Ardor on Aros

by Andrew J. Offutt, Frank Frazetta (Illustrator)

What happens to a red-blooded young graduate looking for sex, fame, and answers when he suddenly finds himself naked, frightened, and several light years from Earth?

A lot.

A lot more than ever happened to Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter and Ulysses Paxton on Mars or Carson Napier on Venus. A lot more than anyone--least of all a red-blooded young graduate looking for sex, fame, and answers--ever dreamed of!

Genres: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Sword and Planet

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published May 1, 1973

About the author

Andrew Jefferson Offutt was an American science fiction and fantasy author. He wrote as Andrew J. Offutt, A.J. Offutt, and Andy Offut. His normal byline, andrew j. offutt, had his name in all lower-case letters. His son is the author Chris Offutt.

Offutt began publishing in 1954 with the story And Gone Tomorrow in If. Despite this early sale, he didn't consider his professional life to have begun until he sold the story Blacksword to Galaxy in 1959. His first novel was Evil Is Live Spelled Backwards in 1970.

Offutt published numerous novels and short stories, including many in the Thieves World series edited by Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey, which featured his best known character, the thief Hanse, also known as Shadowspawn (and, later, Chance). His Iron Lords series likewise was popular. He also wrote two series of books based on characters by Robert E. Howard, one on Howard's best known character, Conan, and one on a lesser known character, Cormac mac Art.

As an editor Offutt produced a series of five anthologies entitled Swords Against Darkness, which included the first professional sale by Charles de Lint.

Offutt also wrote a large number of pornographic works under twelve different pseudonyms, not all of them identified. Those known include John Cleve, J.X. Williams, and Jeff Douglas. His main works in this area are the science fiction Spaceways series, most of whose volumes were written in collaboration, and the historical Crusader series.

Reviews

[Malum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ardor on Aros is Andrew Offutt's love letter/send up of the "sword and planet" genre. Imagine Burroughs' A Princess of Mars smashed together with Janet Morris' High Couch of Silistra and you have a good idea of what this book is like.

I personally enjoyed this book quite a bit. It was funny, had some good action, and even had a bit of mystery concerning the nature of the world of Aros.

Reading the other reviews, you might think this is book is basically porn. Well, I am here to tell you that all of the stories of sex in this book are highly exaggerated. There is one rape early on that is somewhat graphic, and there is a "fade to black" sex scene near the end that is only graphic if you consider kissing to be hardcore. That's it. Whether that is good news or bad is left up to you, dear reader!

Really, the only thing about this book to truly get offended at is the fact that the cover art--where a warrior is fighting a giant, slimy tentacle--happens NOWHERE in the book at all. Harumph!

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ardor on Aros by andrew j. offutt (he preferred his name to appear without capitalization) is an homage/pastiche of the Edgar Rice Burroughs sword & planet stories. There is a rape scene early in the story and the overall gender attitudes aren't what would be acceptable to readers of the current day, but it's a better than average adventure from almost a half-century ago. The Frazetta cover has nothing to do with the story, and offutt was always amused and bemused by the fact that somehow the publisher had an extra Frazetta painting sitting about that they chose to put on his book, and the sales were much higher than expected as a result.

[Derek · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Burroughs / Barsoom pastiche.

A common feature in the genre is the notion of the manly heroic protagonist (repeatedly) rescuing the fair, fainting damsel-in-distress from dastardly foes or ravening monsters.

Here, the author introduces a sickening notion: that on this fictional planet the rescuer is owed the sexual attentions of the rescued woman, and the rescuer is indeed obligated to take advantage with all enthusiasm and violence. And that the woman actually enjoys what amounts to a brutal rape.

One could argue that the sexual violence is a more 'realistic' scenario compared to the virginal not-even-a-chaste-kiss-in-reward tropes of the original genre. But frankly, I couldn't stomach it. Implying that the woman somehow enjoys it or considers the attention a mark of her own attractiveness or worth was the dealbreaker for me.

[Deb Omnivorous Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book I have had for years, always enjoyed but had not re-read for a while. It was better than I even remembered with Offutt's bawdy sense of humour and theme of making fun of the old greats of sci-fi. The chapter heading are his prime method of poking fun at these with such chapters as "The girl who I did not save" poking fun at the descriptive chapter names of older (Golden Age?) sci-fi and the absurd, yet utterly satisfying adventures they had. Yes, Edgar Rice Burroughs I AM looking at you and so was Offutt.

I expect this might not be entirely to the taste of some modern readers; there is a reasonably graphic non-consensual sex scene or two and Offutt (who also wrote pornography I believe), does seem to have subscribed firmly to the old-school notion that women can enjoy being r**ed.

Nevertheless, for the non-squeamish, this is a well written, funny and rather unique style of classic sci-fi (I think classic, I can never remember the eras) which I also talk about on my YouTube channel here...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzYkG...

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was purportedly the first Sword & Planet work to feature overt sex. It was definitely interesting but neither the sex nor the story was that outstanding. I enjoyed it. Offutt wrote a fair number of books with graphic sex in them, often under pseudonyms.

[Steve Goble · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, this is a weird book. It starts out sort of like a love note and critique of Burroughs' Barsoom stories, tossing in some sex and rape and bashing tropes. Then it sort of veers into Heinlein territory, a la "The Number of the Beast." Then it all sort of falls apart.

I should also mention that Offutt does things with sentences and punctuation that I would never do. I often enjoy his work, but grit my teeth and his stylistic choices. This time, I stuck with the story in hopes he would pull it all together. He didn't.

[Leothefox · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this around 2010 or 2011 and I was pretty sure I'd reviewed it already, but I guess I am doing that now.

First: why did I read this? I was getting into finally reading all the sci-fi and fantasy paperbacks I'd been piling up (I was unemployed and life got slow enough to really get into reading), and this one I very naturally bought for the Frank Frazetta cover of some muscly naked hero guy struggling with a tentacle monster in what might either be a mucky swamp or waterlogged dungeon. Those Dell guys in the 70s were really smart and knew people would buy books with this stuff on them, and it still works. Pity the cover is never more than a Freudian allegory for what's in the book!

The other reason is that the back of the book openly declares this to be some kind of switched-on satire of Edgar Rice Burroughs' “sword & planet” books. I love love love Burroughs and his Barsoom and other series, so this really dangled the bait in front of me. Sadly, it was this same ruse that got me to read “Gods of Xuma”, which I really truly hate.

Let's talk for a minute about the back of the book before we talk about what's really inside. “What happens to a red blooded young graduate looking for sex, fame, and answers when he suddenly finds himself naked, frightened, and several light years from earth? A LOT!” The “a lot” part is just a lie, but the “red blooded” line is supposed to clue us in that this guy is horny. And then, since 1973 is basically still culturally the 60s, “sex, fame, and answers” is on there. “Answers”, yeah, these long haired youngsters want those! They're all smoking their dope, listening to “Abraham, Martin, and John” and asking “why?” and then, you know, sex. It implies that this guy has more happen to him than a Burroughs hero, but I guess “more” is just to clue you in to the idea that the sexuality is overt. I guess a young and in-tune pervert with 95 cents in his pocket was supposed to read this and go “Right on!” and buy it.

The actual content of the book is barely important, because the book is kind of a scam. Andrew J. Offut seems like he was just a hack and Dell probably told him “we need something like this 'Gor' junk, write us some snarky Burroughs thing where people screw.” And he did just that! 60s horny student guy Hank Ardor goes to work for a scientist with a parrot who is working on a teleportation machine and he tried to make time with the female assistant who loves the Barsoom books and is trying to write her own. He reads her book, that I think had a soldier in Vietnam being killed and propelled to Mars. Hank makes fun of her book, makes fun of Burroughs, and says things to the effect of “real people don't have romantic adventures, they have sex! Everybody has sex! Let's have sex!” And of course he winds up getting teleported.

Now this book is “modern”, see? It's savvy, like our snarky narrator, Hank Ardor. It isn't gonna be any kind of cringe adventure, it's meta! The planet that Hank ends up on eventually proves to be a kind of imagination-fueled dimension, created out of the ideas of the Burroughs fan lady and of Hank himself, so it's like almost a Burroughs adventure, only the sex is more important. Also, the scientist's parrot winds up there and it can talk for real now.

Now, people who review this book tend to call a lot of attention to all of the rape.

There's a lot of rape.

Well, “a lot”, in that the book is rape-focused. Like “Gor”, this is written in sort of a pornographic context in that rape is mostly there as an excuse to have explicit sex scenes, since the women here appear to invariably enjoy rape. Offut might have been something of a perv, running with a bit of a fetish here. There's an evil witch lady who is introduced when Hank is linked to her via telepathy and he is “tuned in” while she is getting raped, and he enjoys himself. There's also the detail that the planet has a custom where women rescued by men have to offer them sex and it's an insult if the man refuses. Kinky sick stuff.

Now, my biggest reaction to the book was not really the annoying non-hero of Ardor here, since he never really does action stuff, nor was it really the juvenile inclusion of overt sex stuff. Either of these problems might have been discounted, to some extent, if “Ardor on Aros” had committed to actually having a “sword & planet” adventure take place, with creatures, warfare, capture, escape, battles, mysticism, marriage, etc etc. Just like “Gods of Xuma”, it calls itself a satire of Burroughs, but it just kind points at Burroughs and says “See this old hoary junk? We're too clever to do that! Check this out!” and what they offer is far inferior.

Basically, Ardor ends up with a girlfriend who is captured by an evil magic lady who is mad that Ardor didn't have sex with her. Ardor has to pretend to be a sorcerer and try to defeat her with trickery and the help of the parrot.

We all would have been better off without the parrot.

Anyhow, “Ardor of Aros” is very weak stuff. It's not an adventure and it isn't even good pornography, since it doesn't really sustain that part of things either. Writers who think they are too good for genre conventions and drama tend to be the ones who are also “too good” to entertain you. A smart writer would at least have left something of substance in the place of the old things, rather than just pulling the rug out.

[liza · Rating 4 out of 5]

this one is a classis pulp fiction type sci fi. can i mix genres like that?

the plot is absorbing and the action swift. next time you have to wait in a doctor's office take this one along.

[Timothy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not sure anyone can be more surprised than I, but I have to judge this novel from 1973 the best Sword&Sorcery novel I have read.

I have set out to read the genre after a lag of many decades. I had immersed myself in high fantasy, and science fiction, and Literature, too — must keep that capitalized, you know — in my first decade or so of reading. Somehow I had skipped S&S, for the most part. Oh, I had read Vance (whose work is more high fantasy), and tried Fritz Leiber (the Fafhrd/Grey Mouser stories being the only things of his I cared for), and done some basic duty with ERB. But Lin Carter was merely an enthusiast-cum-critic for me, Robert E. Howard a famous suicide, and de Camp the author of one terrific humorous poem, also from 1973, “The Ameba.”

But I have professional reasons to dip into the genre now. And I have, in this cause, finally read a few Carter adventures, Poul Anderson ventures, and taken a refresher course in ERB. It has all been very instructive.

I confess, however: this is the first of the S&S fictions to garner from me a highly positive appraisal.

I hadn’t read Offut before, not even, I think, in short form. And his reputation as a “pornographer” was . . . intriguing. I mean, as a Jack Woodford fan and James Branch Cabell devotee, I could hardly let rumor dissuade me.

I am glad I did not. This is an extremely clever book. It is meta-Sword&Sorcery. Sf/parodic, sure, but well written and the adventure is neither distracting nor poorly integrated into the story. It has twists. It is a twist — and with that in mind, perhaps that very word, “twist,” we can find justification for the serpentine cover illustration by (apparently? obviously?) Frank Frazetta.

Oh, and the fact that Frazetta is name-dropped early in the book.

And, as in Woodford and Cabell, not even the occasional frank sex talk, and a description of rape, strikes me as in the least bit pornographic.

It is all very “meta.” I understand why most readers might not appreciate this. I did.

[Robert Jr. · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like this book. I guess it was supposed to be a satire of Edgar Rice Burrough's Mars books using a gritty realism take to get the satire across. It did not work. The style in which the book is written is irritating, the first-person narration by the motor-mouthed protagonist just annoyed me nonstop. The constant references to the Mars books made me want to read something more akin to those even though they rely on "false chivalry" as this book put it. The very long and detailed rape scene near the end of the first third of the book was a big negative but I read on.

Most of the book consists of long empty conversations that take a page and a half to say something that could have been communicated in a single sentence. There are a couple of fight scenes, not very exciting or even that impactful though it seems the author tried to make them shocking and bloody. It seemed to me that a large portion of the story uses descriptions of the bureaucracy of the city as world-building. I can see the satire in this as opposed to Sword & Planet tales but it was not executed at all very well. All it did was make me want to go read an actual Sword & Planet story.

[Venus (Rising) · Rating 4 out of 5]

hahnkahdah you icon... i love when books don't take themselves seriously. hank being painfully aware of his genre is the cherry on top here. suchh an entertaining read, i love hank as a protagonist (his dry humor really does it for me wow) and the entire set up of this book is surprisingly well developed even as it's glaringly obvious that this is a satire! some Questionable moments in here (re: Jadiriyah) but overall a very fun and fresh read. 4.5 stars.

[Ed Wyrd · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a humorous satirical take on Edgar Rice Burroughs' Sword and Planet stories, like John Carter on Mars. Enjoyed this ages ago when I was a huge ERB fan.