Tuf Voyaging

Originally a collection of shorts published in Analog magazine as a continuing saga, Tuf Voyaging is all the pieces put together into a smooth novel with an extremely unique protagonist. Haviland Tuf and his ship, the 'Cornucopia Of Excellent Goods At Low Prices', has been hired by a group of five people to travel towards what is known as The Plague Star. When upon arriving, they discover it is not a star at all but a long abandoned Seedship, left over from the war a thousand years ago. Their first problem is getting past the ship's automated defenses and boarding, their second problem is the greed that has filled every head except Tuf's. Tuf, of course, winds out in charge of the Seedship, named the Ark. (no details, just read the book! The first chapter details these events, and is most excellent!) the remaining six chapters chronicle Tuf's voyages from planet to planet, using the Ark to solve problems such as overpopulation, sea monsters, cruel animal-fighting pits, and religious plagues. Eccentric and droll would be the best way to describe Haviland Tuf, a very tall and very large bald man. He travels alone, except for his cats, Havoc and Mushroom. The cat family expands, and Tuf is inspired by his human encounters to name the new kittens Suspicion, Doubt, Hostility, Ingratitude, and Foolishness. Tuf is a loner, intelligent, peculiar, a vegetarian with an enormous appetite, and a dry wit. Indeed. The Seedship is a marvelous invention of Martin's, thirty kilometers long and three kilometers high, the pinnacle of the old Earth Ecological Corps inventions. Although the EEC used their Seedships for war, Tuf has only benign uses for it. Inside the Ark are stored millions and millions of cell samples, and all the equipment, including a chronowarp engine, to genetically engineer or clone any species. Travel with Tuf through space, and revisit the planet S'uthlam (three chapters have S'uthlam) where Tully Mune is the acerbic Portmaster who lives her life in zero gravity. Tully's will and determination prove to be a match for Tuf, and the chapters in which they face off with each other are excellent. This is SciFi at it's best, very character oriented with enough strange planets, strange beings, strange traditions, and technology to satisfy the hungriest of SciFi palates. Even more enjoyable if you are a cat lover like myself. Get out and buy this book now! Enjoy!

So you liked A Game of Thrones, didn't you, and thought you'd check out what else George Martin has written since you can't wait for the next installment of A Song of Ice and Fire? Well, you may be surprised to learn that George Martin has been writing terrific, award-winning science-fiction and fantasy for years now. Though "Tuf Voyaging" has an entirely different setting than "A Game of Thrones" and its sequels, I couldn't imagine any fan of the genre being disappointed. So if you can track down a copy of this...gem, grab it.In the first of the stories in the volume, which takes place thousands of years into the future, Haviland Tuf is an interstellar merchant who joins a group of adventurers on a perilous mission to recover the Ark, a millenia-old "seed-ship" engineered through lost Old-Earth technology to enable its owner to clone a vast array of plant and animal species and deploy them to either revitalize or destroy entire planets and ecosystems.In the stories that follow, the reader joins Tuf on a series of picaresque adventures through the galaxy as he encounters duplicitous rogues, jaded politicians, false messiahs and others, many of whom attempt to seize the Ark from Tuf and bend it toward their own malign purposes. To them all, at first, Tuf appears to be easy prey: he is an obese, eccentric, albeit startlingly intelligent recluse, and is the sole occupant of the Ark, save for a litter of cats. However, Tuf, with his cunning, foresight and acumen in drawing upon the powerful resources of the Ark, is not to be underestimated. Tuf, in his benign, but sometimes coldly analytical way, cures blights, stems alien invasions and transforms worlds. As the stories unfold, he and the reader are forced to consider many of the most pressing social, environmental and moral issues faced by any society and attempt to work out a solution. The stories here are delightful. Martin is truly a gifted writer and the prose sings from the pages. You will be delighted by the clever turns of the plot and of Tuf's many, often scathing, quips. Perhaps you'll wonder, like me, if in Tuf, an introverted creative genius, we are not catching a glimpse of George Martin himself.

I've read literally thousands of science fiction novels in the last 35 years (all the masters back to the very beginning), and Tuf Voyaging rates as one of the top five science fiction novels of all time. When it comes to a plot and ideas that that stick with you, it rates number one. I've waited in vain for a sequel or a film or a television dramatization. Tuf Voyaging tells the story of a highly moral man gifted with virtually absolute power. I read it every few years and continue to flip flop about the rightness and wrongness of his final acts. Was Tuf corrupted, or was he indeed uncorruptible? In the end, was he a man, or was he a god? It's that good. It doesn't let you go. The book touches on issues humanity faces everyday, issues that are becoming increasingly more urgent: populations outstripping food sources, species extinctions, short term political thinking, cruelty, abuses of power, etc. I keep two, very much read and battered copies of the book, one for myself and one to lend to others. This is the book that sent me in search of everything else George R. R. Martin has ever written. While his writing is always excellent, Tuf Voyaging is his greatest masterpiece. The book creates a variety of emotions in the reader, amusement (it has wonderfully humorous sections), anticipation, dread, exhilaration, and uncertainty. Once again, it's unforgettable and has been responsible for single handedly hooking several young people I know on science fiction. If you haven't read it, track it down and do so. If you have read it, read it again and see if your opinions have changed. If you have any influence on the author, demand the character return in another book!

I'm shaking my head wishing I had taken better care of my Tuf Voyaging. This is science fiction the way I like it: an interesting character, unusual situations, clever writing. No techno-babble, no first of a 4-part "saga" or "cycle" or whatever, no pseudoscientific straining to make us believe the science. Good storytelling, episodic self-contained tales, a fun read. Only Zelazny's Lord of Light comes to my mind as a book I'd reread in parts again and again. Or would reread if I still had my copy.

I first came across these stories when reading "The Plague Star" in an issue of my father's Analog magazine. Ever since, I've avidly consumed everything I could find by Martin. This collection of stories is such a pleasure to read, I can't do it justice here. If they book has any weakness, it is that the stories were written over a fairly large span of time (ten years, or more - I can't remember). Because of this, the quality of the written varies, growing better as Martin developed his skills.The stories work on so many levels, and Tuf is such a singular character, the stories remain in my mind almost daily even ten years after I've read them. The fact that these stories live in the 'ghetto' of science fiction shouldn't scare away those who don't typically read it. Martin's grasp of humor, horror and the human condition is unmatched. I've often compared him to Mark Twain, in that his writing is so simple and universally appealing, yet contains so much more moving beneath the surface.It's a wonder to me that with Martin's forays into screenwriting that he's never decided to pitch "Plague Star". It works almost perfectly as a feature film, with just the right length, rhythm and imagery. Perhaps the one thing holding him back is the lack of the standard 'human' element in all these stories - Tuf is profoundly asexual, and indeed, seems to have almost no typical heartwarming hooks that Hollywood demands be in virtually every film it rolls out. There are no love interests, no (traditional) paternal emotions. There's no boy meets girl here, just boy meets destiny. Yet I think that it could appeal to a wide variety of viewers nonetheless. The book after "Plague Star" has a fairly strong 'population control' message that might not appeal to the religious right, but I have a feeling the message would go right over their heads - history has shown us that people aren't to quick to pick up these subtleties.Accessible and rewarding. If you can find this gem, don't let it slip through your grasp.