Though if you're looking for something with a little more meat, I would suggest you try elsewhere, perhaps the John Carter of Mars series. If you're looking for something quick to read, with some interesting fantasy/action moments, give the book a try. The writing style is clear and concise, if a bit on the simplistic side, and at times, it seems the author just wanted to use obscure terms in place of commonplace words, just to prove that he had an English degree.

The book is thankfully short, and the action flows quickly, and there were times when I anxiously awaited what was going to happen next, but they were few and far between, as the book followed a fairly predictable storyline.

While I understand it laid the foundation for the numerous following titles in the series, this first entry is no where near as epic as fans would have you believe. It was a pretty mediocre first person narrative of a generic fantasy land, nothing more, nothing less.

On the other hand, it was not nearly as entertaining as I have heard it claimed to be. On one hand, it wasn't as bad as I had heard, the gratuitous sexual material nonexistent and the pervasive chauvinistic themes extremely low-key. All I can say is that Tarnsman of Gor was nothing like I expected at all. I eventually broke down and read the first title in the series one night, needing something quick and self contained to sate my fiction appetite. I was promised by a friend that this story was on par of the stories of Conan the Barbarian, but I was given Fifty shades of Tarlena.While I have heard of the infamous Gor Series over the years from associates and friends, I had never took the time to actually read one of them, assuming I knew all I needed to know from the gossip I heard. This is a writing crutch that John Norman can’t seem to rid himself of. The author also loves inserting bondage to a frighteningly degree, where the story oscillates of having the dimwit main character fighting monsters to being captured in the dumbest way possible. Her obvious hints of No are lost before succumbing to a Poochy like Stockholm syndrome in this half-perverted bondage/slavery chapter that pulls you out of the story entirely. The nitwit of the main character doesn’t take the hint and, to my dismay, proclaims his love to this villainess. This woman literally has tried to kill the main character at least four times. Then the author drops all of that to focus on a terribly toxic relationship about a dunce warrior and some unlikeable tart. It’s got a lot of lore bits of a great fantasy adventure pocketed along the book with great world building. The Tarnsman of Gor is so close to being a good book.

John norman tarnsman of gor