A friend recently told me about a series of books written in the late 60s and 70s by a man named John Norman. The first in the series is titled "Tarnsman Of Gor" and is about a mythical planet called Gor. There are 25 books in the series and is full of CP. The series has been so popular that people have Gor websites and actually live 'Gor' lifestyles. I have ordered a copy of the first book and am waiting impatiently for it to arrive.
Anyone on our fora familiar with these books?

Save your money, the book s**ks. Enough said.

Chapter One: A HANDFUL OF EARTH

My name is Tarl Cabot. The name is supposed to have been shortened in the fifteenth century from the Italian surname Cabato. As far as I know, however, I have no connection with the Venetian explorer who carried the banner of Henry VII tothe New World. Such a connection seems unlikely for a number of reasons, among them the fact that my people were simple tradesmen of Bristol, and uniformly fair-complexioned and topped with a blaze of the most outrageous red hair. None the less, such coincidences, even if they are only geographical, linger in family memory - our small challenge to the ledgers and arithmetic of an existence measured in bolts of cloth sold. I like to think there may have been a Cabot in Bristol, one of us, who watched our Italian namesake weigh anchor in the early morning of that second of May, 1497.

You may remark my first name, and I assure you that it gave me quite as much trouble as it might you, particularly during my early school years, when it occasioned almost as many contests of physical skill as my red hair. Let us say simply that it is not a common name, not common on this world of ours. It was given to me by my father, who disappeared when I was quite young. I thought him dead until I received his strange message, more than twenty years after he had vanished. My mother, whom he inquired after, had died when I was about six, somewhere about the time I entered school. Biographical details are tedious, so suffice it to say that I was a bright child, fairly large for my age, and was given a creditable upbringing by an aunt who furnished everything that a child might need, with the possible exception of love.

Surprisingly enough, I managed to gain entrance to the University of Oxford, but I shall not choose to embarrass my college by entering its somewhat too revered name in this narrative. I graduated decently, having failed to astound either myself or my tutors. Like a large number of young men, I found myself passably educated, able to parse a sentence or so in Greek, and familiar enough with the abstractions of philosophy and economics to know that I would not be likely to fit into that world to which they claimed to bear some obscure relation. I was not, however, reconciled to ending up on the shelves of my aunt's shop, along with the cloth and ribbon, and so I embarked upon a wild, but not too wild, adventure, all things considered.

Being literate and not too dull, and having read enough history to tell the Renaissance from the Industrial Revolution, I applied to several small American colleges for an instructorship in history - English history, of course. I told them I was somewhat more advanced academically than I was, and they believed me, and my tutors, in their letters of recommendation, being good fellows, were kind enough not to disabuse them of this illusion. I believe my tutors thoroughly enjoyed the situation, which they, naturally, did not officially allow me to know they understood. It was the Revolutionary War all over again. One of the colleges to which I applied, one perhaps somewhat less perceptive than the rest, a small liberal arts college for men in New Hampshire, entered into negotiations, and I had soon received what was to be my first and, I suppose, my last appointment in the academic world. I time I assumed I would be found out, but meanwhile I had my passage to America paid and a position for at least one year. This outcome struck me as being a pleasant if perplexing state of affairs. I admit I was annoyed by the suspicion that I had been given the appointment largely on the grounds that I would be faculty exotica. Surely I had no publications, and I am confident there must have been several candidates from American universities whose credentials and capacities would have far outshone my own, except for the desiderated British accent. Yes, there would be the round of teas and the cocktail and supper invitations.

I liked America very much, though I was quite busy the first semester, smashing through numerous texts in an undignified manner, attempting to commit enough English history to memory to keep at least a reign or so ahead of my students. I discovered, to my dismay, that being English does not automatically qualify one as an authority on English history. Fortunately, my departmental chairman, a gentle, bespectacled man, whose speciality was American economic history, knew even less than I did, or, at least, was considerate enough to allow me to believe so.

The Christmas vacation helped greatly. I was especially counting on the time between semesters to catch up, or, better, to lengthen my lead on the students. But after the term papers, the tests, and the grading of the first semester, I was afflicted with a rather irresistible desire to chuck the British Empire and go for a long, long walk - indeed, even a camping trip to the nearby White Mountains.

I borrowed some camp gear, mostly a knapsack and a sleeping bag, from one of the few friends I had made on the faculty - an instructor also, but in the deplorable subject of physical education. He and I had fenced occasionally and had gone for infrequent walks. I sometimes wonder if he is curious about what happened to his camp gear or to Tarl Cabot. Surely the administration of the college was curious, and angry at the inconvenience of having to replace an instructor in the middle of the year, for Tarl Cabot was never heard of again on the campus of that college.

My friend in the physical education department drove me a few miles into the mountains and dropped me off. We agreed to meet again in three days at the same place. The first thing I did was check my compass, as if I knew what I was up to, and then proceeded to leave the highway well behind me. More quickly than I realised, I was alone in the woods, climbing. Bristol, as you know, is a heavily urbanised area, and I was not well prepared for my first encounter with nature. Surely the college, though somewhat rural, was at least one of the outworks of, say, material civilisation. I was not frightened, being confident that walking steadily in any given direction would be sure to bring me to one highway or another, or some stream or another, and that it would be impossible to become lost, or at least for long. Primarily, I was exhilarated, being alone, with myself and the green pines and the patches of snow.

I trudged for the better part of two hours before I finally yielded to the weight of the pack. I ate a cold lunch and was on my way again, getting deeper into the mountains. I was pleased that I had regularly taken a turn or two around the college track.

That evening I dropped my pack near a rock platform and set about gathering some wood for a fire. I had gone a bit from my makeshift lamp when I stopped, startled for a moment. Something in the darkness, to the left, lying on the ground, seemed to be glowing. It held a calm, hazy blue radiance. I put down the wood I had gathered and approached the object, more curious than anything else. It appeared to be a rectangular metal envelope, rather thin, not much larger than the normal envelope one customarily uses for correspondence. I touched it; it seemed to be hot. My hair rose on the back of my head; my eyes widened. I read, in a rather archaic English script inscribed on the envelope, two words - my name, Tarl Cabot.

It was a joke. Somehow my friend had followed me, must be hiding somewhere in the darkness. I called his name, laughing. There was no answer. I raced about in the woods a moment, shaking bushes, batting the snow from the low-hanging branches of pines. I then walked more slowly, more carefully, being quiet. I would find him!

Some fifteen minutes passed, and I was growing cold, angry. I shouted to him. I widened my search, keeping that strange metal envelope with its blue ambience the centre of my movements. At last I realised he must have planted the odd object, left it for me to discover, and was probably on his way home by now or was perhaps camping somewhere nearby. I was confident he was not within earshot or he would eventually have responded. It was no longer funny, not if he was near.

I returned to the object and picked it up. It seemed to be cooler now, though it still had the distinct impression of warmth. It was a strange object. I brought it back to my camp and built my fire, against the darkness and cold. I was shivering in spite of my heavy clothing. I was sweating. My heart was beating. My breath was short. I was frightened.

Accordingly, slowly and calmly, I set about tending the fire, opened a can of chilli, and set up sticks to hold the tiny cooking pot over the fire. These domestic activities slowed my pulse and succeeded in convincing me that I could be patient and was even not too much interested in the contents of the metal envelope. When the chilli was heating, and not before, I turned my attention to the puzzling object. I turned it over and over in my hands and studied it by the light of the campfire. It was about twelve inches long and four inches high. It weighed, I guessed, about four ounces. The colour of the metal was blue, and something of its ambience continued to characterise it, but the glow was fading. Also, the envelope no longer seemed warm to the touch. How long had it been waiting for me in the woods? How long ago had it been placed there?

While I considered this, the glow faded abruptly. If it had faded earlier, I never would have discovered it in the woods. It was almost as if the glow had been connected with the intent of the sender, as if the glow, no longer needed, had been allowed to fade. 'The message has been delivered,' I said to myself, feeling a bit silly as I said it. I did not find my private joke very funny.

I looked closely at the lettering. It resembled some now outdated English script, but I knew too little of such things to hazard much of a guess at the date. Something about the lettering reminded me of that on a colonial charter, a page of which had been photocopied for an illustration in one of my books. Seventeenth century perhaps. The lettering iteslf seemed to be inset in the envelope, bonded in its metallic structure. I could find no seam or flap in the envelope. I tried to crease the envelope with my thumbnail, but failed. Feeling rather foolish, I took out the can opener I had used on the chilli can and attempted to force the metal point through the envelope. Light as the envelope seemed to be, it resisted the point as if I were trying to open an anvil. I leaned on the can opener with both arms, pressing down with all my weight. The point of the can opener bent into a right angle, but the envelope had not been scratched.

I handled the envelope carefully, puzzled, trying to determine if it might be opened. There was a small circle on the back of the envelope, and in the circle seemed to be the print of a thumb. I wiped it on my sleeve, but it did not disappear. The other prints on the envelope, from my fingers, wiped away immediately. As well as I could, I scrutinised the print in the circle. It, too, like the lettering, seemed a part of the metal, yet its ridges and lineaments were exceedingly delicate.

At last I was confident that it was a part of the envelope. I pressed it with my finger; nothing happened. Tired of this strange business, I set the envelope aside and my attention to the chilli, which was now bubbling over the small campfire. After I had eaten, I removed my boots and coat and crawled into the sleeping bag.

I lay there beside the dying fire, looking up at the branch-lined sky and the mineral glory of the unconscious universe. I lay awake for a long time, feeling alone, yet not alone, as one sometimes does in the wilderness, feeling as if one were the only living object on the planet and as if the closest things to one - one's fate and destiny perhaps - lay outside our small world, somewhere in the remote, alien pastures of the stars.

A thought struck me with sudden swiftness, and I was afraid, but I knew what I must do. The matter of the envelope was not a hoax, not a trick. Somewhere, deep in whatever I am, I knew that and had known it from the beginning. Almost as if dreaming, yet with vivid clarity, I inched partly out of my sleeping bag. I rolled over and threw some wood on the fire and reached for the envelope. Sitting in the sleeping bag, I waited for the fire to rise a bit. Then I carefully placed my right thumb in the impression in the envelope, pressing down firmly. It answered to my touch, as I had expected it to, as I had feared it would. Perhaps only one man could open that envelope - he whose print fitted the strange lock, he whose name was Tarl Cabot. The apparently seamless envelope crackled open, almost with the sound of cellophane.

An object fell from the envelope, a ring of red metal bearing the simple crest 'C". I barely noticed it in my excitement. There was lettering on the inside of the envelope, which had opened in a manner surprisingly like a foreign air-mail letter, where the envelope serves also as stationery. The lettering was in the same script as my name on the outside of the envelope. I noticed the date and froze, my hands clenched on the metallic paper. It was dated the third of February, 1640. It was dated more than three hundred years ago, and I was reading it in the sixth decade of the twentieth century. Oddly enough, also, the day on which I was reading it was the third of February. The signature at the bottom was not in the old script, but might have been done in modern cursive English.

I had seen the signature once or twice before, on some letters my aunt had saved. I knew the signature, though I could not remember the man. It was the signature of my father, Matthew Cabot, who had disappeared when I was an infant.

I was dizzy, unsettled. It seemed my vision reeled; I couldn't move. Things grew black for a moment, but I shook myself and clenched my teeth, breathed in the sharp, cold mountain air, once, twice, three times, slowly, gathering the piercing contact of reality into my lungs, reassuring myself that I was alive, not dreaming, that I held in my hands a letter with an incredible date, delivered more than three hundred years later in the mountains of New Hampshire, written by a man who presumably, if still alive, was, as we reckon time, no more than fifty years of age - my father. Even now I can remember the letter to the last word. I think I will carry its simple, abrupt message burned into the cells of my brain until, as it is elsewhere said, I have returned to the Cities of Dust.

<italic>The third day of February, in the Year of Our Lord 1640.

Tarl Cabot, Son:

Forgive me, but I have little choice in these matters. It has been decided. Do whatever you think is in your own best interest, but the fate is upon you, and you will not escape. I wish health to you and to your mother. Carry on your person the ring of red metal, and bring me, if you would, a handful of our green earth. Discard this letter. It will be destroyed.
With affection,
Matthew Cabot </italic>

I read and reread the letter and had become unnaturally calm. It seemed clear to me that I was not insane, or if I was, that insanity was a state of mental clarity and comprehension quite apart from the torment that I had conceived it to be. I placed the letter in my knapsack. What I must do was fairly obvious - make my way out of the mountains as soon as it was light. No, that might be too late. It would be mad, scrambling about in the darkness, but there seemed to be nothing else that would serve. I did not know how much time I had, but even if it was only a few hours, I might be able to reach some highway or stream or perhaps a cabin.

I checked my compass to get the bearing back to the highway. I looked uneasily about in the darkness. An owl hooted once, perhaps a hundred yards to the right. Something out there might be watching me. It was an unpleasant feeling. I pulled on my boots and coat, rolled my sleeping bag, and fixed the pack. I kicked the fire to pieces, stamping out the embers, scuffing dirt over the sparks.

Just as the fire was sputtering out, I noticed a glint in the ashes. Bending down, I retrieved the ring. It was warm from the ashes, hard, substantial - a piece of reality. It was there. I dropped it into the pocket of my coat and started off on my compass-bearing, trying to make my way back to the highway.

I felt stupid trying to hike in the dark. I was asking for a broken leg or ankle, if not a neck. Still, if I could put a mile or so between myself and the old camp, that should be sufficient to give myself the margin of safety I needed - from what I didn't know. I might then wait until morning and start off in the light, secure, confident. Moreover, it would be a simple matter to cover one's tracks in the light. The important thing was not to be at the old camp.

I had made my way perilously through the darkness for perhaps twenty minutes when, to my horror, my knapsack and bedroll seemed to burst into blue flame on my back. It was an instant's action to hurl them from me, and I gazed, bewildered, awe-stricken, at what seemed to be a furious blue combustion that lit the pines on all sides as if with acetylene flames. It was like staring into a furnace. I knew that it was the envelope that had burst into flame, taking with it my knapsack and bedroll. I shuddered, thinking of what might have happened if I had been carrying it in the pocket of my coat.

Strangely enough, now that I think of it, I didn't run headlong from the spot, though I can't see why, and the thought did cross my mind that the bright, flarelike luminescence would reveal my position, if it was of interest to anyone or anything. With a small flashlight I knelt beside the flakes of my knapsack and bedroll. The stones on which they had fallen were blackened. There was no trace of the envelope. It seemed to have been totally consumed. There was an unpleasant, acrid odour in the air, some fumes of a sort that I was not familiar with. The thought came to me that the ring, which I had dropped in my pocket, might similarly burst into flame, but, unaccountably perhaps, I doubted it. There might be a point in someone's destroying the letter, but presumably there would be little point or no point in destroying the ring. Why should it have been sent if not to have been kept? Besides, I had been warned about the letter - a warning I had foolishly neglected - but had been asked to carry the ring. Whatever it was, father or no, that was the source of these frightening events, it did not seem to wish me harm, but then, I thought, somewhat bitterly, floods and earthquakes presumably wish no one harm either. Who knew the nature of the things or forces that were afoot that night in the mountains, things and forces that might perhaps smash me, casually, as one innocently steps on an insect without being aware of it or caring? I still had the compass, and that constituted a firm link to reality. The silent but intense explosion of the envelope into flames had caused me momentarily to become confused - that and the sudden return to the darkness from the hideous glaring light of the disintegrating envelope. My compass would get me out. With my flashlight I examined it. As the thin, sharp beam struck the face of the compass, my heart stopped. The needle was spinning crazily, and oscillating backward and forward, as if the laws of nature had suddenly been abridged in its vicinity.

For the first time since I had opened the envelope, I began to lose my control. The compass had been my anchor and trust. I had counted on it. Now it had gone crazy. There was a loud noise, but now I think it must have been the sound of my own voice, a sudden frightened shriek for which I shall always bear the shame.

The next thing I was running like a demented animal, in any direction, every direction. How long I ran I don't know. It may have been hours, perhaps only a few minutes. I slipped and fell dozens of times and ran into the prickly branches of pines, the needles stabbing at my face. I may have been sobbing; I remember the taste of salt in my mouth. But mostly I remember a blind, headlong flight, a panic-stricken, unworthy, sickening flight. Once I saw two eyes in the darkness and screamed and ran from them, hearing the flap of wings behind me and the startled cry of an owl. Once I startled a small band of deer and found myself in the midst of their bounding shapes buffeting me in the darkness.

The moon came out, and the mountainside was suddenly lit with its cold beauty, white on the snow in the trees and on the side of the slope, sparkling on the rocks. I could run no further. I fell to the ground, gasping for breath, suddenly asking myself why I had run. For the first time in my life I had felt full, unreasoning fear, and it had gripped me like the paws of some grotesque predatory animal. I had surrendered to it for just a moment, and it had become a force that had carried me, hurling me about as if I were a swimmer captured in surging waves - a force that could not be resisted. It had departed now. I must never surrender to it again. I looked around and recognised the platform of rock near which I had set my bedroll. I saw the ashes of my fire. I had returned to my camp. Somehow I'd known that I would.

As I lay there in the moonlight, I felt the earth beneath me, against my aching muscles and the body that was covered with the foul-smelling sheen of fear and sweat. I felt then that it was good even to feel pain. Feeling was the important thing, I was alive.

I saw the ship descend. For a moment it looked like a falling star, but then it suddenly became clear and substantial, like a broad, thick disc of silver. It was silent and settled on the rock platform, scarcely disturbing the light snow that was scattered on it. There was a slight wind in the pine needles, and I rose to my feet. As I did so, a door in the side of the ship slid quietly upward. I must go in. My father's words recurred in my memory : 'The fate is upon you.' Before entering the ship, I stopped at the side of the large, flat rock on which it rested. I bent down and scooped up, as my father had asked, a handful of our green earth. I, too, felt that it was important to take something with me, something which, in a way, was my native soil. The soil of my planet, my world.

Chapter Two: THE COUNTER-EARTH
I remembered nothing from the time I'd boarded the silver disc in the mountains of New Hampshire until now. I awoke, feeling rested, and opened my eyes, half expecting to see my room in the alumni house at the college. I turned my head, without pain or discomfort. I seemed to be lying on some hard, flat object, perhaps a table, in a circular room with a low ceiling some seven feet high. There were five narrow windows, not large enough to let a man through; they rather reminded me of ports for bowmen in a castle tower, yet they admitted sufficient light to allow me to recognise my surroundings.

There was a tapestry to the right, a well-woven depiction of some hunting scene, I took it, but fancifully done, the spear-carrying hunters mounted on birds of a sort and attacking an ugly animal that reminded me of a boar, except that it appeared to be too large, out of proportion to the hunters. Its jaws carried four tusks, curved like scimitars. It reminded me, with the vegetation and background and the classic serenity of the faces, of a Renaissance tapestry I had once seen on a vacation tour I had taken to Florence in my second year at the University.

Opposite the tapestry - for decoration, I assumed - hung a round shield with crossed spears behind it. The shield was rather like the old Greek shields on some of the red-figured vases in the London Museum. The design on the shield was unintelligible to me. I could not be sure that it was supposed to mean anything. It might have been an alphabetic monogram or perhaps a mere delight to the artist. Above the shield was a suspended helmet, again reminiscent of a Greek helmet, perhaps of the Homeric period. It had a somewhat 'Y'-shaped slot for the eyes, nose, and mouth in the nearly solid metal. There was a savage dignity about it, with the shield and spears, all of them stable on the wall, as if ready, like the famous colonial rifle over the fireplace, for instant use; they were all polished and gleamed dully in the half light.

Aside from these things and two stone blocks, perhaps chairs, and a mat to one side, the room was bare; the walls and ceiling and floor were smooth as marble, and a classic white. I could see no door in the room. I rose from the stone table, which was indeed what it was, and went to the window. I looked out and saw the sun - our sun it had to be. It seemed perhaps a fraction larger, but it was difficult to be sure. I was confident that it was our own brilliant yellow star. The sky, like that of the earth, was blue. My first thought was that this must be the earth and the sun's apparent size an illusion.

Obviously, I was breathing, and that meant necessarily an atmosphere containing a large percentage of oxygen. It must be the earth. But as I stood at the window, I knew that this could not be my mother planet. The building in which I found myself was apparently one of an indefinite number of towers, like endless flat cylinders of varying sizes and colours, joined by narrow, colourful bridges that arched lightly between them.

I could not lean far enough outside the window to see the ground. In the distance I could see hills covered by some type of green vegetation, but I could not determine whether or not it was grass. Wondering at my predicament, I turned back to the table. I strode over to it and nearly bruised my thigh on the stone structure. I felt for a moment as though I must have stumbled, have been dizzy. I walked around the room. I leaped to the top of the table almost as I would have climbed a stair in the alumni house. It was different, a different movement. Less gravity. It had to be. The planet, then, was smaller than our earth, and, given the apparent size of the sun, perhaps somewhat closer to it. My clothes had been changed. My hunting boots were gone, my fur cap and the heavy coat and the rest of it. I was clad in some sort of tunic of a reddish colour, which was tied at the waist with a yellow cord. It occurred to me that I was clean, in spite of my adventures, my panic-stricken rout in the mountains. I had been washed. I saw that the ring of red metal, with the crest of a 'C', had been placed on the second finger of my right hand. I was hungry. I tried to put my thoughts together, sitting on the table, but there was too much. I felt like a child, knowing nothing, taken to some complex factory or store, unable to sort out his impressions, unable to comprehend the new and strange things that flash incessantly upon him.

A panel in the wall slid sideways, and a tall red-haired man, somewhere in his late forties, dressed much as I was, stepped through. I hadn't known what to expect, what these people would be like. This man was an earthman, apparently. He smiled at me and came forward, placing his hands on my shoulders and looking into my eyes. He said, I thought rather proudly, 'You are my son, Tarl Cabot.'

'I am Tarl Cabot,' I said.

'I am your father,' he said, and shook me powerfully by the shoulders. We shook hands, on my part rather stiffly, yet this gesture of our common homeland somehow reassured me. I was surprised to find myself accepting this stranger not only as being of my world, but as the father I couldn't remember.

'Your mother?' he asked, his eyes concerned.

'Dead, years ago,' I said.

He looked at me. 'She, of all of them, I loved most,' he said, turning away, crossing the room. He appeared to be affected keenly, shaken. I wanted to feel no sympathy with him, yet I found that I could not help it. I was angry with myself. He had deserted my mother and me, had he not? And what was it now that he felt some regret? And how was it that he had spoken so innocently of 'all of them', whoever they might be. I did not want to find out.

Yet, somehow, in spite of these things, I found that I wanted to cross the room, to put my hand on his arm, to touch him. I felt somehow a kinship with him, with this stranger and his sorrow. My eyes were moist. Something stirred in me, obscure, painful memories that had been silent, quiet for many years - the memory of a woman I had barely known, of a gentle face, of arms that had protected a child who had awakened frightened in the night. And I remembered suddenly another face, behind hers.

'Father,' I said.

He straightened and turned to face me across that simple, strange room. It was impossible to tell if he had wept. He looked at me with sadness in his eyes, and his rather stern features seemed for a moment to be tender. Looking into his eyes, I realised, with an incomprehensible suddenness and a joy that still bewilders me, that someone existed who loved me.

'My son,' he said.

We met in the centre of the room and embraced. I wept, and he did, too, without shame. I learned later that on this alien world a strong man may feel and express emotions, and that the hypocrisy of constraint is not honoured on this planet as it is on mine.

At last we moved apart.

My father regarded me evenly. 'She will be the last,' he said. 'I had no right to let her love me.'

I was silent.

He sensed my feeling and spoke brusquely. 'Thank you for your gift, Tarl Cabot,' he said.

I looked puzzled.

'The handful of earth,' he said. 'A handful of my native ground.' I nodded, not wanting to speak, wanting him to tell me the thousand things I had to know, to dispel the mysteries that had torn me from my native world and brought me to this strange room, this planet, to him, my father.

'You must be hungry,' he said.

'I want to know where I am and what I am doing here,', I said.

'Of course,' he said, 'but you must eat.' He smiled. 'While you satisfy your hunger, I shall speak to you.'

He clapped his hands twice, and the panel slid back again. I was startled. Through the opening came a young girl, somewhat younger than myself, with blonde hair bound back. She wore a sleeveless garment of diagonal stripes, the brief skirt of which terminated some inches above her knees. She was barefoot, and as her eyes shyly met mine, I saw they were blue and deferential. My eyes suddenly noted her one piece of jewelry - a light, steel-like band she wore as a collar. As quickly as she had come, she departed.

'You may have her this evening if you wish,' said my father, who had scarcely seemed to notice the girl.

I wasn't sure what he meant, but I said no.
At my father's insistence, I began to eat, reluctantly, never taking my eyes from him, hardly tasting the food, which was simple but excellent. The meat reminded me of venison; it was not the meat of an animal raised on domestic grains. It had been roasted over an open flame. The bread was still hot from the oven. The fruit - grapes and peaches of some sort - was fresh and as cold as mountain snow. After the meal I tasted the drink, which might not inappropriately be described as an almost incandescent wine, bright, dry, and powerful. I learned later it was called Ka-la-na. While I ate, and afterwards, my father spoke.

'Gor,' he said, 'is the name of this world. In all the languages of this planet, the word means Home Stone.' He paused, noting my lack of comprehension. 'Home Stone,' he repeated. 'Simply that.'

'In peasant villages on this world,' he continued, 'each hut was originally built around a flat stone which was placed in the centre of the circular dwelling. It was carved with the family sign and was called the Home Stone. It was, so to speak, a symbol of sovereignty, or territory, and each peasant, in his own hut, was a sovereign.'

'Later,' said my father, 'Home Stones were used for villages, and later still for cities. The Home Stone of a village was always placed in the market; in a city, on the top of the highest tower. The Home Stone came naturally, in time, to acquire a mystique, and something of the hot, sweet emotions as out native peoples of Earth feel towards their flags became invested in it.'

My father had risen to his feet and had begun to pace the room, and his eyes seemed strangely alive. In time I would come to understand more of what he felt. Indeed, there is a saying on Gor, a saying whose origin is lost in the past of this strange planet, that one who speaks of Home Stones should stand, for matters of honour are here involved, and honour is respected in the barbaric codes of Gor.

'These stones,' said my father, 'are various, of different colours, shapes, and sizes, and many of them are intricately carved. Some of the largest cities have small, rather insignificant Home Stones, but of incredible antiquity, dating back to the time when the city was a village or only a mounted pride of warriors with no settled abode.' My father paused at the narrow window in the circular room and looked out on to the hills beyond and fell silent.

At last he spoke again.

'Where a man sets his Home Stone, he claims, by law, that land for himself. Good land is protected only by the swords of the strongest owners in the vicinity.'

'Swords?' I asked.

'Yes,' said my father, as if there was nothing incredible in this admission. He smiled. 'You have much to learn of Gor,' he said. 'Yet there is a hierarchy of Home Stones, one might say, and two soldiers who would cut one another down with their steel blades for an acre of fertile ground will fight side by side to the death for the Home Stone of their village or of the city within whose ambit their village lies. 'I shall show you someday,' he said, 'my own small Home Stone, which I keep in my chambers. It encloses a handful of soil from the Earth, a handful of soil that I first brought with me when I came to this world - a long time ago.' He looked at me evenly. 'I shall keep the handful of earth you brought,' he said, his voice very quiet, 'and someday it may be yours.' His eyes seemed moist. He added, 'If you should live to earn a Home Stone.'

I rose to my feet and looked at him.

He had turned away, as if lost in thought. 'It is the occasional dream of a conqueror or statesman,' he said, 'to have but a single Supreme Home Stone for the planet.' Then, after a long moment, not looking at me, he said, 'It is rumoured that there is such a stone, but it lies in the Sacred Place and is the source of the Priest-Kings' power.'

'Who are the Priest-Kings?' I asked.

My father faced me, and he seemed troubled, as if he might have said more than he intended. Neither of us spoke for perhaps a minute. 'Yes,' said my father at last, 'I must speak to you of Priest-Kings.' He smiled. 'But let me begin in my own way, that you may better understand the nature of that whereof I speak.' We both sat down again, the stone table between us, and my father calmly and methodically explained many things to me.

As he spoke, my father often referred to the planet Gor as the Counter-Earth, taking the name from the writings of the Pythagoreans who had first speculated on the existence of such a body. Oddly enough, one of the expressions in the tongue of Gor for our sun was Lar-Torvis, which means The Central Fire, another Pythagorean expression, except that it had not been, as I understand it, originally used by the Pythagoreans to refer to the sun but to another body. The more common expression for the sun was Tor-tu-Gor, which means Light Upon the Home Stone. There was a sect among the people that worshipped the sun, but it was insignificant both in numbers and power when compared with the worship of the Priest-Kings who, whatever they were, were accorded the honours of divinity. Theirs, it seems, was the honour of being enshrined as the most ancient gods of Gor, and in time of danger a prayer to the Priest-Kings might escape the lips of even the bravest men.

'The Priest-Kings,' said my father, 'are immortal, or so most here believe.'

'Do you believe it?' I asked.

'I don't know,' said my father. 'I think perhaps I do.'

'What sort of men are they?' I asked.

'It is not known that they are men,' said my father.
'Then what are they?'

'Perhaps gods.'

'You're not serious?'

'I am,' he said. 'Is not a creature beyond death, of immense power and wisdom, worthy to be so spoken of?'
I was quiet.

'My speculation, however,' said my father, 'is that the Priest-Kings are indeed men - men much as we, or humanoid organisms of some type - who possess a science and technology as far beyond our normal ken as that of our own twentieth century would be to the alchemists and astrologers of the medieval universities.'

His supposition seemed plausible to me, for from the very beginning I had understood that in something or someone existed a force and clarity of understanding beside which the customary habits of rationality as I knew them were little more than the tropisms of the unicellular animal. Even the technology of the envelope with its patterned thumb-lock, the disorientation of my compass, and the ship that had brought me, unconscious, to this strange world, argued for an incredible grasp of unusual, precise, and manipulable forces.

'The Priest-Kings,' said my father, 'maintain the Sacred Place in the Sardar Mountains, a wild vastness into which no man penetrates. The Sacred Place, to the minds of most men here, is taboo, perilous. Surely none have returned from those mountains.' My father's eyes seemed faraway, as if focused on sights he might have preferred to forget. 'Idealists and rebels have been dashed to pieces on the frozen escarpments of those mountains. If one approaches the mountains, one must go on foot. Our beasts will not approach them. Parts of outlaws and fugitives who sought refuge in them have been found on the plains below, like scraps of meat cast from an incredible distance to the beaks and teeth of wandering scavengers.'

My hand clenched on the metal goblet. The wine moved in the vessel. I saw my image in the wine, shattered by the tiny forces in the vessel. Then the wine was still.

'Sometimes,' said my father, his eyes still
faraway, 'when men are old or have had enough of life, they assault the mountains, looking for the secret of immortality in the barren crags. If they have found their immortality, none have confirmed it, for none have returned to the Tower Cities.' He looked at me. 'Some think that such men in time become Priest-Kings themselves. My own speculations, which I judge as likely or unlikely to be true as the more popular superstitious stories, is that it is death to learn the secret of the Priest-Kings.'

'You do not know that,' I said.

'No,' admitted my father. 'I do not know it.'

My father then explained to me something of the legends of the Priest-Kings, and I gathered that they seemed to be true to this degree at least - that the Priest-Kings could destroy or control whatever they wished, that they were, in effect, the divinities of this world. It was supposed that they were aware of all that transpired on their planet, but, if so, I was informed that they seemed, on the whole, to take little note of it. It was rumoured, according to my father, that they cultivated holiness in their mountains, and in their contemplation could not be concerned with the realities and evils of the outside and unimportant world. They were, so to speak, absentee divinities, existent but remote, not to be bothered with the fears and turmoil of the mortals beyond their mountains. This conjecture, the seeking of holiness, however, seemed to me to fit not well with the sickening fate apparently awaiting those who attempted the mountains. I found it difficult to conceive of one of those theoretical saints rousing himself from contemplation to hurl the scraps of interlopers to the plains below.

'There is at least one area, however,' said my father, 'in which the Priest-Kings do take a most active interest in this world, and that is the area of technology. They limit, selectively, the technology available to us, the Men Below the Mountains. For example, incredibly enough, weapon technology is controlled to the point where the most powerful devices of war are the crossbow and lance. Further, there is no mechanised transportation or communication equipment or detection devices such as the radar and sonar equipment so much in evidence in the military establishments of your world.

'On the other hand,' he said, 'you will learn that in lighting, shelter, agricultural techniques, and medicine, for example, the Mortals, or Men Below the Mountains, are relatively advanced.' He looked at me - amused, I think. 'You wonder,' he said, 'why the numerous, rather obvious deficits in our technology have not been repaired - in spite of the Priest-Kings. It crosses your mind that there must exist minds on this world capable of designing such things as, say, rifles and armoured vehicles.'

'Surely such things must be produced,' I urged.

'And you are right,' he said grimly. 'From time to time they are, but their owners are then destroyed, bursting into flame.'

'Like the envelope of blue metal?'

'Yes,' he said. 'It is Flame Death merely to possess a weapon of the interdicted sort. Sometimes bold individuals create or acquire such war materials and sometimes for as long as a year escape the Flame Death, but sooner or later they are struck down.' His eyes were hard. 'I once saw it happen,' he said.
Clearly, he did not wish to discuss the topic further.
'What of the ship that brought me here?' I asked. 'Surely that is a marvellous example of your technology?'

'Not of our technology, but of that of the Priest-Kings,' he said. 'I do not believe the ship was manned by any of the Men Below the Mountains.'

'By Priest-Kings?' I asked.

'Frankly,' said my father, 'I believe the ship was remotely controlled from the Sardar Mountains, as are said to be all the Voyages of Acquisition.'

'Of Acquisition?'

'Yes,' said my father. 'And long ago I made the same strange journey. As have others.'

'But for what end, to what purpose?' I demanded.

'Each perhaps for a different end, for each perhaps a different purpose,' he said.

My father then spoke to me of the world on which I found myself. He sai, from what he could learn from the Initiates, who claimed to serve as the intermediaries of Priest-Kings to men, that the planet Gor had originally been a satellite of a distant sun, in one of the fantastically remote Blue Galaxies. It was moved by the science of the Priest-Kings several times in its history, seeking again and again a new star. I regarded this story as improbable, at least in part, for several reasons, primarily having to do with the sheer spatial improbabilities of such a migration, which, even at a speed approximating light, would have taken billions of years. Moreover, in moving through space, without a sun for photosynthesis and warmth, all life would surely have been destroyed.

If the planet had been moved at all, and I knew enough to understand that this was empirically impossible, it must have been brought into our system from a closer star. Perhaps it had once been a satellite of Alpha Centauri, but, even so, the distances still seemed almost unimaginable. Theoretically, I did admit that the planet might have been moved without destroying its life, but the engineering magnitude of such a feat staggered the imagination. Perhaps life might have been suspended temporarily or hidden beneath the planet's surface with sufficient sustenance and oxygen for the incredible journey. In effect, the planet would have functioned as a gigantic sealed spacecraft.
There was another possibility I mentioned to my father - perhaps the planet had been in our system all the time, but had been undiscovered, unlikely though that might be, given the thousands of years of study of the skies by men, from the shambling creatures of the Neander Valley to the brilliant intellects of Mount Wilson and Palomar. To my surprise, this absurd hypothesis was welcomed by my father.

'That,' he said with animation, 'is the Theory of the Sun Shield.' He added, 'That is why I like to think of the planet as the Counter-Earth, not only because of its resemblance to our native world, but because, as a matter of fact, it is placed as a counterpoise to the Earth. It has the same plane of orbit and maintains its orbit in such a way as always to keep The Central Fire between it and its planetary sister, our Earth, even though this necessitates occasional adjustments in its speed of revolution.'

'But surely,' I protested, 'its existence could be discovered. One can't hide a planet the size of the Earth in our own solar system! It's impossible!'
'You underestimate the Priest-Kings and their science,' said my father, smiling. 'Any power that is capable of moving a planet - and I believe the Priest-Kings possess this power - is capable of effecting adjustments in the motion of the planet, such adjustments as might allow it to use the sun indefinitely as a concealing shield.'

'The orbits of the other planets would be affected,' I pointed out.

'Gravitational perturbations,' said my father, 'can be neutralised.' His eyes shone. 'It is my belief,' he said, 'that the Priest-Kings can control the forces of gravity, at least in localised areas, and, indeed, that they do so. In all probability their control over the motion of the planet is somehow connected with this capacity. Consider certain consequences of this power. Physical evidence, such as light or radio waves, which might reveal the presence of the planet, can be prevented from doing so. The Priest-Kings might gravitationally warp the space in their vicinity, causing light or radio waves to be diffused, curved, or deflected in such a way as not to expose their world.'

I must have appeared unconvinced.

'Exploratory satellites can be similarly dealt with,' added my father. He paused. 'Of course, I only propose hypotheses, for what the Priest-Kings do and how it is done is known only to them.'

I drained the last sip of the heady wine in the metal goblet.

'Actually,' said my father, 'there is evidence of the existence of the Counter-Earth.'

I looked at him.

'Certain natural signals in the radio band of the spectrum,' said my father.

My astonishment must have been obvious.

'Yes,' he said, 'but since the hypothesis of another world is regarded as so incredible, this evidence has been interpreted to accord with other theories; sometimes even imperfections in instrumentation have been supposed rather than admit the presence of another world in our solar system.'

'But why would this evidence not be understood?' I asked.

'Surely you know,' he laughed, 'one must distinguish between the data to be interpreted and the interpretation of the data, and one chooses, normally, the interpretation that preserves as much as possible of the old world view, and, in the thinking of the Earth, there is no place for Gor, its true sister planet, the Counter-Earth.'

My father had finished speaking. He rose and gripped me by the shoulders, held me for a moment and smiled. Then silently the door in the wall slid aside, and he strode from the room. He had not spoken to me of my role or destiny, whatever it was to be. He did not wish to discuss the reason for which I had been brought to the Counter-Earth, nor did he explain to me the comparatively minor mysteries of the envelope and its strange letter. Most keenly perhaps, I missed that he had not spoken to me of himself, for I wanted to know him, that kindly, remote stranger whose bones were in my body, whose blood flowed in mine - my father.

I now inform you that what I write of my own experience I know to be true, and that what I have accepted on authority I believe to be true, but I shall not be offended if you disbelieve, for I, too, in your place, would refuse to believe. Indeed, on the small evidence I can present in this narrative, you are obliged, in all honesty, to reject my testimony or at the very least suspend judgement. In fact, there is so little probability that this tale will be believed that the Priest-Kings of Sardar, the Keepers of the Sacred Place, have apparently granted that it may be recorded. I am glad of this, because I must tell this story. I have seen things of which I must speak, even if, as it is said here, only to the Towers.

Why have the Priest-Kings been so lenient in this case - those who control this second earth? I think the answer is simple. Enough humanity remains in them, if they are human, for we have never seen them, to be vain; enough vanity remains in them to wish to inform you of their existence, if only in a way that you will not accept or be able to consider seriously. Perhaps there is humour in the Sacred Place, or irony. After all, suppose you should accept this tale, should learn of the Counter-Earth and of the Voyages of Acquisition, what could you do? You could do nothing, you with your rudimentary technology of which you are so proud - you could do nothing at least for a thousand years, and by that time, if the Priest-Kings choose, this planet will have found a new sun, and new peoples to populate its verdant surface.

can anyone be bothered to plough through all this bollocks?

That's what Tolkein's publishers said when he sent them 'Lord of the Rings'.

Dear Lotta; I am glad you like the book. I thought the writing was sub standard and the thought of buying and reading another 24 books 'just like it' was more than I could take. I also understand he has recently written 2 more in the series. If he wrote like Tolkein it would be a different matter.It was a great idea for the series but he should have let someone else write it.

I haven't read the book.

I posted the first two chapters as part of my ongoing policy of public service and general bonhomie to fellow forum members but I don't think I'll proceed to Chapter 3. I'm not a great fan of stories set in other worlds and was bored to death (almost!) by Lord of the Rings. I've so far managed a chapter of the book and about 30 minutes of the film. Yawn. Yawn. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

I can understand why Gor is so popular among certain sections of the community, dealing as I understand it does with the utter worthlessness of women and the sheer wonderfulness of anything with a penis.

I quite like John Norman's writing style. He may not be Dickens or Shakespeare but he's still pretty good. If we compare his writing with that of any CP writer I've ever come across (the very best of whom are still worse than awful), he's a literary genius.

Dear Bob,

If you're desperate enough to try Gor, look up www.unseemly.com for short stories by John (jon?) Benson. Some of the writing is quite skillful (some not). Just don't read too many at a time because he only has a few stories to tell and sometimes reexplorations of themes try my patience (this from a girl who's read all of Henry James's works) When I'm done someday with the neverending saga of the American Girl in Europe, I will string together various stories John Benson stories to make a sort of JB spanking novel.

Love
Saro

Ps: I do miss you, but this postings on this forum have been a bit silly lately.

Welcom back SARO - we has missed you too.
thankyou

I could be a spankophile
Be your sexy mummy
I could run a schoolhouse
No, I don’t think I’d like that.

But I might write a song that makes you laugh
Now that would be funny
And you could tell your friends in Spank Land
You’d like that.

But now I’ve chosen cyberspace and the Internet’s between us
And a line or two on the forum wouldn’t go amiss
How is SpankingChat? Is it still the same between us?
Do you still use masturbation to send you fast asleep?
Can you last another week?
Does your underwear still leak?
Or have you found someone to mend it?
Oh and by the way, how’s your broken heart?
Is that mended too?
I miss you.
I miss you.
I really do.

I’ve been reading Saro, Bob and Lotta Nonsense
And they all seem to be saying the same thing for me.
Well I like the words they use and I like the way they use them.
You know ‘Literary Thoughts From Abroad’ is such a beautiful posting.
And I know how Margaret Watson must have felt
Cos I’m feeling the same way about you.
Wondering what you’re doing and if you need some help.
Do I still occupy your mind?
Am I being so unkind?
Do you find it very lonely
Or have you found someone to spank with?
Oh and by the way, are you spanking now?
Cos I’m not.
I miss you.
I miss you.
I really do.

I really do.

The website of stories I mentioned is www.unseemly.ORG not COM.

Sorry.

I'm almost inspired to write something tomorrow.

Baby doll, sweety pie, cyber love. Where have you been? I've missed you. The only reason I'm desperate enough to try Gor is because you abandoned me.
But I quess I will try John Benson. Please start posting again.
P.S. I thought you must be starring in a Broadway Play.

Lotta, I have been meaning to respond to your reply,but I was pressed for time and then of course the triumphant return of Saro caused inevitable delays.

Apparently on GOR, women are highly valued possessions,
i.e. sex slaves, floor scrubbers, etc. I'll bet it makes you feel all warm and tingly inside.

It looks like somebody has been playing Gor over there.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4996410.stm

The Gor books by Norman are not all that well written and there are pages and pages of bollocks full of sort of low rent Tolkien nonsense on some alternate world. But in this world women are subservient to men and many of the women are slaves. If the slaves don't show the correct level of respect to their owner and other men they are whipped. If that's what turns you on you may enjoy the books. At least one plot is about some stuck-up woman from Earth finding herself somehow transported to being a slave girl on Gor and being somewhat suprised at the treatment she receives. Some of the books have more of this stuff than the others. If the word Slavegirl is in the title you are sure to find some female getting her bottom whipped somewhere along with the other nonsense.