I think Goreans truly suffer for lack of the four poster bed. Lets look at the root of things. The start of it all is the technology prohibitions that the Priest-Kings place on the human inhabitants of Gor. First is the prohibition of any technology which could result in the joining together of the various cities of Gor. Remember the PK’s want the cities to stay unconnected and rivaling each other. This means communications technology such as radio, television and telephone are prohibited. This also prohibits mass or rapid  transportation. Such as trains, planes and automobiles. Nothing faster allowed then the wagon or an animal such as Tarn or Tharlarian. Now being as how the PK’s stated that they do a random search, and most often use their ships to do it, I saw how a form of telegraph could be snuck in. They have electricity and this suggests electrical wiring. So, inside a city , it shouldn’t be too difficult to run wiring between two different locations. One end of a wire attached to a button or switch the other end to a light. Using morse code or other code communications could be maintained this way. Person at location A would tap the button in a series of code beeps which result in light flashing on and off at location B. and vice versa. Of course all this is moot as the books have already been written. But I digress.

   Now to get to my primary point. In Tarnsman of Gor, Tarl describes the gorean bed as a large stone slab covered in furs. The furs can be heated, presumably electricly. At the foot of the bed, a slave girl would sleep on a mat made of reeds and covered by a thin blanket.

Now my first problem is with the large stone slab. Have You ever slept on a large stone slab? Probably not. The worst I ever slept on was a floor made from 1 inch thick slab of steel. This was while I served in the U.S. Navy. I served onboard the battleship U.S.S. Iowa. A mighty vessel made with very thick metal. During lunch, my division mates and I would take a lunchtime nap which we called a “Nooner”. Named so since lunch started at 12 noon. Since we couldn’t sleep on our beds, rules being as they are, we slept on the floor of our berthing. On cold, hard steel. No furs either. Now here the esteemed John Norman wants us to believe that our free goreans slept on large slabs of stone. Nice cold, hard stone. Furs notwithstanding, I can’t imagine any surface more uncomfortable to sleep on. And this is on a planet that we know has wood. Now granted a human can get used to anything and goreans have slept on these beds for generations. But Tarl was an Earthman to begin with. He knows beds. He didn’t get up one morning and say, “ Hey Dad! This stone slab bed thing sucks. You are the Administrator, you’re rich, lets get some carpenters in here” Nope, never happened. Now I keep mentioning wagons because the floor of a wagon doesn’t differ that much from a basic wooden bed. A  flat surface surrounded by 4 short walls of wood. Even if you couldn’t invent some kind of mattress, the wood alone is more comfortable by far then stone.

   Now lets look at those furs. Now the last time I checked when one refers to a fur it is in usually in the shape of a somewhat oval with 4 pieces that are from each of the four limbs of the animal it is skinned from as well as part of the neck and head. I have difficulty imagining an electric cord sticking out of this thing. But worse then that is this. One this planet, people wear clothing of various types. Tarl on more then one occasion makes reference to his own tunic. This would suggest the existence of such a thing as Needle and Thread. And when you take into account that the slave girl sleeps with “ a thin blanket” We know that they are more then capable of taking these furs, cutting them into rectangular shapes and making a decent comforter out of them. Now I don’t remember if Gor had any plant resembling the cotton plant, but I do know they had feathers because they had tarns. Would it have been that difficult to take two rectangularly sewn pieces of furs, sew them together, stuff em with feathers and making a Really good comforter out of them? Or maybe even a thin , nice mattress? As far as I can tell, the only way a decent bed could be prohibited is if it gives a warrior too good a good night’s sleep therefore making him more alert then his enemies.

   As you see I think the slave girl got a more comfortable bed to sleep on then her master. And isn’t it funny that Tarl’s father, who also came from Earth, didn’t think to make a bed either.