Hero Squirrel of Gor

In mid-January 2013, in a thread titled “Why do so many fandom people mistake trashy books for philosophy?”, a nonny shared thusly:

I have a stupid story about the Gor books. My friend has a house out on Fire Island. His parents really only stay there in the off-season now as they're in their eighties and stay mostly in Manhattan, but I digress.

We usually go out there to open the house up in the spring; get the water running, clean out the stuff the renters left behind, do laundry, etc. and basically get it ready for his mom and dad. They have this giant den downstairs full of books. Some of them are things the renters brought, some of them are theirs, but over the years they've amassed an insane collection.

One spring we were out there and I read one of the Gor books. I could not believe this shit. I mean, I was like the fuck is this? The whole thing was so insane. And my friend was like no no no, you don't even get it, there's MORE OF THEM, THEY JUST APPEARED AND WHO BROUGHT THESE THINGS and again with the what on my end. So I read like four of them and my god, the prose, it is the worst shit imaginable in a world of shitty shit. And the worldbuilding of shitty shit and then of course the absolutely WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS from the stories themselves, what with she-sleens and collars and paga slaves etc. I cannot even forget this shit, it's so bad that it's ingrained in my consciousness to this day. We still make jokes about how horrendous and dumb and crap these books are between us, it's like a running thing now.

The next year there had been a pretty bad storm and we were in the den cleaning it up because a squirrel had fallen down the chimney and gotten trapped in there. The poor thing had eaten all kinds of stuff; curtains, parts of the sofa, bicycle tires. And the Gor books. They weren't laying out or anything, but somehow he managed to eat every single one. We gave a him a funeral with military honors.

I know, I know, cool story bro. But every time I see the barest mention of Gor, I think of that squirrel.

This story was commemorated a few weeks later in Post #183, which was titled "Hero Squirrel of Gor."