A book review written by: Lee Sonogan

(1980) Science fiction, horror, fantasy

“I accept what I am, but I did not choose it. I experience human life in the only way I can, vicariously. I am a voracious consumer of books, tapes, holoplays, fictions and drama and histories of all sorts. I have experimented with dreamdust.” – George R.R. Martin, Nightflyers

Visiting my local bookshop that moved this year I was not expecting to find this. Interested in pre George R. R. Martin stories, I had to purchase this book with a novella and short stories. Once the first story was read, I was even more happy with my purchase. Nightflyers and Other Stories is full of sci-fi, thriller, action and horror elements that keep you reading.

Nightflyers is the first story and it is a novella (a short book) that was originally 23,000 words and in this collection, Martin has extended it to over 30,000 words. And was the best story out of the whole collection in this book. If I had to recommend one story from this book it would be Nightflyers. I was expecting more sci-fi than horror, but I got some compelling horror that I have not seen before and somewhat reminded me of Stephen King’s writing style.

All stories that are in this book:

• Nightflyers (Recommended)
• Override (Recommended)
• Weekend in a War Zone
• And Seven Times Never Kill Man
• Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring (Recommended)
• A Song for Lya (Recommended)
  

Never reading a George R. R. Martin book before I can clearly see some Game of Thrones Influence in it. This collection of rather short stories all have interesting premises but in the stories, mid-way through it the execution became slightly less interesting and I struggled to keep going until I was reading Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring. I would recommend reading this if you are interested in early George R. R. Martin content, do not watch the Nightflyers television series instead because I have heard it is way worse than how it was in the book. Sometimes the book is more impressive than the video adaptation and vice versa.

7.45/10

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