Chelsea Gaither's Blog, page 70

The Dip

Okay. If you've read this blog for a while, you'll know I have *issues*. And I don't mean gee, sometimes I get a little sad. I'll be the first to admit I am probably crazy on a level that few people want to deal with.

Which sometimes gets in the way of creativity.

First, you have the Rejection Roundhouse, which is the biggest reason I decided to stop trying for professional publication (Sorry, but if the only outcome of an effort is, I spend days sunk in a suicidal depression, that effort is probably not good for me.) This also effects IRL things. But the biggest problem I have is The Dip.

The Dip is what I call the thing that happens when a project is finished.It takes a lot of focused energy to work on things. This creates a really awesome high. I feel good with the world. Everybody loves me. I will conquer all. I finish the project, wrap it up, hit submit/publish/whatever and spend about one day basking in the glory that is my completed work.

And then my brain, exhausted from days of pumping out happy chemicals, mutters "thank GOD that's over" and sinks like the Titanic was carrying an atomic bomb when the iceberg hit. And floundering through the mess left afterwards? It SUCKS.

Worst part is, it's not something that can just be, like, fixed. It's natural brain chemistry, I think. Only thing that can fix it is throwing myself whole hog into a brand new project.

Ah, well. That's the ramble for today. You'll get another chapter of Captive soon. Ish. I just don't want to deal with the stupid today.

Captive of Gor chapter 14

Okay, so after my rage yesterday, today should be easier, right? Right?
 
In a word? NO.

This was now my second day in the secret war camp of Rask of Treve. When his tarn had dropped, wings beating, into the clearing among the tents, they ringed with a palisade of sharpened logs, some twelve feet high, there had been much shouting, much welcome.

So either Strawchick has spent two days tied to Rask's tarn, or John fails at chronology.

He drops her off with his headwoman, which is (gasp!) so progressive! and then goes off to do whatever. She's going to have to go through a wedding collaring ceremony, so she's fed, and dressed, and how she'll be introduced to the crowd, and then allowed to wander around freely because everybody knows she won't escape.

Does she try to escape?

Do Tarns shit in the sky? (BTW WHAT DOES TARN SHIT LOOK LIKE?)

This isn't effective, though, and she begins to complain that she hates men, they make her work. 

I hated men. They made us work! Why did they not do their own cooking, and polish their own leather, and go to the stream or the washing shed and wash their own clothes?

Evil. I would, however, point out that the traditional division of labor is not "Women are useless, go work in the kitchen". Oh it is NOW, because "women's work" was devalued for one reason or another, but the work that women do in this era, historically, is work that needs to get done. And I don't think they were all that big on washing their own clothes.

Also? What warrior worth his own sword is going to let somebody else prep his armor and weapons for him?

So after wandering around the camp, Strawchick goes back to the tent, cries, and gets a slavery pep talk from the headmistress. The existance of penalty brands is established, for lying and stealing, and gee, I wonder who is going to wind up with a couple of those. And then we get another massive description of the fucking camisk again.

Seriously. We have already established the fucking clothing. The description is effectively, "This is a tunic. It is sooooooooo sexy. This is a different tunic. It is soooooooooooo sexy." And then a description of how All Slaves Love The Tunic, and how it seperates them from free women and...

Oh yeah. This part.

The next two paragraphs contain so much fucking fail I kind of cannot believe that it got written. How anybody can be this STUPID is beyond me. So go get up, go get your favorite alcohol, if you're at work wait until after this is done, and then come back when you've got a nice happy buzz to put between you and the UTTER FUCKING STUPID I am about to blog.

Free women had ambivalent attitudes toward the garmenture of slaves. They professed to approve of this degradation appropriately inflicted on mere slaves, but it was also said that they envied the slaves, the lightness of their garments, the air upon their bodies, the wonderful freedom accorded their limbs, so different from the heavy, bulky, confining layers of their own garmenture.

The free women have to wear basically burquas because men are SOOOOO lustful they will get raped and it is their own fault. So they envy the women who are raped on a regular basis, because OH MY GOD, they get to wear a light t-shirt. But only from behind their hands, because vocally they approve of letting the slaves be degraded. Nowhere in all of this do the women get a CHOICE in what they wear. No. They have to taylor their clothing to around MEN and their inability to control themselves around the deadly power of va-jay-jay.

And this book is supposed to be pro men.

It might be mentioned, in passing, that the Gorean free woman is commonly veiled, and that veils are denied to female slaves. This is appropriate, as they are animals. What fool would veil an animal?

 Possibly, one that doesn't want his animal to get raped. Because, you know, he might be concerned about his "animal's" well being.

A Gorean master commonly will know every inch of his slave, every curve, every crease, every wen, every pimple, every hair. How many husbands of Earth, I wonder, know as much about their wives.

Yes. Because viewing your women as property means you love them more than viewing your women as people. 

Being dehumanized is fucking traumatic, kids. And if you think of your woman as an animal, it isn't much of a streach to go from raping her to killing her, just because you feel like it. Husbands don't treat their wives the way masters treat slaves because they know this treatment isn't right. 

I wondered how many couples might be so precious to one another. Each so magnificently and joyously fulfilled, living the biotruths of human nature, of man and woman, of masculine and feminine, of dominance and submission, how could either even consider leaving the other?

You know when someone is precious to you when you put THEIR well being over your own. The needs of your genitals become secondary to the needs of theirs. Also...with this paragraph it is confirmed. John Norman is fucking insane.

Also, also? The man can sell the woman. The woman can't leave the man, but he can dump her on the side of the road like a puppy in a burlap sack and not feel bad about it at all.

I thought of the emptiness, the vacuity, of so many marriages. Might they not be redeemed, perhaps by so little as an act of will, a command, and a handful of thongs?

Because marrages and love are founded on trust. I trust that my mate will treat me like a human being and love me and my goals. I will do the same for them. Imposing your will on your mate will make YOU happy. It will break their trust in you and end the relationship. You might continue living together, but trust me, it is easy to give into inertia and continue to stay in an abusive situation just because you don't want to deal with the fallout of leaving. This does not mean that you love the person. It means that you are abused and the abuse is, sadly, the easier short-term option.

And now, for the next two passages, please replace the word "Slave" with the word "rape" and think about Todd Akin's rape comment.

Other Goreans tend to be less tolerant about these things, and feel that if a woman is stupid enough to allow herself to be captured, then she should be a slave.

So it's tolerance to consider that maybe a woman isn't responsible for a man's attraction to her. It's tolerance to consider that maybe, just maybe, the responsibility for rape is on the rapist and not the rapee. It's tolerance to think that maybe, just maybe, being forced to do or be something that you don't want to do, or be, is a bad thing.

And hey, you think I'm pushing it on the "replace slave with rape" thing? You think maybe I'm trying to see something that fits some bullshit feminist adjenda or something?

Others, with a psychological subtlety perhaps surprising in a primitive culture, recognize that a girl may covet the collar, and will thus court it, for example, walking at night on high bridges, frequenting certain areas of the city after dark, taking unnecessary journeys, and such.

There isn't a word. There isn't an image macro. There is nothing that can sufficiently express how bone-numbingly, mind-chillingly UTTERLY FUCKING STUPID that paragraph is.

When I worked the night shift at a bakery, I had to walk in front of a bar every night because I did not own a car. I was careful. I carried mace. I made sure to walk right next to the highway if I had to. Every night for two years. I walked because I had to, and not because I wanted to be raped. And right now, where I live? Sometimes I go walking at night. Because it is hot during the day and the stars are, frankly, fucking incredible at night.

A woman should not have to moderate her behavior to avoid being attacked. A man should not have to moderate his behavior to avoid being attacked. A man or a woman should have every right to go out at nine pm for a jog if eight pm is hotter than hell. The victims of violent crime ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE for their victimization. You cannot make someone decide not to do something. You can only survive it and, possibly, make DAMN sure they pay for the attempt.

Anyway, after John Norman sets humanity back about nine million years, he indulges in a wet dream about a woman from a rich city being enslaved, dragged back to her rich city, humiliated, and then raped by a random dude in a back room, thus making her see that she wants to be a slave!

And then Strawchick goes through the collaring ceremony and, instead of Rask having sex with her, is sent to work in the camp...because we need another couple chapters before this torture FINALLY ENDS.

Captive of Gor chapter Twelve-thirteen

I don't ask a lot of books. I read AND ENJOYED Twilight and its sequels and the Sookie Stackhouse novels, when I wanted to bat the leads across the room. This is because, beneath their unlikable personalities (Sookie: PICK. ONE. OR THREE. JUST PICK SOMEBODY) there is a decent human being. I might not like that Bella is choosing devotion to a stalker-ific son of a bitch, but I DO recognise that devotion and love are her positive traits. I might not want to be her friend, but I wouldn't sweat it if I had to depend on her because I know she's not a total waste of skin.

This chapter proves that Strawchick has no redeeming qualities. At all. She deserves every minute of what has happened to her and at this point I'd like to set her on fire.

Strawchick and Ute are out picking berries. Tied together via leather straps and collars, because they might run. Also, having two chapters worth of words dedicated to describing a slave girl tunic is apparently not enough, because we get another description of it. We really need to know what this looks like. Got it?

Also? Strawchick is stealing Ute's berries. Also? In flashback, we find out that Verna the Panther Girl was captured and that Strawchick made the other women beat her, and then told her this straight to her face. And now we're picking berries. I just skimmed about five pages worth of material. You're welcome.

The caravan is attacked by tarns. Because they're so far away, Ute decides that she and Strawchick finally have their chance to run away from the caravan. And Strawchick? Who has spent the whole book wanting her freedom? Who survived a night buck naked in murder forest a couple chapters back? She doesn't want to run. Ute says the following:

“You will come with me or I will kill you!” screamed Ute.

In retrospect, Ute is an interesting character. She was captured during a pilgrimage, enslaved, sold to a man she fell in love with, who sold her, who she still loves anyway, and has been, save for the nose ring incident, the one uniformly nice character in this book. Why is she not our main character?

Having been threatened, Strawchick runs after her, hysterical, and she lets us know what happens to the girls the tarns catch. Do you really need to guess?

If he is a young tarnsman, and she is his first girl, he will take her back to his own city, and display her for his family and friends, and she will dance for him, and serve him, at the Collaring Feast. If he is a brutal tarnsman, he may take her rudely, should he wish, above the clouds, above her own city, before even his tarn has left its walls. If he should be even more brutal, but more subtly so, more to be feared by a woman, he will, in the long flight back to his city, caress her into submission, until she has no choice but to yield herself to him, wholly, as a surrendered slave girl.

If there is any justice in this cosmos, when John Norman dies he's going to be locked into a mobius strip chalk board with an endless supply of chalk, and forced to write "I will not rape women" while a rape victim follows behind him with an eraser.

So Ute and Strawchick escape and spend a blissful few days as free women. Wait, scratch that. Strawchick enjoys being free while Ute spends her time trying to keep Strawchick alive. Strawchick is utterly useless when it comes to surviving in the wilderness. She also doesn't get that having fires when you're being hunted by professional hunters is a bad idea, and she insists that Ute keep the fires lit.

So naturally, this happens:

“Look!” whispered Ute. Through the brush, some two hundred yards away, moving in the darkness, we saw two torches. “Men,” moaned Ute. “Men!”

They escape this time, but a couple days later, Strawchick is off by herself when she finds out their hunters are right on their heels. Now, please remember that Ute is the only reason this girl is still free. She's the only person who has been anything remotely like nice to Strawchick. She's been keeping Strawchick fed. 

“Oh, Ute,” I said. “I set the snare far down the game trail. And as I was going away, I heard it spring and heard an animal...Please get it, Ute,” I begged. “I do not want to touch it. It is so ugly!” 

“All right,” said Ute. “I will get it.” She returned to her work.

 I cast a frightened glance backward, down the trail. “Hadn’t you better hurry?” I asked.

Yes. Strawchick just set up the closest thing she's had to a friend, the girl who is keeping her alive and free on Gor, up to be captured by men who she just heard loudly plan to rape the girl they're hunting. Because she's got a better chance of escaping if the men chasing them THINK they've got them all. Oh, and you know how I said yesterday that Strawchick is dumber than a bag of rocks?

the other crossing her ankles and lashing them together. I was pleased. Ute had been taken. I only feared that she might tell them that I was about. But somehow I knew that she would not. Ute was stupid. I knew she would not betray me. I thus, cleverly, eluded my pursuers.

I may have over-estimated her intelligance, here.

There really is nothing I can say about these chapters. The point of them is that Norman doesn't want Strawchick to go to Ar. She needs to be captured by a tarn rider. And she needs to do it while demonstraiting that Women Are Evil. The problem here? In comparison, Ute, the girl who planned on running, comes off as a fucking saint. All I want to do is drop the book in acid, and I can't because it's an e-book on my computer and that would be bad.

She steals from a village and gets captured by a tarnsman who is OH NOES! the mystery slaver from back in the pens of Koroba and OH NOES AGAIN! is also Rask of why should I even give a fuck? and he fights for her and insults her and tells her that he never pays for his women, but as soon as he saw her he had to have her, and I am just so not interested. 

This woman is stupid, she's manipulative, she's cruel, she's stuck way the hell up, and she deserves every bit of this, and the really sickening thing is the guy who wrote her? Thinks that I and every woman on the face of the planet is exactly the same way, while simultaneously writing characters who are closer to reality. Ute would have made a perfect main character for this story. She's likable, her story is much more sympathetic, I can see her character arc going places, and I am so sick of this terrible bitch I could scream.

End of chapter. Tomorrow: John Norman actually uses the word "rape" in the text.

*headdesk*

Writing can be hard work sometimes.

Also? I hope to God I  can make Gray Fox (third Exiles novelette. ALMOST DONE) be something approaching good. It's going to require lots and lots of restructuring--I can see how to do it, and that's a really good sign--and a couple of other things.

Ah, well. I'm going to release a short story in November (No promises about the book trailer, though that IS another project I'll be working on) that shouldn't take too long to clean up. It's something I'd written a few years ago and forgotten about. It's also something that is going to be fun to do a cover for. I'm actually more excited about doing the artwork than I am about doing the story itself. And it's a story that I kind of love, so that's saying a lot.

...seriously. Lots and lots of work.

That is all. I needed a chance to vent to you guys.

Captive of Gor chapter Eleven

So if you remember the last two chapters, Strawchick AKA Elinor Brinton has been abducted from her slaver owner by Panther Girls (aka wild things) and sold to a dude who called her Cookie, symbolically burned her Last Posession From Earth, and almost got eaten by Cookie-man's giant talking man eating pet before running out into the Goren wilderness, bare-ass naked, to be eaten and devoured by the Things of the Night?

How does she make it back to her slaver owner, Targo/Torgo? We never find out, because the next chapter opens with her getting her ears pierced.

First of all, I understand wanting to skip the boring parts and not wanting Strawchick to wander around in the fucking woods by herself again, but John? Dude? There is no way in fuck Strawchick survived the woods naked on her own. Girlfriend is dumber than a bag of rocks on acid and BTW I still haven't forgive you for the Random Talking Bear-Monster-Thing. I might have two X chromasomes instead of your preffered target audience of XY, but I AM smarter than this.

Second...Strawchick was a model on Earth in the same era, or thereabouts, as Edie Sedgwick. Let me remind you what Edie Sedgwick looked like:

Those things? On her ears there? Those are earrings. And one of the trademarks in the seventies were earrings pretty much like what Edie's rockin' in that picture up there. So why are you asking me to believe that a model from the seventies would not have had her ears pierced LONG before she became a Gorean love-slave?

But hey, I'm expecting logic from a guy who wrote this sentence:

There were tears in my eyes, for my eyes smarted.

Because it'd be really weird if your knees were weeping, I guess. Moving on.

ALL the other girls are upset. Apparently pierced ears are a Slave Mark above and beyond the branding every girl got when she entered this lovely club, and NOBODY in this group, other than Earth-Girl-Is-Easy Strawchick is willing to go under the needle.

You know? A lot of the "customs" I've seen in this book so far? Have something similar on Earth. And there is nothing in this book so far that is not something seen in Caucasian culture, or something that we White Folks haven't absconded with and then bastardized. There's a great essay on cultural perspective that kind of makes me realize how very, very, VERY lazy this is (not that I'm any better, mind). The ear piercing thing is just kind of the last straw. It's a little like how sci-fi books mention MODERN masters and then Random Name, to sell that Random Name is just as good as Shakespere and Stephen King. Here's this cultural thing that is common on Earth that has a completely different meaning here. Because women only wear decorations for men. 

Now we take a long break from screaming slave girls to discuss the Culture and History of Turia. Which I don't care about. NEXT!

The girls are being kept in pens for training. Oh, hey, we haven't murdered many commas in this chapter. This needs to be fixed:

When released from the pens a girl is almost always desperately eager to please her master, that she not be returned to them, for further training.

These cages are heavily barred, and the bars are rather, irritatingly, widely set, but we cannot squeeze between them.

That's better. Damn, those uppety commas. If we don't practice decimation they might get uppety and start asking for equal rights! Keep 'em barefoot and in the sentence fragments, I say.

Oh, hey, Strawchick wasn't actually degraded by having her ears pierced. Let's do her nose, too! Equality among the sexes slaves is always a good thing.

So there is a discussion of training, and of what the girls eat (Stew) and of more training, and more of what th girls eat (stew) and...okay. This has to be addressed.

Steve Brust is a writer I love, and I actually got to meet the man personally a couple years back. One of the best pieces of world building advice he gave me (...and the room full of people around me, because this was not actually my question) was that you start with the food. So the endless descriptions of slave fare COULD be serving this purpose...

...but it's not. Because "start with the food" IMHO means you first look at the land your characters live on, what could grow in that ecology, what they would have to do to produce those staples in sustaniable levels, and what jobs this industry would create in their community. As an example, the world of Rise of the Winterlord and Prince of the Gray Keep (Due out in December. End needless self promotion) the Gray islands are...well, islands. In a cold zone (I'd say north, but...um, not exactly.) The islands aren't majorly small (Hawaii to Indonesia size) but have a tiny growing season. They can grow a wheat-analogue, but the growing window is pathetic. Bread is a luxury. Mostly they eat sea-based products (Deepwater fish and seaweed. They have limited access to shellfish and the products of a reef-type ecology) or things that can grow well when its so cold outside, spit goes "clink". Five hundred years down the line from Rise, the Isles have a highly developed import/export culture...but their biggest import is still grains, and their biggest exports are plant-based oil (olive oil analogue) and products from a fungus that grows on the oil plants.

The girls on Gor? Eat stew with bread.

And the entire fucking universe breaks down once you start thinking about it.

The stew? I'll buy that. Stew is stew, you throw water, meat and some potato/carrot/cellery analogue into a pot, add salt, you get stew. But Bread? Gor might have bread, but if Gor does have bread, it is too valuable to give to slaves.

Here's what you need to have for bread to be a cheap thing: You need to have farms, and I mean massive, mass-production, be-careful-or-we'll-repeat-the-dust-bowl kind of farms. Also, the technology that makes large-scale farming a posibility. Plows. Things that can use plows, that aren't going to eat you or your children. Graineries. Flour mills. Bakeries. None of which are described even once. We get slaves and slave pens and descriptions of breif clothing (rather than brief descriptions of clothing) but not one description of waving fields of wheat-analogue. Do you know why America is memorialized for "amber waves of grain?" because those endless fields of wheat means we have enough grain to make bread that make bread-lines a possibility. Do you know why "Let them eat Cake!" got Marie Antwonette cut down a few notches? Because there was a drought and France's crops failed and they didn't have the wheat to make bread. A lot of the riots of the french revolution? Were about getting their hands on flour. 

I'd also go as far to say that Gorean social structure, which has NO emphasis on family whatsoever, does not support farm as an industry. Gender ideology aside, farming requires a family. Farming requires a large family that does not need to be paid a standard wage. The reason why farm wives had ten kids? At about six, sprog number ten becomes another pair of hands during Planting Season and Harvest Season. Slaves on Gor are not viewed as potential baby-making machines, but rather as toys for the sexy-sexy. If you had farmers on Gor they'd be looking at women's hips in terms of child-bearing and not how many times they could play hide the salami.


If wheat-analogue is scarce and the bread-making industry is so small it doesn't appear in this book even once (Seriously, John. How hard would it be to thread in one description of a bakery?) then bread becomes valuable. Too valuable to be given to slaves.

Oh, and one more thing? Do you know why women are historically bakers? Because it's a lot of labor. A LOT. OF. LABOR. And it is best accomplished on a large scale when you have all the population working at it, rather than just half. Men can do the outdoor half, women can do the indoor half, and twice the work gets done. Twice the work=bread on a large scale. And the chicks in this book? Are not working. They are sex toys for men. They are either slaves for the sexy-sexy, Free Companions chosen for the sexy-sexy, or cloistered virgins awaiting their chance at the sexy-sexy.

In short? Gor is a hunter-gatherer society, not a farming one. By giving his slave girls a staple common to Earth society where women are free to work themselves into an early grave, John has broken his universe.

And the worst part? he is dedicating pages to food porn. And unlike Hunger Games and Sunshine, because John wants to degrade his slave girls, the food porn isn't very porny. Accurate depiction of bread in this kind of society? The part in Hunger Games where Katniss and Gale go bananas over a couple whole wheat rolls, and the part where Peeta, the baker's son, admits that the only bread his family, the baker's own family, can afford to eat is stale. Not "EW MORE BREAD GIMME ANOTHER PASTRY". (Jesus. They don't have farms and they're feeding "female animals" pastries.)

I know it's a small point, I know it doesn't really matter that much in the scale of things here, but for fuck's sake, the man is dedicating pages to something that breaks his whole universe.

And that whole rant about wheat? Is more interesting than reading about slave guards playing grab-ass with Strawchick, which is what I've been doing for the last few pages.

I had found, over the recent weeks of my bondage, to my fury, that men were becoming ever more interesting and attractive to me. How this thought angered me! I must struggle against it! Part of this was doubtless simply because I was in bondage and the effect of this on a female is no secret. She is dressed, if dressed, in a certain way, which excites both her and men; she must obey; she is familiar with bonds and being made helpless, which, aside from the security involved, impresses the mastery upon her and is sexually stimulating; she is vulnerable, and she is, for most practical purposes, legally and institutionally accessible, accessible as a female; indeed, legally and institutionally, as she is an animal in the eyes of the law, she is literally, and thus is accessible as, literally, a female animal; certainly she is owned, and she knows, particularly if she is a pleasure slave, that she is intended for, is seen in terms of, and exists for, the pleasures of men. That is her raison d’être, to serve and please men. It is hard then not to see men as her masters, for that is what they are; and she naturally, ineluctably, finds them attractive, men strong enough to command her, and do with her as they wish.

First of all, is it just me? Or halfway through that paragraph (which is in itself half a paragraph) did this stop being Strawchick's internal thoughts and turn into John Norman ranting? Also, there's this one "sentence" that...oh, fuck it. Here it is again:

She is dressed, if dressed, in a certain way, which excites both her and men; she must obey; she is familiar with bonds and being made helpless, which, aside from the security involved, impresses the mastery upon her and is sexually stimulating; she is vulnerable, and she is, for most practical purposes, legally and institutionally accessible, accessible as a female; indeed, legally and institutionally, as she is an animal in the eyes of the law, she is literally, and thus is accessible as, literally, a female animal; certainly she is owned, and she knows, particularly if she is a pleasure slave, that she is intended for, is seen in terms of, and exists for, the pleasures of men.

Apparently the humble comma has become an endangered species. John has moved on to wholesale slaughter of the semi-colon.

Also, and I might be wrong in this, but I think most of Norman's later Gor Novels were self-published. This was not one of them. I've tried not to go with the whole "A real editor somewhere approved this" because my stuff got rejected wholesale and with prejudice, and that means I've got no room to talk about shitty writing, but I have to say it here. Somebody read this sentence. Somebody with grammer training. Somebody whose job it is to look at sentences and fix them. They saw that lovely train wreck up there and left it alone. 

The scarier alternative--which I've seen comparing the published version of Twilight with the ARC--is that the train wreck is an attempt to fix an even bigger train wreck.

So the Guards are lusting after Strawchick and Strawchick is lusting after the guards, and I'm back to trying to find the plot instead of picking at the shitty writing. And...oh yeah. I forgot about this part.

The thing that I hate most about this book? It's not the shitty writing. I actually kind of like that. It's not the rampant mysogyny, the racism, the terrible worldbuilding, the lack of logic. Really, all these things are icing on the crazy cake and something that is fun to bitch about.

But to me, the heart of any book are the characters. I love Sunshine because Rae Seddon IS TOTALLY WHO I AM and the people around her ARE TOTALLY MY FAMILY. I love the Mercedes Thompson books because Mercy kicks ass, and it'll probably be yours. I love Hunger Games because CinnaKatnessGalePeetaJohannaFennickAnnie RUE! (sobs!) and I squee over every encarnation of Sherlock Holmes I've ever met because he is just that awesome. Even Twilight is redeemed by Alice, who should have been the main character of the series if there were any justice in the world.

The characters in Captive of Gor are all, every one of them, right down to the most minor character you can imagine, terrible people. The only thing that should happen to Gor is carpet nuclear bombardment. Not because of the slavery, the mysogyny, or the rampant stupdity, but because of the utter lack of anything remotely resembling moral character. None of these people are good, and the only lucky thing about this series is it is all fiction.

Two characters I may have mentioned in passing are Ute and Inge, fellow slave girls and Strawchick's sort-of friends. Ute, especially, has been Strawchick's comforter. The one who pets her head and tells her everything will be alright. Right now, Strawchick is sharing a pen with Ute, Inge and Lana, who is basically Strawchick 2.0. Ute and Inge clean the pen, Lana and Strawchick do not. Ute and Inge ask Lana and Strawchick to help clean the pen, and they refuse because they are far too valuable.

Here is what a sane person does: clean the pen, because otherwise you'll be beaten, and withdraw the friendship from this terrible woman, who is taking a great deal of comfort from your kindness and who doesn't deserve a single ounce of your time.

What do the ONLY two nice people in this book do?

Tie Lana and Strawchick's nose rings together and then torture them with the string. After the cage is cleaned, the two formerly nice people tie Lana and Strawchick to the cell bars by the nose ring and leave them there, all day.

From this point on the interactions with the other girls and Strawchick are basically catfights, followed by exceptional cruelty, followed by pretend kindness, followed by mind numbingly stupid betrayal, followed by something that straddles make-up sex so firmly those paragraphs should have their own dildo. Also, Strawchick lies, gets caught lying, gets a reputation for being a liar and hates how everyone else views her. She's better than that.

This is a real attitude that real people have. I'm dealing with several people like that at my job. I don't get it at all. I get it when the rep is because of gossip and isn't true, but when you know you earned it, why do you hate that people see the real you?

Back to review.

...oh for fuck's sake.

My thoughts strayed back to that terrible night, when I fled from the hut, into the darkness, leaving the beast feeding on the carcass of the destroyed, bloodied sleen.

NO. This goes back at the beginning of the chapter. I've just read six pages about cat fights, lying slaves and girls being tied up by their hair that I didn't bother blogging about because it was that boring. I don't care about how she got back to the slave chain now. I want her to get out of the slave pens and on with the story.

Nope. Basically, Strawchick wandered around in the murder forest until she stumbled upon a member of Targo's team, who stayed behind while everybody else went on to Koroba. Ah, well. At least he didn't chase her with his space ship.

And then the flashforward is over and Strawchick rambles on about how Women Are Natural Slaves, and then we find out that Verna the Panther Girl has been captured by a character from the first Gor book. And Targo's hundred girls are on their way! Have we forgotten about them? I sure had. Also, Rask is attacking Places. The outlaw. Who was mentioned once, a long time ago, back when Strawchick met Torgo.

God, this chapter is long.

And we get a recap of how Rask attacked Torgo, because even John Norman knows its been too long for us to remember who the fuck this guy is.

THIS CHAPTER IS WAY TOO LONG.

But there is one plus. This line of description:

...only the wild, bleak crags of the scarlet Voltai...

Is a few letters away from being the best Twilight/Gor Crossover EVER.

...the wild, deep craigs of the scarlet Volturi. And I would totally pay money for a cage match between Tarl Cabot and Aro. Strawchick can be Bella's first meal post vamping. Oh, and you know how Strawchick is scared of men?

Women, it was said, had special reason to fear Rask of Treve. It was said he had a gargantuan contempt, and appetite, for them. It was said that when he used a woman, he then branded her, with his name, as though she, once used, no matter to whom she might afterwards be given or sold, could truly belong only to him. It was also said that he would use a woman only once, claiming that he had, he, Rask of Treve, in once using her, emptied her, exhausted her, taken from her all she had to give, and that, thus, she could no longer be of interest to him.

Wanna take bets on who her master will be? Oh, and after all that description, Strawchick gets a random mysterious male visitor!

Once, there was a visitor to the pens, a tall stranger, partially hooded, who wore robes of blue and yellow silk, those of the Slavers. He had, over his left eye, a strip of leather, which was wound about his head. He was shown through our section of the pens by Targo.

Gee, I wonder who this could be! We're not going to find out. Instead Ute and Inge, realizing that Strawchick is a terrible human being, stop wasting time on her, and she has to beg Lana for friendship. Lana, of course, uses Strawchick for favors and extra food. They deserve each other. Strawchick then dreams about her MYSTERIOUS VISITOR. AND THEN...end chapter, THANK YOU GOD.

TOMORROW: ...I hate this fucking chapter with the fire and passion of ten thousand suns. All I had to do was see the title, and I now have the frantic urge to start rocking in a corner. STRAWCHICK PICKS BERRIES! CW GOES FUCKING INSANE!

Captive of Gor Chapter Ten AKA Mommy do I have to?

I took this month off. This means that the little book that would have been released in November is being released in December (Prince of the Gray Keep, not that anybody is really, like, reading Rise of the Winterlord right now). But that does not mean I am doing NOTHING this month. I'm writing my ass off, boys and girls. Planet Bob, the sequel to Starbleached, is finished. The next Exiles book is...uh...fuck if I know. Seriously. Word count wise we're over halfway done, I've had a lot of fun letting these characters bounce around but...uh, I haven't really found a story yet. The problem here is, it's kind of a bridge story. This is what I call a book/episode/strip/whatever where we're connecting point A to point C and creating that point B in the process.

Oh, the story is there. I know it's there. I'm confident in my abilities. There is more of a story to Gray Fox today than there was yesterday, and I'm confident that I will have the full story, plot and all, by Tuesday. Which is also when I figure I'll be done with it.

The good news? After this, it is on to Project: Dragon, which has been languishing in this special hell for about a year and a half now. If I can reshuffle the plot points in Gray Fox, Project:Dragon has a hope of survival. Which I am glad for, because I heart that book so very much.

My point? I'd rather review Captive of Gor and be enjoyably drunk than muddle my way through Casey's confrontation with (CENSORED). And that in itself is sad, sad, sad shit. Which will be better tomorrow, when I am not tired from work, and I have properly assimilated that my job? As The Writer? Is to fuck with you.

Something that John Norman has never quite grasped.

Where were we?

...right. Strawchick being confronted by big animal...thing. This is why I've been avoiding this book like it has plague.

She cowers in front of the chained up animal that had entertained her not too long ago (I am not looking up how long ago this damn thing appeared in the book. You cannot make me. There is not enough booze in the world) and realizes that Dude In Clown Paint (seriously. There is a dude talking to her, and he is in clown paint, and we are supposed to be intimidated, and not thinking about Insane Clown Posse) (Who I have never listened to in my life) sounds familiar. Oh, noes! HE IS THE MAN THAT KIDNAPPED HER BACK ON EARTH! What does this dastardly, dastardly man say to her, having reaquired his chosen Earth-slave?

“Hello, Cookie,” he said.

I swear to God in heaven, I copy-pasted that directly out of the Kindle. This part, too:

“You’re a pretty little cookie,” he said.

I am shaking in my baby-seal skin leather boots. (/Megamind awesomeness) (and awesomeness in general)

So then the Cookie-man suddenly goes all Gorean "Kneel, bound slave" on Strawchick, and of course she just sits in the grass like a good little pleasure slave, because All Women Are Slaves For Realsies.

Oh, and this happens:

I now, commonly, knelt immediately, naturally, appropriately, gracefully, pleasurably, not thinking about it, in the position of the pleasure slave, but I did not do so now, for I was terrified.

One of the "rules" of writing is that every word you attach to a noun dilutes all the other words attached to it. So if you say it is a "stormy day", well, nothing happens to "Stormy" because there's nothing to dilute. "Gray, stormy day" is passible, but not as clear as "Stormy." "Bland, hot, gray, ugly, stormy, wonderful day" has no meaning whatsoever, and neither does "immediately, naturally, appropriately, gracefully, pleasurably, not thinking about it" because by the time you get to whatever it is on the end of the adjective chain, you've forgotten who the fuck is talking. The whole book is full of this shit, but this is the one that jumped out at me. It's a little like reading "whack-a-mole".

Okay, one more and then I promise I'll start recapping the goddamn book:

“The proud, arrogant, rich Miss Brinton,” he remarked, speaking in English. 

“No, Master,” I whispered, in English. 

“Are you not Miss Brinton?” he asked. 

“Yes,” I whispered, “I am Elinor Brinton.” 

“What is she?” he asked. 

“Only a Gorean slave,” I said. 

“I never thought to have you at my feet,” he said. 

“No, Master,” I whispered. 

“It is not unpleasant,” he said. 

“No, Master,” I whispered.

Wish fulfillment much, John? Also? If you have a giant hell beast on a chain, and your hand is on the lock? Bet your ass I'll agree with whatever you say.

Cookie man gives Strawchick a bathrobe from her old apartment, to drive home that she owns nothing, I guess. For some reason I'm remembering the horrendously racist book Calico Captive that I read when I was a kid, where the main character spent most of the book mooning over a pretty dress the indians had taken away from her, and the rest of the book hating the French who were being so nice to her because They Were French, Goddamn It. (I loved the book as a kid but I kind of hate its guts now)

Anyway, she offers him anything if he'll take her back to Earth. Money? Phhh, not enough. What about Gold? Diamonds? Not enough...but maybe...OH NOT THAT! Yes that. Okay, well, maybe...Oh, nevermind ugly slut. Also, Strawchick remembers that somebody tried to pay her a hundred dollars for a kiss and she considered it. Didn't do it, but considered it because selling a kiss is like prostitution only, you know, not, and oh fuck, I think I just broke my italics.

And then...oh, for fuck's sake, John.

Besides I did not kiss men.

The one place that practially screams "COMMA ME GODDAMN IT", and you don't put one? Did you use them all up on that monster adjective tail? DID YOU KILL ALL THE THINGS PUNCTUATION AND THE REST OF US MUST DO WITHOUT? And...wait a minute. WAAAAAAAAIT A GODDAMN MINUTE HERE.

So I chilled the fellow with a look of utter disdain, turned about, and left him behind me. “Please, Miss Brinton,” he called out plaintively, “don’t be angry. I apologize! It was only a joke, a joke!”

I get it now. This is what she did. This is what motivated the writing of this god-awful book. You know, John? I probably would have turned you down too. First, because I'd be fucking offended and...uh...becausekissingsquicksmeoutandIreallydon'tlikedoingit

Moving on!

We get more "But on Earth I was this!" and "On Gor, I am this!" and "I am Elinor Brinton!" and yep, I'm bringing this out YET AGAIN:

Also?

She must, at so little as the least word or gesture, provide subtle, lengthy and complex delights, gratifications and pleasures to a master, rendering him services in her bondage of which a free woman could not even conceive.”

I don't know which is more disgusting. The concept expressed by that sentence, or its basic structure.

Ya know what? I'm going with structure. Norman couldn't actually fix the concept, you know?

We're now deep into this chapter, kids, and I have yet to find a fucking point. I've learned how she was branded, and that it worked like a light switch, and that salve was involved, and that they really did sneak into her bedroom after she passed out to put a collar on her, and then leave. She's also had time to smoke two cigarettes. 

And hey, remember when I said how her being "chosen" back in chapter one was kind of rapey?

“It may interest you to know,” he said, “that you were marked for abduction at the age of seventeen. In the intervening five years we watched you carefully, maturing into a spoiled, rich, highly intelligent, arrogant young woman, exactly the sort that, under whip and collar, becomes a most exquisite slave.” 

I drew on the cigarette, in fury.

FUCKING. EW. Also, I DARE you to "draw on a cigarette in fury". Go ahead. Smoke, as an expression of fury.

And hey? Chapter Ten? Hello? Can we have some sense here? I'm not going to ask for, like, a fucking PLOT or anything, and I rather like all the fail we're having, but a point to all this? It'd be kind of nice.

Okay. So it seems they had some nefarious purpose in kidnapping Strawchick, hence all the elaborate-ish-ness with her kidnapping. And apparently this purpose is best served by a virgin, because heavily veiled references to sex are used.

What IS it with shitty pulp writers and this mincing around that word? It doesn't even have four letters. You can use it and it won't burn your book down. Nobody has slept with Strawchick, and this is good for Cookie-man.

And then, RIGHT WHEN WE ARE GETTING TO THE POINT OF THIS CHAPTER, we're interrupted by a "sleen" outside. Because cutting right to the point would make John Norman's head explode. Then Cookie Man beats Strawchick for being insolent. And whatever satisfaction I derive from this is completely ruined by how far off track we've gotten. The good news, however, is Norman finally uses the word "virginity" in the text, instead of dancing the dance of seven silken veils around it. The bad news is, the text then implies that to kneel as a pleasure slave is probably not work-safe, and I really did not need the mental image of Strawchick's altogethers. Cookie man symbolically burns Strawchick's robe, and the point, oh, my lovely readers, the point is SO FAR AWAY right now...

Oh! It's on the very next page!

“It is our intention,” he said, “to have you trained as a slave girl, to give exquisite pleasures to a master. And then you will be placed in a certain house.” “Yes, Master?” I asked. “And,” he said, “in this house, you will poison its master.”

...what?

you will poison its master.”

Yeah. That's what I thought you said. And it doesn't make any more sense now that you've said it. You're serious? THIS is the only girl you could use for your assassination attempt? Strawchick? The dumbest sack of estrogen I've seen since my grandmother's hormone therapy? STRAWCHICK is your secret weapon? STRAWCHICK?

DUDE. She's more likely to EAT your poison than give it to Tarl. This girl makes rocks look smart. Okay, maybe she could have pulled this off if you hadn't told her, but now? No way. She'll fuck it up. No matter what you do for her, she'll find a way to screw the pooch. Or else she'll just tell Tarl Cabot about it, and he will kill your ass. Oh, I'm sorry. Am I spoiling the end of the book for you? No? Because it's predictable?

Okay, then!

And then the wall explodes! The sleen attacks! Cookie-man's pet monster kills and eats it. And then, because everything up to this point has made something approaching sense, Norman drops acid while he's writing:

“Stop!” cried the man. The beast looked at him, eyes blazing, its face drenched in blood. “Obey your master!” I cried. “Obey your master!” The beast looked at me. I shall never forget the horror I felt. “I am the master,” it said.

Nothing in this book has indicated that animals can talk. Nope. This is just sprung on us. It's like "My mother poisoned my dog". Nothing leading up to it. Nothing to foreshadow this turn into WTF land. Nope. Norman just drops it right on us. Strawchick runs out into the darkness, and the chapter ends.

Next chapter? Uh...I think Norman woke up after the LSD hit, looked at what he'd written the night before, and made a blood pact with his typewriter to never speak of this again. Because we go STRAIGHT to Planet (slave) Girl! and we NEVER find out how she gets back with Torgo.

There. Chapter Ten is reviewed. I'm going to go curl up in bed with a raspberry beer.

where the f**K have I been?

Apparently, and I did not know this until this fucking weekend, Colombus Day is a restaurant holiday. As in they all pack in and eat and my boss decides that we have to be OPEN to accomodate these days. Even though they are most definately NOT packing in, as our city is having one of it's "OH FUCK WE HAVE TO FIND TOURISTS" festivals too, and they have better gumbo.

Even better: half of our staff quit over the weekend. Including Reliable Girl, who apparently was playing games with the rest of the staff for personal reasons and then got hella pissed when her games did not work out. (PRO TIP: If you are trying to set up one member of the staff to fail, inform the other members of the staff that you asked to work a certain shift that member-to-fail is supposed to work that shift instead. Because if you ask me to work a certain shift and then don't inform me that someone else is supposed to? I show up for work. And the boss does not get half as pissed as you wanted her to get, and is just as likely to get pissed at YOU as she is at the guy you set up. Because our boss? IS SMARTER THAN YOU) So we've had to work a weekend, INCLUDING days we normally have off, two people short.

In short? I want to curl up and die. And I will not get to.

That said, I've reached the halfway mark for my book sales goal, and have given away a pretty impressive number of books. and it's only the eighth. I am still not excited, but I am hopeful, boys and girls, hopeful and happy that at least I can give away my books. (Over seven hundred copies in one week. Four hundred of which happened in just two days.)

Planet Bob, the next Starbleached book, is almost completely drafted out, and I'll be starting on the next Exiles book soon. And so I have decided on the project for this November, because writing my ass off and working are just not enough.

Ima gonna do a book trailer, kids.

You have no idea how much this excites me. I fucking love trailer music, and I am cussing there because toning it down for the sensative just does not emphasize how awesome trailer music is. Tired? Listen to trailer music. Bored? Trailer music will wake you up. Have a concept that's just so freaking boring it'll put toenails to sleep? TRAILER MUSIC. TRAILER MUSIC TRAILER MUSIC TRAILER MUSIC FTW.

So for now, I am shopping for cheap, GOOD animation software and royalty free music, the latter of which I have found for amazingly cheap, considering, and am Planning. It will be...uh, kind of animated. In that still pictures that I have drawn will move across the screen in imitation of real animation (I am not now and will never be an animator) and there will be TRAILER MUSIC, and if I am any good at all it will be out by December. Why am I doing this?

1. I WANT A BOOK TRAILER. It is a thing I will do purely for me. Not for marketing (Who the fuck is going to look at it? Other than you guys, and I love you I love you I love every single one of you...but I kinda know I can count you guys on all the pennies in a dollar and still have enough for a gumball machine. No offence intended) not for gathering readers in like flies. I will do it because I. WANT. A. BOOK. TRAILER.

2. I am practicing for when The Novels come out. Because these little books I do? Are fun. But they are not, you know, everything I got. Exiles are building up to something major, my friends, and the one of you who have read the first Novel (remember it?) should have a vague kind of idea where this train is heading. And there is also Project: Dragon to consider. So I will be testing the waters ahead of time to see what the best ways of doing things are. I have made no plans for Project: Dragon but I've got every fucking minute of the Exiles Novel (not the name! But the name will be revealed later, later, later) trailer in my head, I've got the music picked out, I know where to go to get said music, I don't know how much it will cost, but I am assuming quite a bit and so I am saving up for it BECAUSE I WANT THIS THING TO BE. I've had to settle for a lot with this project, boys and girls, INCLUDING self-publishing (Oh, I wanted professional publishing so bad I could fucking taste it most nights, but that's another story for another decade) INCLUDING giving away truckloads for free and de nada for cost, so you know what? I'm getting the Book Trailer Of My Dreams and I do not give ONE SOLID FUCK how much it costs.

So Book Trailer! Coming soon! Yes!

And I'm still alive! Peace. Out. 

Captive of Gor chapter nine

I don't want to do this today. Why do I not want to do this today? This is why:

yes. It's free and I'm not getting money for that, but STILL. THIS IS AWESOME.I want to bask in this. I want to put it on a T-shirt, but it's not that impressive. If it were on the other side of that list, ya know, the paid side? THAT would be awesome. That would be "Hey boss, you know this job of mine? You can go stuff it" level awesome. Which isn't going to happen any time soon, but still. A lot of people are reading this book now, and sales for the book right before It? Are up. Much more up then they ought to be. I'm now pretty confident that I'm gonna make my goal for this month.

In short? I want to be happy. Am I going to be happy reading this? Yeah, probably not. Mostly because it begins with the image of a woman being lead around on a choke leash.

I get that people are turned on by that image. I'm not really one of them, but I get that some people are. HOWEVER, what makes that a turn on is consent. If you're turned on by the idea of a woman being lead around on a choke leash without her consent, you are somebody I don't ever want to know. Sorry. You're probably a nice person, but you scare me.

So after kidnapping a slave that has no earthly use for them--they're not setting Strawchick free, folks--the panther girls go hurtling through the woods, dragging her after them like a two-year old's pet rock on a string. Also:

If I should stop in pain, struck, or stumble, the merciless choke leash, closing on my throat, impelled me forward again.

That sentence is completely incomprehensible. You can discern a probable meaning but it's like your eye picking meaning out of disjointed objects. It's not actually there.

 So the panther girls spend the next few pages demeaning Strawchick, because slave. I guess this world never heard of Harriet Tubman and the underground railroad. (OH MY GOD. Harriet Tubman and Katness Everdeen OF GOR. Put them together. The men would never survive.) and Verna declares that Strawchick is a true slave on the inside. Because us silly women don't even get ourselves. Strawchick begs to join them and Verna decides that if Strawchick fights one of her underlings to the death, she gets a place in the band. It is the only way for someone who is tainted as a slave to join the ranks of the free, and...

...you know? You know? You know? This whole scene is a metaphor for virginity. Once the pop-top is popped, you can never go back without pledging great sacrifice...and even if you do, you are forever branded as a slut. I say this as someone who was raised in that fundie universe, and despite what I said about pickles, I do still value virginity. Because I am religious, I have the right to see all the ugly hypocritical spots on my beleif system and still love being a Christian anyway. But there is a fine line between valuing purity and devaluing those who've had sexual activity, and Christianity tends to obliterate it every time. I said it last time, I'm saying it today: There is no room in this BDSM psychotic universe for a virgin/whore complex. It makes the whole thing kind of silly.

Anyway, the whole reason Strawchick has been kidnapped is, someone has bought her. From Verna. Who did not own her. Because it's easier than asking Torgo for her. And in keeping with the virginity theme:

It seemed they were of a sex, or breed, other than, and superior to my own. Among such women I could be but the object of their scorn, what they despised most, only Kajira. 

And among them I felt myself to be only Kajira, one fit to be tethered and led, scorned as an insult to the beauty and magnificence of their sex. 

I was other than, and less than, they.

I shouldn't be having youth group flashbacks in your BDSM porn, John. I really shouldn't.

The panther girls, meanwhile, have an orgy. I said it was a metaphore for virginity. I didn't say it was a good one.

And while watching them Strawchick realizes that they too, are slaves deep down inside and that she is so much better than they are. They lead her to a house, and after yet another demeaning sequence where Strawchick has to either acknowledge that she is a slave or die--which doesn't mean shit, you know, 'cause threats--they leave her to her new master.

She goes into the hut, screams, and the chapter ends.

...oh, I get it. The panther girls are the plot monkeys, and we're about to get some Plot back into this story.

(No. No we're not. It's going to try, but there's no air in Gor. Plots can't breathe here.)

Captive of Gor chapter eight

I think I remember this part, and I think I hated it.

Strawchick and the other slave maidens realize they're at a port town. They look out and see the world around the city of Laura.

Because giving a city a girl's name in a book that is about misogyny--and don't fucking pretend it is not, Mr. Norman, I am totally on to you here--is a normal and natural thing. Like slavery!

Oh, and let me address the most horrific thing about the book. It's not the slavery, the whippings, the implied rape, the bullshit that makes Hubbard's ten-inch-penis look tame. Oh, no. It's the horrific murder of the gentle, placid comma that occurs on every single fucking page. Hide the children, kids. This is ugly.

I saw a slave girl, in a brief brown tunic, regarding us. Where the tunic parted, at her throat, I caught the glint of a steel collar.

Families of commas died for that sentence, my friends.

Now, to some of you this sentence may look passable. Well, it is not. The lovely website Reasoning with Vampires has taught me well. There are a few acceptable ways to employ a comma in writing. These are:

1. To separate two complete thoughts. These two thoughts belong together, so you can't completely sever them.
2. To separate items in a list. Apples, orange, pears and bananas go in the same catagory. Commas do not.
3. To create what the lovely Dana calls a commathetical pause. The comma, which isn't really happy about this, preforms the same job as a parenthesis without actually having to use a parenthesis.

In the case cited above? Obviously, neither one nor two apply. Three could apply, but let's take a step back and apply logic here. I know, I know, this is Gor, and we shouldn't, but it's kind of asking for it.

John is using these commas as commatheticals. But they don't need to be commatheticals. Commatheticals describe something extra, something that isn't quite part of the same thought but that for some reason needs to be there anyway. I've been scratching my head for a good example, and I decided to fall back on my own writing. Not, mind you, because I think my writing is perfect (It's self published. It's imperfect by definition) but because I edited it, I know why the commatheticals are there, and more importantly I know where they are. Anyway, this is a "good" commathetical pause:

Adrienne couldn’t help but gape, and she was no small-town girl, or Rim-world colonist, to be stunned by a shiny building.

Why is that bolded part in there? Because it breaks into the sentence to provide you with information the sentence wouldn't have otherwise, It's a pause. An aside. Something whispered into a cupped hand while the real play is still going on. In the Gor example? The girl's clothing and the location of her collar are things that you just plain observe. No commas needed. And also? Where the fuck else would that collar be? On her thigh? Would it be HIGH on the THIGH, Mr. Norman?

Moving on.

They are transported into Laura, worldbuilding occurs, Strawchick is demeaned, and then...

There must be someone in Laura who could return me to the United States, or who could put me in touch with those who could!

Right.
 
And then they find male slaves who are being demeaned because, OH NOES, they were captured by WOMEN. Oh dear, what kind of brute could be captured by WOMEN? And better yet, they're the panther girls, wild women who live in the forest without men.

And then John gets his stupid on. Again.

“Some were doubtless once slaves,” said Ute. “Others were once free women. Perhaps they did not care for matches arranged by their parents. Perhaps they did not care for the ways of their cities with respect to women. Who knows? In many cities a free woman may not even leave her dwelling without the permission of a male guardian or member of her family.” Ute smiled up at me. “In many cities a slave girl is more free to come and go, and be happy, than a free woman.”

Yeah. Let's refer to black/white relations in the deep south pre Civil War for a minute, shall we? Black men weren't equal to white men, but when they were free they were treated with respect. Also? You can't sell a free man to somebody they hate who will treat them badly if they are free. How the fuck can a slave girl leave her house without her master's permission? Second verse same as the first.

Also? This is basically the Taliban with dancing slave girls. This is not free anything.

Ute tries to convince Strawchick that all she really wants in life is a penis Master. Ute once had a master that she was happy with, but she tried to bend him to her will and so had to be sold. Yeah.

I'm gonna have a fucking meltdown before this book is over.

Scratch that. Before this chapter is over. Because you remember that part back in chapter three where I said Norman got something right? And he ruined it? He must not have thought he did a good job the first time, because he just backed up and went Clara Harris on its ass:

 “In your dreams,” she asked, “what sort of man is it who touches you, who binds you and carries you away, who takes you to his fortress, who forces you to do his bidding?” 

I recalled how, outside the penthouse, hurrying to the garage, a man had looked at me, and had not looked away, and how, fleeing, branded, frightened, helpless, I had felt, for the first time in my life, vulnerably and radically female...I recalled the brief fantasy which had passed through my mind of myself, in such a band, marked as I was, naked in the arms of a barbarian.

You know, it is completely acceptable to have rape fantasies, but what you're fantasizing about is not being raped. It's being held down by somebody hella masculine while you're having sex. Being raped is being made to have sex when you do not want to. And it does not feel good. It's why red-yellow-green exists in bondage play. Fuck, John, even Fifty Shades of Gray got that part right. And the bigger problem here? Ute is asking "What kind of sex do you fantasize about?" and Strawchick immediately remembers a violation. It's like dumping salt in your coffee without knowing it. Then we go back into a fantasy. Sorry, kids. That part in the middle has nothing to do with consensual sex at all.
Moving on.
More world building occurs while we're moving on to Laura. There is an incident on the docks where a guy touches Strawchick, and instead of feeling offended she is proud, because nobody tried to touch her rivals. Right. And then we get the next wall of stupid John Norman wants to slap us with today.

“It is hard for a white silk girl to be beautiful,” said Targo.

Yes, guys. Elinor "Strawchick" Brinton, who manipulated her way through college via the power of her va-jay-jay, who was a professional model and who has been in the hands of slavers for over a month now, is a virgin. We are expected to buy that this manipulative, bitchy, stupid girl kept her legs crossed and never accidentally ruptured her hymen pole vaulting or bycycling or something. Strawchick has never had sex. All of her problems with men and her resistance to slavery boils down to she never had sex.

Dude, You're John Norman. You're writing a novel series about bondage sex slaves. There is absolutely no reason for you to have a fucking virgin/whore complex. Or is this the same whore/virgin whore thing Hubbard had going for him?

The girls get taken to some compound, where there are lots of other girls and...hey, everybody in this book is white.

...yeah. I'm not touching this one with a ten foot pole. Moving on.

Compound. Lots of other slave girls. Long conversation about hair braiding and girls wanting to touch other girls. Torgo is here to buy some of these other girls, and he chooses women who respond to being manhandled a certain way. Apparently this indicates the inner slave, and suddenly I'm having a Yu-gi-oh "heart of the cards" flashback. But hey, Strawchick, we haven't heard from your pride in a while:

I thought, however, that none of them had responded as I had responded.

Thanks. We needed to be reminded our narrator is a bitch. Also, she gets to feed the woman that was kidnapped last chapter. How does she treat her fellow unwilling captive?

I was given the task of feeding her. When I first unhooded her and removed the gag, she had pleaded with me that I help her escape, or tell others of her plight. What a fool she was! I would be beaten for such an act, perhaps even impaled! I told her, “Be silent, Slave!”

But Strawchick! Maybe she could help you get back to the states!

Moving on. Strawchick gets something called the "Stabilization Serums" which I guess is the bug-eyed alien elixir of immortality. It hurts. We go into great detail on this. After these shots are over, her guard almost rapes her, and then backs down because she is a virgin--I'm sorry, "White silk" and must be protected.

I repeat this: virginity is like the pop-top on a jar of pickles. It only has value to the consumer.

Strawchick is coming to terms with her captivity, and even begins wanting a master. Because, you know, Stockholm Syndrome does not exist in this world. And paragraph after paragraph just makes me want to hurl.

 I was so beautiful that they would settle for nothing short of having absolute power over me. I smiled to myself. I had been found interesting enough, and beautiful enough, to enslave!

Yeah. No.

But because she has accepted her fate, she gets a promotion: She'll be the eleventh girl on Torgo's chain. Given that we're down to sixteen other girls, this is heady stuff to our Strawchick. This means that she is almost beautiful. She's honored.

Gag me.

They also find out they're being taken to  Ko-ro-ba (I am writing that as Koroba from now on) to be trained as pleasure slaves. Also, the kidnapped woman?

This time, when I fed the new girl, the former Lady Rena of Lydius, I permitted her to eat at her own pace, and gave her the water bag more than once. 

When she had finished she looked at me. “May I speak?” she asked.

 I saw that the hood, her gag and the bonds had taught her slavery. “Yes,” I said. 

“Thank you,” she said. I kissed her, and then regagged and rehooded her.

Stockholm Syndrome has set in there as well.


Then the girls have to serve food to a bunch of men. And beg permission to serve them. And then they're thrown meat as part of a game, and Lana dances, and I am SO READY for this chapter to be over, and it isn't. And you have no idea the HUGE number of info dumps I have jumped in trying to get even this far. A guard wants to have sex with Strawchick, and she doesn't know if she wants it, but she is white silk and WHY IS THIS CHAPTER NOT OVER YET and then Strawchick says this:

I did not want slave fires to be ignited in my belly. I sensed how fiercely they might burn, how needful they might make me. I did not want to be so owned, put so at the mercy of men. I recalled how the small man on Earth had assured me, when I lay bound before him, on my own bed, that I would learn to crawl and beg.

Okay, one more time, and this is the last time I swear: BEING RAPED DOES NOT MAKE YOU WANT MORE SEX.

And then the camp is attacked. Thank fucking God. Only it's panther girls here to humiliate the men, they don't give two shits for the women, and the chapter is not over yet.

The lead panther girl is called Verna. She ties all the slave girls to the feet of their masters, and gives this little speech:

How beautiful she was, and proud and fierce, in the brief skins and gold ornaments. She was beautifully figured and she carried herself arrogantly before them, taunting them with her beauty, and spear. 

“I am Verna,” she told them, “a panther girl, of the High Forests. I enslave men, when it pleases me. When I tire of them I sell them.” She walked back and forth before them. “You are tarsks and beasts,” she told them. “We despise you,” she said. “We have outwitted you, and captured you. We have bound you."

You wanna bet what's going to happen to her in a couple chapters?

We're gonna find out. They take Strawchick with them into the forest and THANK YOU GOD, the chapter ends.

State of the CW

Alright, kids. Another review break. We need to go over some stuff.

Or rather, I need to post things because somebody MIGHT want 'fo for later. Moving on:

I wanted to clarify what this post was about. It's not about wanting more folk to buy my books or read my blogs (I just wrote that as bloods. WTF is wrong with my keyboard/head?) it was about me being an idiot and keeping all my agent/editor/publisher blog links AND READING THEM after I decided to self publish. Giving up on this shit is hard, kids. Jesus God is it hard.

The tattoo thing? I really do mean that. Other than that, though, IDK. But I am going to dump all those links before they manage to set me off again. If you're self publishing you got no business even looking at professional grade stuff anymore.

Okay. Depressive stuff done.

Unless you lot go NUTS on Blue Ghosts? I'm taking November off. To write. Because editing takes up most of my time and such, and I have plans. What are we planning?  Well, this is going to be my publishing schedule for the next long while:

November: Off w/possible tiny short story or two released. Will release non-story artwork to compensate. UNLESS YOU LOT GO NUTS. In which case I lose all free time forever and the schedule gets bumped up a month.

December: Prince of the Gray Keep, 30K or so. Sequel to Rise of the Winterlord (Which I have split off into its own little book, which is free for the rest of today over on Amazon) Series name is "Tales of the Gray Prince" so this would be the second one.

January: Planet Bob, sequel to Starbleached. I have no idea how long it will be. Probably 30k or so. Started writing this one several days ago, should be finished soon...ish.

February: Gray Fox, Exiles of Ambercross number 3. (also my birthday month!)

March: 3rd book in Tales of the Gray Prince. No title yet.

April: 3rd Starbleached book. No title yet.

May: Exiles of Ambercross 4 (Are you starting to see the pattern here?)

June: Tales of the Gray Prince 4

July: <---this is where things will get interesting. Really interesting, and this is why I'm going to take november off.

I started the Great Self Publishing Experiment July 4th of this year. So far things have been...well, okay. Ish. I don't know yet. Not excited, but not wholly disappointed yet, either. And I don't know what things will look like in July. I really don't. So this is what we're going to do.

If things stay pretty much the same? Starbleached 4, which will probably be called Valkerie. (BTW a title ahead of time usually means I have either 1. already written it or 2. have a plan for it. I have a plan, boys and girls, and all you need to know is the author hates you. I love you, but I love to screw with you more.)

If things go well? Like really, really well? I'm publishing a novel. Full leingh fantasy YA novel involving dragons. It is two thirds of the way finished and I am taking November off so I can punch that bad boy out of the park. I will know which way the door is swinging probably by April. We shall call this Project: Dragon until I have a title I am comfortable with. And I am the last one to toot my own horn, but this story? It is pretty damn badass if I do say so myself.

If things aren't quite ready for Project:Dragon by July? It'll be released in December. 

I'm also looking at marketing/advertising and such. There are a few inexpensive options I can play with, that I am playing with now. So that is what you get to look forward to.

AND! blog-readers! AND! Can I reveal something without spoiling it? Can I? Can I? I think I shall anyway. There are three full leingth novels at the end of Exiles. I know where Exiles will end. I do not know how long that series will be running--it's five books, minimum, and it's looking more like eight or nine because there are things I have yet to introduce and other things I have yet to resolve--so I cannot tell you how long it will be before you get to read those three books. But these are three finished, full leingth novels involving Casey Winter and company that will be released when it is time to do so.

Lots of things to think about. I'm adding a book schedule to the right hand side of the screen so you can keep track of it, if you want to.

Take care, gang! (Captive of Gor continues tomorrow!)