dreamer wrote:
> "Brawl Hall - No Balls At All" <kill@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote in message
> news:Xns9622BBD7345BB12345666@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> > rgorman@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(David Johnston) wrote in
news:42416bf3.10637619
> > @[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> >
> > > On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 10:45:09 -0800, "Bill Cleere"
> > > <bcleere@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> > >
> > >>> > You made that up. No one would actually read a novel
> > >>> > called "Tarnsman of Gor", let alone write it.
> > >>>
> > >>> I bet you couldn't plod through a Gor novel if paid. They are
among
> > the
> > >>> worst ever written.
> > >>
> > >>"Fantasy" novels are the worst shit in the history of writing,
period.
> > >
> > > "Gor" novels are science fiction. Bad science fiction S&M
> > > pornography, mind you, but science fiction.
> >
> > I fail to see the science. I agree with the rest.
>
> It's *bad* science, but it's science. There is no magic in the Gor
books:
> everything has a scientific explanation. A lot of it wouldn't *work,*
but
> it's understood to be mechanical and replicable in nature and
therefore
> isn't magical.
I agree that there was no magic (except maybe in the sf quote; "any
sufficiently advanced technology is indistinquishable from magic") But
I seem to remember swords, cloaks and sandals with the hero hiding out
in the Assassin's Guild for one book. (One of the few times I found him
admirable was when he took a two-cent contract to protect a begger from
a band of killers.) If you have to pigeon-hole it, I'd say bad science
fantasy.
I'm not a "hard science" nut, I can read Analog and/or Asimov's Science
Fiction Magazine with equal relish.
Quick question. I compared Gor with Burrough's Barsoom series. Is there
any magic in the Barsoom books? Or in the Pellucar (sp) series in the
"inner Earth." (They made a pretty bad movie out of that as well, but
at least it stayed consistent to the books.
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