This book is ostensibly about crime. Specifically the amelioration of crime by a policy of zero tolerance of minor and petty crimes which became famous for the dramatic fall in crime in New York City.

This book has a slightly different focus. Rather than concentrating on what Zero Tolerance is and does, it seeks to place the crime figures and approaches to crime reduction in a broader context of community. The concept of community developed both in these pages and within a wider research agenda supposedly concerned with the development of a civil society in which the state plays a smaller and smaller role has a particular slant to it.

Zero Tolerance is the latest in a line of books from the Institute of Economic Affairs Health and Welfare Unit, now a free standing institute of it's own, CIVITAS, which postulate a decline in morals and behavious which result from a growing tendency in our society to becoming more individualsitic. The model of decency and good behaviour upon which this view is based is a rather idyllic view of the English working class family as portrayed by Norman Dennis in some of the earlier books of this series. Here it's scope is widened to incorporate views on how to tackle crime which involve the wider civil society. Policing in this view is both external and internal and the police forces themselves are seen as a legitimate part of the community, reinforcing the internal rules and moralities forged in the furnace of home and family. Headed preferably, of course, by working father, stay at home mother etc.

You will not find in this book any arguments about drugs save for the superior tone about how the use of drugs has grown in our society and is therefore bad. This cannot go unchallenged. In a passage devoted to the emphasis on education and development of working men's clubs and institutes the book praises them for their contribution to improving the moral fibre of those who participated. These clubs were segregated against women drinking in the public bar and fought hard to retain that position against equality laws and became more well known for the strong and cheap beers that they sold than for moral improvement. Their innate conservatism was a major contributor to why their customers deserted them and caused the closure of many in the North East of England. While the consumption of this legal drug is condoned, other recreational drugs are the cause of much petty crime. The book ignores the setting of the laws and blithley makes assertions about theft while ignoring the basic point that laws against drugs make them more attractive to the purchasers, more profitable to the suppliers and lead many who consume them to do things out of character in order to get their drugs. I could go on but this would be a book of it's own.

Zero Tolerance is a one sided book. It excludes any consideration of the diminishing role of the church in society as one of a number of relevant institutions, and it excludes any treatment of what changing structures in our society mean for those individuals who have previously been imprisoned by those structures, in particular, for women. The supposed golden age of the working class family is a modern myth, a sociological urban legend, which did not exist for many.

Ultimately, this is yet another attack on growing individualism in our society which begrudges any positive changes and which harkens back to an age which never really existed. The causes of crime run deeper than one parent families and tower blocks. The harsh reality today is that women are valued more by society than they were which is the real reason why female wage rates are increasing while male wages rates decline overall.

Perhaps we should be looking forward and not backward to see how a healthy individualist society might develop.

When John Norman began his Chronicles of Counter-Earth with "Tarnsman of Gor," it was clearly modeled on Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter series and "A Princess of Mars" (I am talking only in terms of the bare essence of the plot and not the cultural details). Norman then went his own way, with Tarl Cabot's quest to learn the secret of the Priest-Kings and the development of what is now called the Gorean philosophy. But by the time we get to "Tribesman of Gor" the similarity to Burroughs has resurfaced, only this time with regards to the Tarzan novels. By the time Burroughs was into double figures with his series he had the Lord of the Jungle discovering lost civilizations of Crusaders and whatnot, secreted away in the interior of Africa. Now we see that Tarl Cabot, having traveled north to have an adventure with the descendants of transplanted Vikings in "Marauders of Gor," turns this time to the desert of Gor to deal with the descendants of transplanted Bedouins in "Tribesman of Gor."

The Priest-Kings have received a message from the Others to surrender Gor (with the fate of Earth in the balance as well). Tarl Cabot leaves Port Kar to travel to the great desert of the Tahari, where he encounters fierce warrior tribes, slavers, salt mines, and such. There he will encounter as well as woman warlord, whom he will bend to his will, and a bandit chief, whom he will befriend. The only problem is that Tarl Cabot has already been there and done that before, several times, with regards to both of those achievements. Furthermore, we have seen both done better. At its best "Tribesman of Gor" is an attempt to duplicate the success of Norman's most popular Gor novel (from a storytelling standpoint anyway) "Nomads of Gor." When I look back over the second ten books in the series it seems evident now that Norman was losing interest in the series, no doubt plagued by the fact that a new Gor novel had to come out every year when he switched publishers ("The New 1976 Gor Novel!").

In the previous volume (Marauders of Gor) Tarl Cabot romped with pseudo-Vikings. In this one it's pseudo-Bedouins. Samos of Port Kar, agent of Priest-Kings, receives three messages under mysterious circumstances...beware of the steel tower; beware of Abdul; and surrender Gor...and off goes T.C. to the burning sands of the Tahari Desert to investigate. Along the way he encounters assassins, slave girls, treachery, slave girls, an invisible monster, slave girls, a desert bandit, slave girls, an old friend/enemy who IS a slave girl...you get the idea. As in Hunters of Gor, the author takes time out to spend 2-3 pages expounding on his sexual theories. It's hard to take them seriously, especially since they are not consistent. For example, Norman says that true slave girls revel in their domination by men and would not have it any other way. But a girl who asks to be freed reveals herself to be a true slave. Hunh? The Gorean ethic didn't seem to bother me as much in this book as it did in previous volumes, probably because domination of women, slavery, and harsh punishment are an integral part of the culture this story is based upon. (Alternatively, the previous books may have inured me to it but I don't think so.) Some of the previous books (most notably Assassins of Gor and Hunters of Gor) have had scenes so outrageously over the top as to cause the reader to guffaw. There were none in this book that compare although Cabot's inhuman stamina, good luck, and fighting ability do stretch credulity a bit. There are a few other minor flaws (such as asking the reader to believe that a massive 20 foot monster could survive in an environment that is described as chronically food-poor) and one gaping hole in the plot: early in the book Tarl is framed for a crime and sentenced to a life of hard labor in the salt pits of Klima. However, there is tribal warfare brewing between the Kavars and the Aretai so the villain that framed him becomes afraid that the march to Klima will be attacked during the fighting allowing Cabot to escape. He decides to bust him out of prison then kill him as an escaping criminal. Needless to say, Tarl makes good his escape despite the bad guys. (Why the villain didn't just kill him while he was helplessly chained to the cell wall isn't clear.) Later on the same villain captures him and the same war is still brewing but this time he DOES send Cabot on the march to Klima. Hunh? Well, I didn't read this book to be edified and I didn't read it for a dose of reality. I read it to be entertained. Ultimately, what counts in a book like this is how much fun it is to read and on that score it was quite good. It makes me wish that their were more gradations in Amazon's rating scale. I reserves 1 star for a book that is either unreadable or that made me mad that I wasted my time reading it. 5 stars I reserve for books that are near perfect for their genre. (Nomads of Gor got 5 stars.) This book is better than Hunters of Gor (3 stars) but not quite as good as Raiders of Gor or Priest-Kings of Gor (4 stars). I'd like to give it three-and-a-half stars but can't. It's closer to 4 than to 3 stars, so I gave it 4.

John Norman did again! I first read this one around 1977 and found it great reading then, and have reread more than a few times since. It is right up there with his best Tarnsman of Gor which I hope is oneday reprinted. It is a different way viewing life where men are more manly, open, and honest and women are more... well you have to read it to understand and J N's GOREAN stories have inspired its own underground movement in real life. With more than a few internet sites

Overall, this strikes me as a somewhat lazy book. Rather than offer any original writing, the editors simply cobble together previously published writings by Alex Haley (actually a "Playboy" interview of the young Ali by Haley), Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, and Peter Richmond, along with a very short introduction by James Earl Jones. The book jacket also boasts of "contributions from" the likes of Malcolm X, Jackie Robinson, George Plimpton, Jim Brown, and numerous others, but this turns out to refer simply to brief quotations that pepper the book, mostly as photo captions.

The quality of the text by the four featured writers is fine. Certainly you can't go wrong with Norman Mailer. His book "The Fight," from which the chapter in this book is excerpted, was one of the first serious works about boxing and Muhammad Ali that I read back in the 70s, and the first thing I ever read by Mailer. I was a big fan of Ali going in, and a fan of Mailer as well coming out.

One can always quibble with editing decisions in a book like this, but being familiar with Mailer's "The Fight," I found some of the choices made here rather peculiar. For example, in Mailer's very lengthy account of the Ali-Foreman fight itself, he presents the fifth round as the most dramatic, action-filled, significant round of the entire fight. In this excerpt, the editors choose to include some of Mailer's set-up for that round (e.g., "[Foreman] came out in the fifth with the conviction that if force had not prevailed against Ali up to now, more force was the answer, considerably more force than Ali had ever seen."), but then simply replace that entire climactic round with ellipsis.

I don't believe I had previously read the other three selections, or at most I had read excerpts from them. But none of them are newly rediscovered gems that will come as revelations to serious Ali fans. They are not weak or uninteresting, but they are recycled material with which many readers will already be familiar.

Similarly, there are many fine photos in the book, but little that has not appeared in one or more similar Ali books in the past. (In terms of both text and photos, I strongly prefer Wilfrid Sheed's superficially similar picture book "Muhammad Ali" to this one.) One exception is that this book includes many fight programs, posters, and tickets that I had not previously come across.

The book is marred by many factual errors committed by the editors in their photo captions. There are many things that a proofreader even minimally familiar with Ali's career should have caught, so one must unfortunately infer considerable sloppiness or laziness on the part of those who put this book together.

For example, contrary to what this book tells you, Ali did not defeat Joe Frazier by fifteen round decision in their third fight. Ali was awarded a technical knockout when Frazier's handlers conceded between the fourteenth and fifteenth rounds. Ali's 1972 fight against George Chuvalo was not a fifteen round decision, but a twelve round decision. (He had defeated Chuvalo by fifteen round decision in an earlier fight in 1966; that might be what confused the editors.) The book states flatly that Ken Norton broke Ali's jaw in the second round of their March 1973 fight. Maybe, but different parties have claimed anything from the first to the twelfth round, so the matter is not without uncertainty. The photo identified as being from Ali's 1971 fight against Jurgen Blin is in fact a photo from the 1974 fight against Foreman.

Though flawed, this book still has worthwhile elements. With such a compelling central character, you would expect nothing less. It's not the best Ali book out there by a long shot, but insofar as it recruits a few more young newcomers into the legions of Ali fans, and gives the rest of us an excuse to reminisce about an extraordinary man and his extraordinary life, it cannot be all bad.

A great book for Ali fans and boxing fans alike. It is a fun trip through the boxing exploits of one of America's, and the Worlds, greatest athletes. A fun table book that you can pick up over and over again. If you want the complete book of Ali's life- this isn't it. What it covers is Ali the Champ fight by fight!

If you're a boxing fan or just an Ali fan, this book will help you relive memories like no other photo book or biography will. If you're NOT, you will still marvel at the art and the wonderful writing on page after page. The text is not sappy, faceless writing like so many other photo or art books. Instead, these are well-written essays from people who know boxing and know Ali -- and their appreciation will make you appreciate Ali's achievements, charisma, and larger-than-life persona that has led so many to name him the athlete of the century. (If you're looking for more of a narrative, Davis Miller's new "The Tao of Muhammad Ali" is the perfect complement to this book.)

Greg Norman is a great golfer. He has an incredible fascination for many golfers and his fans. I haven't found in this book in-depth analysis of his character, his passion for the golf, his competitive drive, and why he is so charismatic for many of us.A detailed biography is yet to come.

Ms St. John's book is a fascinating look at a man who is extremely complex. Much like his approach to the green, Greg Norman is bold, aggressive, and sometimes to his detriment, brutally honest. I found interesting the people who do and do not like him. I for one, find him to be refreshing and never boring as so many PGA players are today. Keep breaking the mold, Greg! We need to be kept on our toes!

You'll now understand the arrogant, egotistical man you watch on television - and have confirmed the attitude he portrays. It's no wonder he never looks happy despite his wealth, Greg has put himself first at all costs to arrive at where he is. I can see now why he has no real friends, and you will see too. A complex individual, and must reading for Norman fans.

Long winded, low on plot, high on pages upon pages of boring description. The only redeming feature of this book was the Chris Achilios cover on the UK edition. If you are a fan of Gor just skip this one, it adds nothing.

Little did we know when "Explorers of Gor" came out in 1979 that it would be four years before Tarl Cabot would be the lead character in John Norman's Chronicles of Counter-Earth series, because after this 13th volume came what is now known as the Jason Marshall trilogy. The premise of the novel is that the shield ring of the Kurii of a mysterious explorer deep in the rain forests of Gor and Cabot is after the alien technology in the name of the Priest-Kings. As has been the motif with the most recent Gor novels at this point in the series, Norman provides yet another culture on Gor effectively transplanted from Earth. These novels started off in the tradition of Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars novels but are now clearly more in the mold of his Tarzan of the Apes novels, where Africa managed to house lost cities of Roman legionnaires, crusaders, and the sort. However, Gor is clearly more populated with such things. Of course, along the way Cabot encounters a new set of slave girls brought from Earth in the service of the Others, which once again provides Norman with ample opportunity to explain (in detail) the natural relationship between men and women as one that is complementary rather than competitive (wow, that might be one of the biggest understatements I have ever written into a review). I readily admit that by this point in the series I was skipping over the sections where Tarl Cabot was introducing some new woman to her slave collar because for me what made the early books in this series so great was the sense of adventure and the detailed characterizations. But by this point in the series it seems clear Norman did not know what he wanted to do with the threat of the Kurii and with Tarl Cabot, which explains why both pretty much disappear for the next few years. "Explorers of Gor" offers nothing overly thrilling or different once you get away from the different locale. Once you get through the first half-dozen books or so in these series you will have to make your own judgment as to how far you want to go.

This 13th Gor novel marks the halfway point in the series thus far. (As I write this the 26th book is being prepared for publication after a 13 year hiatus and a 27th volume has been announced.) In this one Tarl Cabot once more goes on a mission for the Priest-Kings, this time to recover the shield ring of the Kurii (last seen in Volume 10, Tribesmen of Gor). During his wanderings through the African landscape of the unexplored equatorial region of Gor he encounters intrigue, treachery, a hidden empire, crocodilian river tharlarion, cannibals, a boar-like tarsk, pygmies, army ants, amazons, an 8-foot thick rock spider, a lost city, a ring of invisibility, and the Kurii. Sounds pretty exciting, doesn't it? Unfortunately it's not as exciting as it sounds. None of those things show up until you're about 200 pages into the novel! Somehow the villains in this one don't seem as villainous and the dangers don't seem as threatening as they should be. In his better adventures Tarl Cabot usually meets up with a stereotypical rogue who is charming, knowledgeable, a true warrior, and knows how to handle women a la Gor (i.e., terrorize, brutalize, and rape them). In this one the role was divided between 2 characters: Ayare who is the smart charmer and Kisu who is a violent lout (which is good on Gor). It just doesn't work as well. But the real reason this one didn't click is because the flow of the story was continually broken up by interminable discussions of Gorean philosophy. At 464 pages this may very well be the longest of all the Gorean books (some of the later ones have more pages but they also have bigger print). The difference in length is taken up entirely by the theory and practice of the enslavement of females. The author may have invented a few new ways to restrict his slave girls both physically and psychologically but philosophically speaking I don't recall anything in this book that he hasn't already beaten to death in previous volumes. At this point in the series he is just preaching to the converted---if you've bought in to his point of view, it's redundant and if you haven't, further haranguing will not change your mind. I realize that a lot of the people who buy his novels are into bd/sm and therefore expect this but I suspect that there are a lot of readers who are not. It would better serve the stories and all of the readers to confine the bd/sm aspects to example and leave the unnecessary and unrealistic philosophical discussions out.

In "Dancer of Gor", a shy librarian, who studies bellydancing between the stacks after hours, is kidnapped by slavers from the wild planet of Gor. Somehow frozen in a state resembling the Hyborian Age of Robert E. Howard's "Conan" books (and every sword and sandal tale ever told), Gor forces its men to become warriors while the women become "living jewels of desire". On that "wild counter-earth", Doreen not only becomes a slave, but her dancing makes her the local star, even though (as with all slaves) her individual situation approximates a souvenir brought back from a long trip. Whereas modern bellydancers have stressed how liberating and empowering the dance is, that images of slave girls in gauzy skirts is just a Hollywood myth, Gor creator John Norman buys into the myth completely, and Doreen's dancing is only one of the services she is forced to offer as a slave. Driven into exile by an un-wanted competitor, Doreen finds herself in the forefront of war between competing city-states on Gor. For reasons not made quite clear, Doreen's dancing makes her a crucial factor in a massive Gorean civil war - but she remains too much of a slave to extract any power from that position.

I'm ashamed to admit I read "Dancer" - ashamed less from the book's purportedly hot subject matter, but because of how cold and unarousing a book it really is. The brutal treatment typical of slaves in the Gor books, and especially in "Dancer" is little better than that given to animals, and given the pleasure they offer Gor's men, doesn't say anything about that world's male population either. (This is supposed to be a wild and adventurous version of our world, but Gorean men manage to go to extremes for a pitifully shorter and less erotic coupling than paler and weaker Earthmen would aspire to) Not even the author's emphasis on bellydancing - which he assures us really is about female submission - seems to bring out the dance's sexier attributes.

But the worst conceit is Doreen herself. Enamored with the idea of those days of yore (when women were women), Norman crafts a tale of a modern woman's descent into submission. Doreen though, is no spice-girl, and begins the story waiting for her chains. Pondering, if not longing for those days of yore, from the very first page, Doreen is already a slave at the outset. When an advanced party of Gorean scouts first meets her, their leader rhetorically asks Doreen if she's a "modern woman". You've got to wonder how a guy who can cross the gulf of worlds and culture can mistake the timid Doreen for one of those modern women who "destroy men". Unfortunately, Norman robs Doreen of the pretension of being the sort of modern women that Gor-slavers and our own misogynists were meant to break. As a lone and friendless (even among her fellow student-dancers) librarian with time to kill, Doreen is far from the man-destroying modern woman so despised (and prized) by the slavers. Norman's error is in confusing intelligence with strength, which says more about him than bellydancing heroine. Doreen is smart - her slave visions are out of library books and not movies - but submits to the slave collar with little problem. Her smarts however dampen the fun, as she calmly describes the ordeals of being a slave almost as if they were occurring to someone else, and that "other" person doesn't seem worth Doreen's efforts. I've heard all of the canned diatribes about white male wish fullfillment, but never believed there might be something to it until I read this book.

I find these books very arousing. Woman need to know that they are wanted but also to serve. In these books women get both, pleasure from pleasing and pleasure from the men, they make them beg for it to the point that they will just submit. Men could take a few pointer from these books in that pleasure department

Doreen Williamson appeared to be a quiet shy librarian, but in the dark of the library, after hours, she would practice, semi-nude, her secret studies in belly-dancing. Until, one fateful night, the slavers from Gor kidnapped her. On that barbarically splended counter-Earth, Doreen drew a high price as a dancer in taverns, in slave collar and ankle bells. Until each of her owners became aware that their prize dancer was the target of power forces---that in the tense climate of the ongoing war between Ar and Cos, two mighty empires, Doreen was too dangerous to keep. DANCER OF GOR is a John Norman bonus novel---an erotic fever-pitched novel of an alien world where men were all-powerful and women were living jewels of desire. Good for those who wish to learn of kajirae dancing & a pleasant read by all means.

An amusing work of fantasy and fiction. I prefer the Book called "Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is doing to people" by Dr. Tana Dineen. Dr. Dineen has a website... I think that Psychological Evaluations for the Courts: A Handbook for Mental Health Professionals and Lawyers perpetuates a self-serving, self promoting psychology industry that still measures skull sizes and feeds people virtually addictive toxins. This industry will likely thrive as long as timid judges delegate their responsibilities of decision-making to court jesters, commonly known as "forensic psychiatrists".

Excellent reference, but a little outdated as of this writing (Dec. 2001). Opinions and recommendations of the authors do not in all respects reflect the majority, or even the respectible minority, of forensic psychologists and psychiatrists. Nonetheless, an excellent reference to have in your library to get the overall gist of an issue or a topic at the interface of psychology and the law. Detailed information pertaining to actual practices will need to be located elsewhere.

I have used this book extensively both as teacher and practitioner for years and it remains the best available text for mental health professionals conducting evaluations for the legal system. It is also an outstanding reference for attorneys litigating mental health issues. Its greatest strength is in the criminal law area, but it is excellent in other areas of the law/mental health interface as well. Psychiatrists should not be deterred by the term "psychological" in the title; it is equally applicable to both disciplines.

Writing as John Norman in the Chronicles of Counter-Earth series, Professor John Lange repeatedly developed the idea that only in sexual bondage, in which a woman submitted to the dominance of a strong master, could she find sexual fulfillment. Scenes in which Tarl Cabot, or another Gorean male, puts a slave collar around a young girl's neck, has her chained by his sleeping furs, and proceeds to teach her this lesson abound. "Slave Girl of Gor" is the second of three novels in the series that explore this in, ah, someone greater detail from the perspective of the female of the species (as opposed to from Cabot's perspective with Elizabeth Caldwell in "Nomads of Gor"). The first of this "trilogy" would have been "Captive of Gor" and the third is "Kajira of Gor" ("kajira" being Gorean for slave girl, or, if you will, captive).

On one level the plot deals with the next chapter in the battle between the Others and the Priest-Kings for control of Gor. Tarl Cabot has resumed serving the latter and is trying to learn the battle plans of the Kurri, the beastlike Others who are ready to launch their invasion. Meanwhile, Judy Thornton of Earth, is found wandering in the wildnerness and is captured and enslaved. As we follow her training as a slave girl we also learn that she is carrying a secret message that has grave implications for the future of Gor. Consequently, there is something of a race going on to see who can be the first to conquer not just her body but her mind and learn the big bad secret. However, this synopsis gives you a sense of the best parts of the novel, at least from a perspective that emphasizes action and adventure. Most of "Slave Girl of Gor" has to do with Judy learning how to be a slave girl of Gor, although, to be fair, there is also an object lesson involved for Clitus Vitellius of the Warrior Caste, who has feelings for the pretty slave girl and has to remember what it means to be a real master.

From the perspective of the so-called Gorean philosophy, "Slave Girl of Gor" is clearly a major treatise from Lange/Norman. There are those who take this philosophy as gospel, while others use it as a model for role-playing. All I can tell you in that regard is that copies of "Slave Girl," along with "Kajira" and "Magician of Gor," bringing the highest prices for used copies of Norman's novels. I am obviously lousy master material because I tend to skip over such scenes and discussions to get back to the swording and flying giant birds around in the sky.

Though it did not come from Slave Girl of Gor, this is a good quote to those of you mindless politically correct fools who judge Gor and its honestly and truth and power.

"You may judge and scorn the Goreans if you wish. Know as well, however that they judge and scorn you. They fulfill themselves as you do not. Hate them for their pride and power. They will pity you for your shame and weakness." this is from Beasts of Gor, vol 12 in the Counter Urth series.

But let us focus on Slave Girl of Gor, vol. 11. Is this a good book, yes it is. Just like the other Gorean books, I have enjoyed reading it. It only took me three or four days to read it all. Its a pleasant read, but there are some problems with it.

The major problem with it is this. Its repeating itself by the same whims and ideas and thoughts as the slave girl from Captive of Gor. Yes the situation is different, but its saying the same thing so much that I found myself jumping from one paragraph to the next. I hate to say that to. John Norman is an excellent and strong writer. He is brilliant. And I'm not just spouting this. I have college degrees, I am knowledgeable in writing and literature. I really feel for its genre and its messaging, his works are brilliant.

Still reading this book is important because it again explores what it means to be a submissive/slave girl to a true Master, not just some punk who holds a whip at some D/s club who says "bow before me slaves/subs". No...this book shows what a true slave girl needs, a strong Man. A real Man. Not some Politically correct zombie whinning about his parents who didn't give him enough attention to some chick who smokes a long cig at a bar.

No, this makes it clear what a Man needs to be for a woman. It shows the honestly toward what woman really wants in a Man. Even if its a Free Companion, a Free Woman (not a slave girl) will want a strong, powerful, intelligent man who is willing to be a Warrior, a Leader, and a Lover.

John Norman is hated and despised by the Liberal left wimps because he is honest about what a Man and a Woman/woman should be. His works are feared and blacklisted because most people today are afraid of being what they were born to be...whether that is Free Man or Free woman or slave.

The major difficulty in writing a scientific biography of von Neumann is that it is impossible to do justice to his tremendous scientific achievements without going into technicalities that are not accessible for the average reader. Macrae's book deliberately avoids discussing technicalities in detail, and while this makes it possible to give a very readable, comprehensive picture of von Neumann's life and its personality -- especially in context of the current socio-economic conditions -- reading the book one cannot really understand and appreciate why he is regarded by the sharpest minds of this century as a true genius.

John Von Neumann's incredible contributions to a vast array of fields are often overlooked and he is identified strictly with respect to one or two (game theory, the computer, and the development of nuclear weapons). But Von Neumman's contributions spawned such fields as mathematical economics and artifical intelligence as well as many new kinds of mathematics. The only thing lacking in this book is more mathematical detail about his work.

"Captive of Gor," the 7th volume in John Norman's Chronicles of Counter-Earth, was the first book in the series that I did not really enjoy. The reason was not because this is the first volume to be devoted primarily to Norman's Gorean philosophy of slavery as the natural condition of women, but simply because Tarl Cabot (or Bosk of Port Kar as he is currently known in the series) is not the main character in this novel. In "Captive of Gor" we are introduced to Elinor Brinton, who was a wealthy and powerful woman on Earth, but who is brought to Gor and made a pleasure slave in the service of the slave merchant Targo. In other words, we have a modern "liberated" woman put into a condition of slavery where she is forced to learn the arts of providing pleasure to any man who purchases her for the night. The conflict between the Priest-Kings and the Others is behind Elinor's abduction, but that is ultimately a minor point in this 1972 novel. Norman tells essentially the same story in "Slave Girl of Gor" (1977) and "Kajira of Gor" (1983); for that matter, the story of Elinor Brinton is not that much different from what happened to Elizabeth Caldwell, transformed into Vella of Gor in the fourth Gor book, "The Nomads of Gor." Consequently, there is really no surprise to what happens in this novel and the style is not enough this time around to overcome the lack of substance. Gorean philosophy aside, "Captive of Gor" is a break in the developing narrative. There is nothing wrong with that, but Norman continues to abandon the epic story arc he created in the first six volumes in the ones that followed "Captive" as well.

"Captive of Gor," the 7th volume in John Norman's Chronicles of Counter-Earth, was the first book in the series that I did not really enjoy. The reason was not because this is the first volume to be devoted primarily to Norman's Gorean philosophy of slavery/submission as the natural condition of women, but simply because Tarl Cabot (or Bosk of Port Kar as he is currently known in the series) is not the main character in this novel. In "Captive of Gor" we are introduced to Elinor Brinton, who was a wealthy and powerful woman on Earth, but who is brought to Gor and made a pleasure slave in the service of the slave merchant Targo. In other words, we have a modern "liberated" woman put into a condition of slavery where she is forced to learn the arts of providing pleasure to any man who purchases her for the night for a few tarn disks. The conflict between the Priest-Kings and the Others which is the major backstory of the Counter-Earth series is behind Elinor's abduction, but that is ultimately a minor point in this 1972 novel where the focus is on the nature of human sexuality. Norman tells essentially the same story in "Slave Girl of Gor" (1977) and "Kajira of Gor" (1983), but then for that matter the story of Elinor Brinton is not that much different from what happened to Elizabeth Caldwell, transformed into Vella of Gor in the fourth Gor book, "The Nomads of Gor." Consequently, there is really no surprise to what happens in this novel and the style is not enough this time around to overcome the lack of substance (i.e., Norman does not create any compelling supporting characters as he did in previous novels). Gorean philosophy aside, "Captive of Gor" is a major break in the developing narrative. There is nothing wrong with that, but Norman continues to abandon the epic story arc he created in the first six volumes in the ones that followed this volume as well. Consequently, "Captive of Gor" becomes a pivotal novel in the series, representing the end of the great adventures and the beginning of the sociological textbooks.

'Captive' is my favorite book in the Gor series. I'm a female, I'm a serious Sub, and I love to be dominated. Although I'm very independent, very dominating in my personal business affairs, where sex is concerned I am into utter and complete submission. So now you know where I am coming from.

The Gor series is about dominance and submission, period. Of course there is the 'big' story. But the sexual philosophy is the core of the series IMHO. I love the series up until Captive, but after that I find it becomes far too brutal, (for me) leaning toward an ugly, mean-spirited sadism. The first seven books reveal the true beauty of sexual slavery, masters and slaves have a mutual need, whose end result is pleasure, pain, and an immense erotisism that only those who understand, can experience. For me, the series ends after this book.

I read 'Captive of Gor' some 20 years ago. I was so excited to read the story of a slave, rather than Tarl/Bosk adventures and POV. I love Elinors abduction, and induction into the world of the Kajira. As I read it I became her, Gor entered my dreams, both awake and asleep. I loved the majority of the 'minutae' of Gorean slave culture. On a few occasions it became excessive, but hey, that is what skimming is for, to get back to the good stuff. I wanted so badly to be whisked off to the counter earth, I could hardly stand it.

If you compare this book to 'Slave Girl of Gor' it is about the incredible joy of submission, while the latter is about pure sadism, humiliation, and punishment. I hated the books immediately after 'Captive' for their excessive punishment and cruelty, so much that I skipped ahead to 'Slave Girl'. I never made it through the first hundred pages. How noble is it for three hardened Gorean warriors to rape, and mercilessly beat, a frightened girl from Earth? Not very. Gone is any sense of pleasure, of rapturous joy. All that is left is brutality. In 'Captive of Gor' Miss Brintons journey is brutal to be sure, but the element of erotic joy between master and slave is what makes it wonderful for her in the end. If you are powerfully stirred by dominance and submission, I think you might really like it.

My issue with Mr. Norman is his insistance that the Master/Slave relationship must be built on intense physical abuse, punishment, psychological violence, and Sadism. No master need treat me that way. I am a good little slave, obedient, and ready to serve, I need no abuse. I am ready to please my Master, but I have my own demand, which is respect, kindness, protection, and to recieve pleasure myself. I should be cherished.