The ''Telnarian Histories'' are a series of five
space opera novels by American writer
John Norman
John Frederick Lange Jr. (born June 3, 1931) is an American writer who, as John Norman, has authored the '' Gor'' series of science fantasy novels. Norman is also a philosophy professor.
Early life and education
Lange was born in Chicago, I ...
; the first three were published between 1991 and 1993.
The setting of the novels is a galactic realm closely parallel to the later history of the
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post- Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings around the Mediter ...
and its wars with
Germanic barbarians. The ruling family of the empire is human, but
extraterrestrials
Extraterrestrial life, colloquially referred to as alien life, is life that may occur outside Earth and which did not originate on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been conclusively detected, although efforts are underway. Such life might ...
exist, while individuals pursue destinies of freedom and slavery. The depiction of
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
in the books resembles that found in the ''
Gor'' series, with female slaves dominated by male masters.
Books
The individual books in the series are:
* ''The Chieftain'' (1991)
* ''The Captain'' (1992)
* ''The King'' (1993)
* ''The Usurper'' (2015)
* ''The Emperor'' (2019)
Reception
The ''Telnarian Histories'' were critically and popularly regarded as an unfortunate deviation from Norman's ''
Gor'' series. One novel concept explored in the second and third books of the series is that Dira, the goddess of love and beauty in the
pantheon
Pantheon may refer to:
* Pantheon (religion), a set of gods belonging to a particular religion or tradition, and a temple or sacred building
Arts and entertainment Comics
*Pantheon (Marvel Comics), a fictional organization
* ''Pantheon'' (Lone S ...
of the Telnarian Empire, is also the goddess of slave girls and is herself enslaved among the gods.
External links
*
Science fiction book series
Gor
Book series introduced in 1991
{{1990s-sf-novel-stub