Witness of Gor

Gorean Saga, Book 26

By: John Norman

Narrated by: Chelsea Hatfield

John Norman's epic Gorean Saga is one of the longest-running and most successful series in the history of fantasy. It is also one of the most controversial. Over the course of more than 30 books produced over a span of six decades, the series has sold millions of copies and built legions of fans unrivaled in their devotion. Audible invites you to rediscover this brilliantly imagined world where men are masters and women live to serve their every desire.

Ar, defeated, shamed, systematically looted, is occupied by Cosian forces. Perhaps Marlenus of Ar, alone, the great ubar, could recall the men of Ar to the recollection of their Home Stone and its meaning. But it is thought that he perished in the Voltai. Young women from Earth brought to Gor are commonly brought for the markets, to be branded and collared, and sold as the delicious, lovely livestock they are. Such a case is the young woman whom we shall call Janice, for that name was put on her as a Gorean slave name. In the prison pits of piratical Treve, there exists a chained prisoner who believes himself to be of the Gorean peasantry. The nature and even the existence of this prisoner, strangely enough, is a closely guarded secret. In order to better keep this secret, it is decided that his servant and warder had best be no native Gorean.

©2001 John Norman (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

A Good Book

A good book, but not one of his best. Still . . . It is well worth reading. It well advances the meta-story. I would easily recommend it .

Robotic rambling

If I wasn't so interested in this series, I would have stopped this book within the first chapter. The narration was absolutely horrible! The pacing was very robotic, so much so, it was almost unbearable. In subsequent chapters, the narration became more conversational/story reading/telling... more human.
The unfortunate aspect of this book is the nearly constant rambling of concepts that are well established in the previous 26 books. Without the rambling, the book would have only been four or five hours long.

Loved the story!

There is a lack of consistency in the pronunciation. One sentence Treve rhymes with eve then she pronounces it Trayvay the next. It's confusing unless you're already familiar with the series and world. Aside from the glaring inconsistencies in pronunciation Ms. Hatfield does a good job causing the listener to become genuinely invested in our lovely protagonist. I found myself dying to know what happened after the book ends.

much belabored

too little story. too much time spent belaboring female slavery. we get it. could have been summed up in one or two paragraphs.

Great book, very poor reader!

The staccato delivery reminded me of a poor, comedic William Shatner impersonation. She also miss pronounced more (non Gorean) words than I could count. I have never complained about an Audible performance before, but this one was atrocious!

Horrible performance

I am almost positive that this was read by a computer generated voice. The speech is monotonous, lacks emphasis and emotion and is syllabicated evenly. It is even hard to listen to.

Steady, Steady, She’ll Tell The Story, Be Patient.

First off I’m giving Chelsea Hatfield 5 stars for actually taking on this project and completing it. The beginning chapters of Witness are a narrator’s nightmare. Bravo. Our Kajira Protagonist is dictating this story. She’s thinking in English sometimes, Gorean other times, and who knows to whom she is dictating the story. Doesn’t matter to me. I almost gave up on this book after hardcopy reading about 1/6th of it. I’m very glad I decided to listen to the audio book and force myself to stick with it. As “Janice” learns Gorean she eventually begins to slow down, use punctuation, and tell a story. By the time I was ¾ of the way through I actually liked Janice. She is unique, I think, because she actually comes to grips with her situation in her first run-on sentence filled gush of narration. Then she gets on with business.
The author takes full advantage of his famous: “ “blah, blah, blah, as I have indicated before, blah, blah, and such, I thought, and blah, blah, not to forget blah and such..” A barrage of arrows suddenly fell from the sky killing all the guards. A tarn swooped down low and pooed on my head, and a fellow with an urt on a leash cried out, “Kneel or Die!” “ technique that makes these books fun.
You need to read this book to keep going. There is a really good story, some answers, and a pretty good adventure or two. Just be patient with Janice, she does eventually learn how to take a breath. There is also a bit of a digression about “Masks” that stopped me dead. It was very well written and made me think quite a bit. I want to find that part in the actual book and read it again.

slaves love for her master

Would you listen to Witness of Gor again? Why?

yes. it was interesting to see for the story pulled me in

Who was your favorite character and why?

the earth girl. how she handled each situation she was put in

Which scene was your favorite?

the one where she was reunited with her love master

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

the love of a slave

Not worth it

story could have been much better was boring and did not seem like a Norman book .

Same old same ol

This guy wants to write there is nobody better however this story is already been told for or five times before and if you have made it this far in the series you may as well skip the first 20 hours. Girl captured wakes up a slave refuses to believe it fights against it decides she was a slave in her heart all along. Free woman captured act like bitches decide they were slaves all along.