Review of Dreamsongs . . . Posted February 13, 2008

Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective by George R. R. Martin Gollancz, 2007, 978-0575079052 Reviewed by Richard Scott Book reviews index

This is an exceptional collection. To start with, my story average score for the collection is 3.80, which is pretty staggering for over 30 pieces from the same author. He also throws in a couple of screenplays, which look okay to me, but I know nothing about those, really.

It also has a cool orange cover. We need more orange books I think. Also note the cute coat of arms, and its quartering to represent the genres that Martin loves and works in.

A fair bit of work has gone in to the book as far as introducing the material goes, and there is also quite a bit of autobiographical discussion, in the discussion sections that precede each of the nine sections that the book is broken down into, going from his childhood, right up until the later stories.

He talks about growing up, loving comics and still 'bleeding four colour ink', then discovering paperbacks, Heinlein, Howard, Tolkien and so on. He likes his football, and given all the mentions of SF convention parties, is probably not averse to a beer. My kind of guy. Science fiction, fantasy and horror, it is all good to him, and he is good at all of it.

There is also a complete bibliography up until the end of 2002. Although this version has just been released, apparently Subterranean published a collectable fancy version in 2003, hence the bibliography date. When this book started to appear he may not have had a lot more to report, either, working mostly on his fat fantasies and not short stories, or getting Wild Cards going again. All in all, I am really happy Gollancz has decided to bring this great book out for the rest of us normal mortal readers and made it accessible.

The Song of Ice and Fire books don't appeal to me at all – I tried one and couldn't get through it, so happily none of that sort of thing is here. He can write all of those he wants though, if he can keep Wild Cards ticking over.

However, there is a 'prequel' story of sorts from this world set a far while in the past, The Hedge Knight, which I thought was rather good. Apart from the brutally realistic type of violence, this has a much more T. H. White feel in some of it, rather than say, Nigel Tranter on crank which the Ice and Fire books seemed to be.

He also picks Shell Games from Wild Cards, one of the best stories from that series of books.

Anyway, a brilliant collection. Five stars, no doubt about it.

To briefly break down the stories by section :-

One : A Four-Color Fanboy

Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark
A story from when he was a kid, writing for the comics fanzines, a tale of Doctor Weird the Golden Ghost versus a Demon Lord. If you have no affection for or interest in superhero comics, you will likely find this terrible. Only an ordinary story as you would expect for such an early age. However, somewhat charming for in an old-fashioned way, for those of us that do appreciate the source material. (3/5)

The Fortress
A tale of a 19th century Finnish fortress and the conflict about whether it should be defended or not in the face of Russian assault. He managed to get this accepted as a university assignment. A reasonable effort. Pretty clear if you saw this at the time that he had some writing skill, and he was actually asked to submit it to an academic journal dealing with that sort of subject. An early rejection garnered by the writer, as he tells us. (4/5)

Death His Legacy
A story about an assassin wanting to remove a popular American political leader, written around the time of him actually formally studying creative writing at a tertiary level. Ambivalent about it himself, I would have to agree, it doesn't work all that well. (3/5)

Two : The Filthy Pro

The Hero
Science fictional anti-war tale about an elite soldier that just wants to get out and retire, but the military has a catch-22 kind of sting in the tail. (4/5)

The Exit to San Breta
A science fiction ghost car story, if you like. The author claims it is more supposed to be a ghost story at the heart, than SF, which I'd agree with. What we know as cars are now not common, so when a sighting is made of one that should be long gone, the viewer is perturbed. (3.5/5)

The Second Kind of Loneliness
The bloke manning a deepspace station has a severely deteriorating mental condition, as he is stuck out there all alone cogitating about a broken lovelife. This doesn't help his wellbeing, of course. Neither does relief delay. (4/5)

With Morning Comes Mistfall
This tale is about what happens to your favourite holiday spot when the developers get wind of it, pretty much. The setting here is an alien planet and there may be some cryptozoology to be done, but if all is revealed, where is the romance? (4/5)

Three : The Light of Distant Stars

A Song for Lya
A romance between two telepaths with a large skill difference is doomed when they encounter something alien in an investigation on an alien planet. (4/5)

This Tower of Ashes
Another of Martin's lost-yet-another-girlfriend stories, where a man has retreated to a planet to be alone. When an ex and her lover turn up he has to decide whether to save them from local dreamspider monsters or not. (4.5/5)

And Seven Times Never Kill Man
A missionary warlike space cult is out to convert a planet through whatever terror means necessary, but a local trader starts assisting those locals who are willing to resist. Something much stranger has been planned for the invaders, however.

The Stone City
Dislocation, as some stranded space travellers sink into decay, rime and ruin, trying to get away again from their grounded state. (4/5)

Bitterblooms
A long-lived stranded traveller likes to lure youth from the local technologically fallen culture as playthings, using the virtual reality functions of her ship as tool. Some will see this as a fantasy story, perhaps, with its local vampires and other oddities (4/5).

The Way of Cross and Dragon
Dissension in a spacefaring warrior-knight type religious order. Think Warhammer 40K, a little. (3.5/5)

Four : The Heirs of Turtle Castle

The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr
The section reference is to the author's pets that he was allowed, where they were living, making up stories to himself about the lives of his amphibious friends. Lonely Songs is a romantic fantasy story about a traveller between worlds, and a long conflict between some powerful entities. A different stratagem is employed against the traveler here. (4/5)

The Ice Dragon
A kid's story, as a different type of beast helps a girl briefly resist an invading force and its own standard flame-breathing variety of large lizard. As such, considerably weaker than the rest, apart from the kid's comic story. (3/5)

In the Lost Lands
A lover is willing to hire a woman that can get anything done to get what he wants, despite warnings. A werewolf story, if you like. (4/5)

Five : Hybrids and Horrors

Meathouse Man
Here we get to an overtly horror section, as indicated. Martin has written more than one story in this setting, about men whose job it is to control corpses. These are the bodies of criminals who have been executed by getting rid of their minds, and a control mechanism is put in place to allow the body to be operated in robot-like fashion. The resulting human machines are put to uses ranging from mining to prostitution to combat sports, and the more talented controllers can control many at a time. Another example of the science-fiction and horror blend. (4/5)

Remembering Melody
An old broken-down derelict friend proves a horrible and dangerous parasite to a group of people, because of a past promise they made to her. (4/5)

Sandkings
If you have seen the movie Gremlins, then this is that sort of story: unique pets bought from a strange dealer, and instructions disregarded leads to bad things. Martin points out that this story made him more than several novels, because of various other media uses. (4/5)

Nightflyers
Stuck on a spaceship horror, as psionics and terror take hold on the dwindling population of said ship. (4/5)

The Monkey Treatment
A bizarre weight loss plan is a real weight on this man's shoulders, as he gets way more than even Pyecraft bargained for in the H. G. Wells story, as he begins to realise his doom. (4/5)

The Pear-Shaped Man
A super creepy and drive you crazy disgustingly strange neighbour tale. A woman in an apartment block can do nothing about the title character, as he begins to worry her more and more. He even scares her with junk food. (4/5)

Six : A Taste of Tuf

A Beast for Norn
Two stories here of the odd flat-affect bachelor with cats Haviland Tuf and his huge terraforming bioship. Here, some owners of a combat arena for strange creatures look to make use of him. Those trying to take advantage tend to underestimate his intelligence because of his oddball nature. (3/5)

Guardians
A solution to a planet’s ecological problems that is not what those trying to rip Tuf off in this deal had bargained for. (3.5/5)

Seven : The Siren Song of Hollywood

The Twilight Zone "The Road Less Travelled"
Martin details how he was lured into the strange and sleazy world of television, thanks to a reincarnation of the Twilight Zone show, and Beauty and the Beast, among other things. This is a script of one of those episodes.

Doorways
A script for an alternate-world travelling show. I know nothing about script writing itself, but the story seems okay, for television. He details the problems with getting actors, the story being radically changed, and so on, for this failed attempt at a show. Changing the setting and special effects for budget reasons, all that sort of thing.

Eight : Doing the Wild Card Shuffle

Shell Games
Martin explains, for those who are familiar with Wild Cards, that the Great and Powerful Turtle is somewhat of an autobiographical character, but he didn't really have as good a friend as junkyard Joey.

For those not familiar, Wild Cards is the story of what happens when an alien virus is brought to Earth, and for each hundred people it affects, 90 die, 9 are transformed with some sort of disfiguration, and 1 gains extraordinary abilities. Tom Tudbury is one of those, gaining immense levels of telekinetic power. Otherwise being just a normal guy though, he builds an armored shell around a car to protect him as he does good, hence the title. Here the Turtle has to team up with one of the main reasons the virus came to Earth. (5/5)

From the Journal of Xavier Desmond
An episodic piece taken from the fourth Wild Cards book Aces Broad. This anthology details a World Health Organisation tour to investigate how the Wild Card virus has affected people around the world. Desmond is one of those disfigured, and also dying of cancer, as he chronicles the events and personality conflicts of the many months of the tour. Doesn't work as well when combined together like this, though, rather than interspersed throughout the rest of a book and relating to the other work. (3.5/5)

Nine : The Heart In Conflict

Under Siege
The section title refers to Martin writing about genre-blending, pointing out a story is a story. This is a time agent type of story, with characters doing what they can to try and keep things from getting worse and worse because of meddling. Nothing that makes this one stand out against others of its type though. (3.5/5)

The Skin Trade
A really good private investigator style throwback pulp story, except the lead PI is a woman. It also has lots of werewolves. Really, really well done. Horror fans and noir fans alike should enjoy this, as might most other people as some excellent basic storytelling on display here. (4.5/5)

Unsound Variations
This story grew from Martin's love for chess and the fact that he was involved with running chess tournaments. The repercussions of chess team relations many years later when a man with an axe to grind comes up with an invention that can shake his old team's grip on reality. A weird revenge story, if you like. (4/5)

The Glass Flower
Another weird SF tale of a very strange game and its competitors, who are using people as part of the competition. Much more your baroque style SF to be found here. (4.5/5)

The Hedge Knight
A straightforward story, as a none too bright and none too wealthy knight, who is otherwise a standup guy gets involved in politics that are way over his head, leading to a team versus team deadly tournament match. Blood and fighting to be found here. No magic in this one, though, only slight references to dragons and such, despite it being related to his fantasy series. (4.5/5)

Portraits of His Children - George R. R. Martin
A writer's relationship with his family is not good because of what he is writing, and he begins to get bizarre deliveries in the mail. A psychologically creepy type of story. (3.5/5)

The book ends with the aforementioned bibliography. This is easily one of the best (and longest) genre collections ever. Absolutely worth it. It isn't overly common for mainstream publishers to do books like this I think. They are to be commended in this case, as is the author for putting a lot of work and interest into his commentary and anecdotes ranging from comics to conventions that surround the high quality fiction.



Reviewed by Richard Scott