Die Chroniken von Gor 2 - Der Geächtete

Von John Norman

Tarl Cabot, einst mächtigster und stolzester Krieger auf Gor, kehrt nach Jahren des Exils auf die Gegenerde zurück. Doch die Dinge haben sich verändert: Seine Heimatstadt Ko-ro-ba ist zerstört, und seine wunderschöne Gefährtin Talena gilt als vermisst.

Cabot selbst hat man zum Geächteten erklärt - ein Mann, den jeder töten darf. Seine einzige Chance besteht darin, die seltsamen Priesterkönige zu finden, die Gor regieren und sich ihnen zu unterwerfen. Aber Tarl Cabot ist nicht gekommen, um sich zu unterwerfen.

• Sprache: Deutsch
• Herausgeber: Basilisk Verlag
• Erscheinungsdatum: 7. Nov. 2012
• ISBN: 9783935706599

Rezensionen für Die Chroniken von Gor 2 - Der Geächtete

[dragonasbreath · Bewertung: 4 von 5 Sternen]

It is definitely an amusing book. This one is more geared to adventure, although there are still a few scenes where... you have to wonder if they would have actually survived it.So long as you are willing to suspend judgement, you'll enjoy the ride.

[stevetempo_1 · Bewertung: 3 von 5 Sternen]

Good fun...like a Burroughs Fantasy...just a bit edger...

[terpsichoreus · Bewertung: 2 von 5 Sternen]

If I had written this book, I would have titled it 'Terb Versus the Blood Lesbians', which has the combined benefits of precisely outlining the plot and sparking the audience's collective imagination. However, if I had written this book, I would be a damaged man trying to outweigh his insecurities with a chivalry fetish.Now, kicking John Norman for being kinky is a tired game, especially since he's no more sexually confused than Stephanie Meyer. Both idealize the phrase 'love conquers all' until it supersedes pain, self-interest, or plot.Norman doesn't bathe his books in this sort of rhetoric, indeed, he can run on for chapters of nobility and excitement with only hints of the queasiness he is capable of evoking. He also often contradicts and questions his own persistent themes. This is because he is not merely a fetishist or a chauvinist, but a man who has combined romanticism, nobility, and idealism to create a far-reaching rhetoric of female slavery.His is not a slavery to injure women or to lay them low, but a slavery to elevate them, to make them better than they ever could have been alone. Likewise, his grandiose philosophy states that men are just as useless without women as their subjects. Nor is it enough for Norman's protagonist to simply capture or enslave a woman.Norman places a high importance on freeing a woman entirely, so that they can choose their subservience out of a true and abiding love. I am reminded of the passage from Angela Carter's 'The Sadean Woman' where she mentions that the 'earth mother goddess' of New Age religion is just another social slavery women subject themselves to.Likewise, Norman is not happy unless the 'weaker sex' realizes just how helpless it is, how it is only half of a whole, and cannot survive alone. Anyone who buys into such rhetoric only does so because they have been made to feel less than whole.Since Norman had already written a book where a man travels through a world filled with luscious lady slaves and frees them so that they can truly devote themselves to him, he felt he had to up the ante with the sequel.Now, Terb, son of Terb, Terb rider must travel to the far-off city of Therb where he meets the Terbtrix, its alluring and mysterious queen. He sees that it is up to him, and him alone alone, to take down this one-of-a-kind matriarchy in a world where women are normally slaves or unseen. This isn't because he wants it to be like the other, patriarchal cities, but rather because the women have made a royal mess of everything, and can't be trusted to rule over men.Indeed, the Blood Lesbians practice extensive slavery, consider the men of their city to be little more than animals, and love nothing more than pitting men against one another in brutal bloodsports. Of course, if everyone around me was bent on enslaving, branding, and raping me due to my chromosomes, I might go a little nuts, too.Since Norman has trouble making plot conflicts, Terb swims through his minor 'difficulties' freeing the slaves along the way. Everyone he befriends or acts kindly to returns later at a crucial moment to save Terb's life, meaning he's very lucky none of them got sick or failed to travel a thousand miles to the same city he traveled to at just the right time.All these 'name' characters also survive, and most of them hook up with one another, though none realize that the other knows Terb until he shows up and everyone gets to act all surprised. Norman can't seem to bring himself to cause any hardship, let alone death, except to henchmen and major villains. Many books (and children's movies) share this problem, and so we go through bloody war after bloody war and no one important ever dies.Eventually, we get to Norman's piece de resistance, where we learn that the Queen of the Blood Lesbians only hates Terb because she secretly loves him and has always literally dreamed of becoming nothing more than a slave and a man's play toy. Terb has a moment's pang of remorse over his 'one, true love' but seems to quickly forget it in time for the suggestive fadeout.Norman is not content with a physical dominance over women, indeed, nothing less than complete emotional and psychological slavery will do. It's almost as if Norman is so insecure about his own worth as a person that he can only love a woman who is entirely devoted, body and soul, to his every whim. But of course, that would be silly; and really sad.In addition, women who are already suggestible are 'no fun'. Terb's aforementioned 'true love' was one ornery, cutthroat bitch, so Norman felt he had to ratchet it up and create a literal Queen of all Bitches for his hero to dominate with his impassable exterior and self-sacrificing kindness.We all know a guy who complains about being 'too nice'. He listens to women complain about their boyfriends and is often heard to quip how they should love him instead, since they always say he's so nice. If these men had their way, our world would look like Gor. Any man who was simply 'nice' would have the most powerful and self-willed women of the world actually eating from his hand.Of course, what his friends should tell him is that, while he is 'nice' and certainly 'not a jerk', he probably has no other redeeming qualities. That is to say, he is much like our dithering and inscrutable Terb: with little personality to speak of, and not being a hero, with even less opportunity to show off how really self-sacrificing he can be.It's one thing when you are a world-shaking man with the ability to defeat an army single-handedly. It's less engaging when you sit in your den writing novels about interesting things happening to your author surrogate. I'd suggest Norman needed to get out more, but he wasn't going to be developing any healthy relationships, anyway. Better to stick with the pretend women in his books.One question remains: why do I keep reading these books? The sad thing is, despite the fact that they are somewhat unsettling, the pacing and writing are still better than most of what I have the chance to pick up.Cormac McCarthy won the Pulitzer and he can't even punctuate a sentence. When a zany, insecure chauvanist can outwrite the 'great literary minds' of the day, maybe its time to get into nonfiction. Then again, it worked for Hemingway.Hell, Frank Miller's still riding the 'exciting chauvinist' train.