Dreamsongs: Volume II, by George R. R. Martin

Dreamsongs: Volume II
George R. R. Martin

Dreamsongs: Volume II was originally the second half of the limited edition GRRM: A Rretrospective from Subterranean Press. Dreamsongs collects a wide range of George R. R. Martin’s short fiction, including some never before published work as well as his juvenilia.

Volume II opens with two of GRRM’s Haviland Tuf stories, "A Beast for Norn" and "Guardians". The first story was a bit of a slow opener as I tried to work out why GRRM was so enamored with this characters and what about Tuf would merit a series of stories as well as a published collection of Tuf stories. "A Beast for Norn" was similar to some of Martin’s earlier SF work, which evinced a coldness of tone and setting. Tuf brokered deals to sell exotic beasts to various sects on a planet, to catastrophic results. “A Beast for Norn“ did not quite get into the head of Haviland Tuf or really get into his motivations. But, it was interesting enough. “Guardians“, however, was a much stronger story. This time our intrepid ecological engineer maneuvers his way into assisting a planet under siege by never before seen sea creatures. Finally we understand who Tuf is and how he acts, though there is an untold backstory just waiting to be explored. “Guardians“ was a much stronger, richer story than “A Beast for Norn“ was.

The next section contains two screenplays. The first is an unaired Twilight Zone episode written by GRRM, the second the original version of the pilot episode to a show called “Doorways”. The Twilight Zone ep was interesting enough. It contained some chills with the thought of a mysterious man in the daughter’s room that nobody else can see, and the by the end we get what felt like a typical Twilight Zone twist, but the screenplay was a short, decent read. I think I would rather read a story treatment of this ep instead of the ep itself, but the chance to read some of Martin’s Hollywood work is a treat.

Better still is the original pilot to Doorways. The episode was filmed, but not this original version. Think of a different, less campy version of Sliders and you’ll have an idea. There are doorways between alternate realities, which is always entertaining, only this time there are men hunting another (the woman, Cat) first into our reality, and then across others. In this episode we see the Cuban Missile Crisis gone far wrong, and another where America has devolved into warring states. There are so many options, but Martin tells a tight story, keeps things focused, and really delivers with this pilot to “Doorways”. Well done, sir.

Section IV is two excerpts from the Wild Cards mosaic novels, one about The Turtle, another from Book IV, the Journals of Xavier Desmond. I’ll confess that I skipped this section. I’ve read the Turtle story from Wild Cards I and I plan to read Wild Cards IV soon. The Turtle story is a good one. I’ll say that much.

Martin closes out the set with the fourth and final Section which he introduces as stories of “the heart in conflict with itself”. Overall I was less impressed with this set than some of Martin’s earlier work, except for two stories. Not surprisingly, I was impressed with “The Hedge Knight”, the first Ice and Fire prequel story. “The Hedge Knight” was originally collected in the Legends anthology, but I had not read the story before (despite having read most of that anthology), and revisiting Westeros in an earlier time was a treat. I want to know more of Dunk and Egg. The second story I wanted to note was “The Skin Trade”, Martin’s werewolf story which is less about werewolves and more about identity – mixed in with violence and brutality. The other stories, even the odd painting story to close out this volume, were less memorable to me.

Overall, the two volumes of Dreamsongs should be required reading for anyone who only knows George R. R. Martin as the guy who writes the Ice and Fire novels. The man’s career is much deeper and broader than that. So many of his stories are worth the time to read and there is no better chance than the Dreamsongs collections as his previous short story collections are difficult to find and this is a career retrospective containing his best and more representational work. It’s damn good.

With that said, I think Volume I is a stronger set than Volume II. There is more fiction, and the stories stand out more in Volume I than in Volume II. I enjoyed Volume II, but I am more likely to pick up Volume I to re-read and if I had to give a recommendation for only one, it would be the first. But find them both, if possible. It’s quality reading. Good Mr. Martin is quite a damn fine writer.

Whenever GRRM finishes Ice and Fire, I would love to see what he writes next. Whatever it is, it’ll be something none of us expect. Science Fiction, Horror, Fantasy...most likely it’ll be a blend of all three. And more.


Thoughts on Dreamsongs: Volume I

Dreamsongs: Volume 1 - Final Thoughts

I have written about the first two thirds of Dreamsongs: Volume 1 with the posts linked in this sentence, then things got busy and even though I continued to read the collection I did not have the opportunity to write about it.

By this time the story of “The Stone City” has pretty well escaped my memory, so I don’t believe it could be something I would recommend. “Bitterblooms” was an odd ice story on some far away planet which ends up mixing a little bit of Arthurian legend into it. Martin was not very successful in engaging my interest with “Bitterblooms”, but one thing I have come to appreciate reading these 700 pages is that his imagination is second to none. Martin is able to create these alien worlds and cultures, and human cultures set in the stars, and make them believable, comprehensible, but utterly alien to what we know. Tis a gift. This leads into “The Way of Cross and Dragon”, an imaginative wondering of what our Earth religions would be like if stretched out thousands of years and to the stars. “The Way of Cross and Dragon” is about heresy, lies, truth, expectation, dogma, and features one of three “true” Catholic churches attempting to stamp out a heresy. Fascinating story.

Section Four: Swords of Turtle Castle. Here Martin brings us back into fantasy settings, though on a smaller scale than his epic A Song of Ice and Fire. Strangely, and sadly, perhaps, this was a somewhat underwhelming section. Martin does large scale fantasy extremely well, and “The Ice Dragon” was a solid and sad story which featured a dragon actually made of ice, breathing ice, harmed by heat (video games following this story thank you, Mr. Martin), but neither “The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr” nor “In the Lost Lands” really stood out. Like “The Stone City”, I really could not say what “In the Lost Lands” was about.

Section Five: Hybrids and Horrors. This is where Martin truly shines, with the blend of fantasy and horror, or science fiction and horror. Pretty much whenever Martin is blending genres to tell the best story possible, that’s when he’s really hitting something special. We open with “Meathouse Man”, a story which in the intro Martin mentions that he had a difficult time placing. No surprise. It’s a tough story to take, but it’s a damn good one, too. One of the best in the collection (if not for “Sandkings”, I might call it the single best story here). Definitely not a family friendly story. The story features sex, depravity, and a bleak future where animated corpses are used for work and pleasure. “Remembering Melody” is yet another heartbreaker of a story (is there another kind in this collection?), something of a ghost story, and while not quite as good as the other stories in this section, it will stand up against the earlier work in the collection.

“Sandkings.” Forget the two hour episode from The Outer Limits. It got the gist of the story, but not the heart. The story is set on some far away planet (aren’t they all?), I think, but that doesn’t matter. What matter is we have a rich, eccentric man who likes exotic pets. At a store he had never seen before (isn’t it always?) the man is offered these insect like, but highly intelligent (they War on each other!) creatures called Sandkings. They build castles and can come to worship the owner like a god, engraving his or her face on their castles while they war. Because the man doesn’t just let the sandkings do their own thing in a smaller container, soon they grow and things get out of hand. This is a wonderful, amazing story that easily has to rank among Martin’s best (or anybody else’s for that matter). Martin’s descriptions of how everything spirals out control is a pure pleasure to read, as is the description of the sandkings and how they change over the course of the story. About that 2 hour episode – I watched it after I read “Sandkings” and I was very disappointed. Seemed like too much was added as fluff / chaff to the story. I know the screenplay was written by Melinda Snodgrass and she has collaborated with Martin in the Wild Cards shared universe (and still does), so I can’t imagine he was mad about the result, but the story is so far superior to not even be funny.

“Nightflyers” is another award winner set almost entirely on a starship. The passengers can’t see the pilot, he spies on them, and there is a good deal of tension and intrigue, but no matter how lauded the story has been I thought this was one of the weaker (in terms of what I enjoy) of the set. Maybe it is the fact that “Nightflyers” came immediately after “Sandkings” and in comparison did not hold up.

“The Monkey Treatment” and “The Pear-Shaped Man” are two stories which feel like Stephen King stories. “The Monkey Treatment” has shades of “Quitters, Inc”, only rather than smoking cessation Martin deals with weight loss. Creepy story, especially when you really think about what it entails. The desperation of the protagonist really comes across. “The Pear-Shaped Man” deals with that creepy guy who lives nearby. He is shaped like a pear, eats too many cheetos, and has a certain odor about him. What if he scares you, but nobody else understands and you can’t explain? What if there might actually be something to be scared about?

Dreamsongs: Volume 1 is an outstanding collection of short fiction and one that should be on the shelf of any fan of the fiction of George R. R. Martin. It shows the man’s range and his early work and even the earliest stuff is pretty good. And then there is “Sandkings.”

Volume 2 will pick up with Section Six, as Dreamsongs was originally published in 2003 by Subterranean Press as the one volume GRRM: A RRetrospective.

Dreamsongs: "The Second Kind of Loneliness", "With Morning Comes Mistfall"

"The Second Kind of Loneliness" and "With Morning Comes Mistfall" are the final two stories in the Second Section of Dreamsongs: Volume 1.

"The Second Kind of Loneliness" is written as a series of diary entries by a man who has chosen to spend 4 years guarding a wormhole beyond Pluto. Alone. There is a madness and a sadness to this story and it ends far sadder than I expected.

"With Morning Comes Mistfall" tells the story of a planet shrouded in mystery, where most of the planet is covered in mists and there are rumors and tourism based on the chance that there are wraiths in the mist, wraiths that have killed. But scientists have come to Wraithworld to either prove or disprove the wraiths. The proprietor of the hotel on Wraithworld fears either answer. This is another story with an air of sadness because things will end. "With Morning Comes Mistfall" is a much stronger story than "The Second Kind of Loneliness" and haunting.

What I am finding with this Dreamsongs collection is that George R. R. Martin truly is a master of storytelling and these, his earlier works, are strong enough on their own and knowing that better stories are to come is quite impressive.

Dreamsongs: "The Exit to San Breda"

George Martin takes the ghost story and brings it into twentieth century America. Europe has ghosts haunting castles, but America doesn't have castles. It has highways. Ghosts in a car is the logical step for hauntings, at least according to Martin.

This is "The Exit to San Breda". Reading it I forgot, at first, that this was to be his ghost story, but I was moved to try to figure out just what was happening and who the ghosts was as a man drives the remants of the American interstate system. America, you see, has gone to personal "copters" and jetpacks and it is only the enthusiasts who still drive cars on the roads which are in various states of disrepair.

This is the second of Martin's "Filthy Pro" stories and while it is not reflective of his later greatness, "The Exit to San Breda" is a solid professional quality story that holds up decades after it was first written.

Dreamsongs: "The Hero"

George Martin opens his "Filthy Pro" section with the story "The Hero". For the first time in this collection we are introduced to Martin's visions of alien landscapes and science fiction ideas.

What I find especially interesting here is that the story of bleak betrayal of a soldier trying to retire and return home to Earth is that the underlying darkness of "The Hero" is apparent in the earlier stories in the collection and very likely (almost positive) that the subsequent stories will have that touch of darkness.

So far in the collection Martin's stories are reasonably simple and straightforward with a bit of a twist at the end. Martin is best known for his A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series which is noted for its complexity and I imagine that when we get to his award winners we will see deeper complexity.

Dreamsongs Volume I: "Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark"

The first story in George Martin’s Dreamsongs collection (Volume 1) is one of his amateur stories “Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark” and is a Dr. Weird story, kind of a text pulp comic book story. It’s a bit over the top and obvious, but that’s exactly what it is supposed to be. The big surprise is that the story is still entertaining and quite dark. It features a demon breaking out of its own realm to enslave humanity and utterly destroy the souls of humans and the world’s great hero, Dr. Weird, who will fight evil in all its guises. It’s better than I expected from a very early story like this.