Gor - Historical Influences

Historical Influences

Many historical cultures of Earth are reflected in the novels of Gor. Although the Greco-Roman is the most often noted of these, this is not the only society presented in some fashion on Gor. There are many similarities to real-life historical civilizations in various regions of Gor (explained in the books by early "voyages of acquisition" the Priest-Kings undertook to populate Gor with humans from different parts of Earth).

The majority of the area of the "northern civilized cities", as the Vosk river region in the temperate north of the continent is referred to, is reminiscent of ancient Greco-Roman city-states in many respects (aside from the delta city of Port Kar, which is a more anarchic and piratical version of Venice). The most common dating system is Contasta Ar, or years since the founding of Ar (similar to ab urbe condita), and the Viktel Aria road leading to Ar is analogous to the Appian way. In Torvaldsland, inhabitants are similar to Earth's Vikings. The "Red Savage" peoples of the Barrens are populated with a culture based upon Native Americans, especially the Sioux Nations. The "Wagon Peoples" are a blend of the Mongols and the Gauchos of South America. The Alars appear based on the Alans, barbarians who were later conquered by the Huns. The peoples of the Tahari desert correlate to the nomads of Arabia, the Gorean regions around Schendi to Amazon or Congo River valley populations. The peoples of far north Gor, or the "Red Hunters" as Norman sometimes referred to them, are clearly Inuit—in this case to the point of referring to them as such.

In an interview with the speculative fiction anthology Polygraff, John Norman spoke at length about the creation of the Gor universe and his influences. "The Counter-Earth, or Antichthon, is from Greek cosmology. Speculation on such a world, you see, is ancient. One of the premises of the Gorean series is that a race of aliens, whom we might speak of as the Priest-Kings, have a technology at their disposal compared to which ours would be something like that in the Bronze Age." "I think, pretty clearly, the three major influences on my work are Homer, Freud, and Nietzsche. Interestingly, however obvious this influence might be, few, if any, critics, commentators, or such, have called attention to it." In the same interview, he said "one of the pleasures of writing science fiction is the development of, and characterization of, alien life forms."