Beyond Westeros: Exploring the other works of George R.R. Martin

Although he’s easily best known for A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin HAS written other things. Let’s look at some.

Back when I used to work at the local Barnes & Noble, I’d often talk to people who read and loved A Song of Ice and Fire…and had no idea what books to dig into afterward. They loved the political intrigue, the fantastical world and deeply relatable characters, the twists that left your head spinning. But what stories, they would ask, could possibly follow up George R.R. Martin’s masterpieces?

Gather ‘round, fair readers, and I’ll tell you a secret…

George R.R. Martin has other books. Yes, you read that right! Other stories for you to fall in love with, made by the same masterful hand that crafted A Song of Ice and Fire.

While you won’t find warring medieval houses or dragons in any most of these other works, many of the thematic elements and ideas which made ASOIAF so popular are present. Dark, morally complex characters and situations? Check. Worldbuilding so rich that you might want to invest in a tourist’s guide before visiting? You betchya. Plot twists that will catch you totally flat-footed and leave you aimlessly wandering the grocery store in a numb haze of disbelief?

Well, that last one is a bit of a personal example…but these stories can bring it on! Trust me.

So strap in and prepare for a ride through the library of one of the greatest literary minds of our time.

1. Dying of the Light (1977)

Welcome to Worlorn, a planet abandoned by its people because its unique orbital trajectory is slowly shooting it away from the star it was orbiting, out into the cold expanse of uninhabitable space. Once, races from all across the universe came to Worlorn, building cities and essentially turning it into a festival planet. Everyone knew that Worlorn would one day drift away from its sun and die…and that just meant that it was a great excuse to turn the planet into the perfect tourist destination.

The story begins as Worlorn is reaching its final stretch of habitability, and a man named Dirk t’Larien is called to this dying world by an old flame. But when Dirk gets to Worlorn, he discovers that the woman he once loved has married into an alien culture with equally alien relationship customs, reminiscent of something out of Ursula K. Le Guin’s Left Hand of Darkness. And she’s not exactly happy to see him. The clashing of cultures and personal narrative form the core of this fast-paced sci-fi thriller.

Much like Westeros, the planet of Worlorn is a character unto itself. In fact, parts of Worlorn resemble parts of Westeros. Take Darkdawn City, a grouping of buildings chiseled into shapes that make them “sing” when the wind hits them a certain way. In ASOIAF, there are two places like this: the Singing Towers of Nightsong in the Stormlands and the Singing Stones in the Summer Isles, which are described on page 280 of The World of Ice and Fire.

If the dark, grim parts of Game of Thrones were your bag, then this book is for you. Every single character falls somewhere on the spectrum of grayness—most do good and awful things throughout the story, and it’s hard to know at any given moment who to root for. It’s a bleak rumination on how we each meet the long darkness that awaits at the end of life. As the 1947 Dylan Thomas poem for which this novel was named goes:

“Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, Rage against the dying of the light.”

2. Windhaven (1981)

This one is a fix-up novel (aka, some parts of the novel were originally published as separate novellas) that George R.R. Martin co-wrote with Lisa Tuttle…and it is fantastic. On the world of Windhaven, humans live on islands scattered across the ocean planet’s surface. Though they are descended from crash-landed spacefarers, the people of Windhaven have reverted to an almost feudal way of life, the details of which are dictated almost entirely by the needs of whichever island they live on.

The one exception to this are the flyers, who have mechanical wingsuits they can use to carry messages from one island to another. They are the rockstars of Windhaven…but since the law that says that wings can only be passed down through the males of a family, they are also its social elite.

The novel centers around a young girl named Maris who dreams of being a flyer. She was born into a flyer family, but since she’s a girl, she cannot inherit. In a cruel twist of fate, her brother has no desire to carry on the family heritage, instead harboring his own dreams of being a bard. So begins Maris’ quest to challenge tradition and become a flyer in her own right.

In true GRRM fashion, whether or not Maris is successful is soon overshadowed by the vast and unforeseeable societal implications of her efforts. At its core, Windhaven is a novel about a planetary culture undergoing a dramatic shift.

Like Dying of the Light, you can find some early worldbuilding in this book that later made its way into A Song of Ice and Fire. The flyers have their own special island nestled out amidst the waves—a mountain with caverns so high that they are only reachable by wingsuit. Its name?

The Eyrie.

3. Fevre Dream (1982)

If vampires are more your bag, then look no further than this. Set in steamboat-era Mississippi, Fevre Dream is GRRM’s take on creatures of the night. It follows the journey of a gruff, down-on-his-luck steamboat captain named Abner Marsh who receives an offer that is too good to refuse from an aristocrat named Joshua York. York is a strange sort who only comes out at night, has pale skin and mesmerizing eyes and…well, you can figure out the rest.

Though Windhaven is more a personal favorite, Fevre Dream is in my opinion the best novel that George R.R. Martin has written outside of Westeros. It has some absolutely brutal Red Wedding-level twists, and its characters are some of the best developed and most memorable from any of Martin’s works.

For a 300-ish page novel, it also has an incredibly fulfilling arc that feels right at home among longer, more epic stories. The story follows Abner over a span of 15 years, so the passage of time really hits home in an impactful way.

This is also Martin’s deepest foray into horror (in novel form, at least). If you found yourself watching Game of Thrones for the White Walkers, then this book is absolutely worth the read. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that of all GRRM’s novels outside of Westeros, this one should be required reading for any fan. It really is that good.

4. The Armageddon Rag (1983)

Here it is: the black sheep of the George R.R. Martin library. The Armageddon Rag is a mystery/fantasy novel set against the American musical landscape of the 1960s through the 1980s. In many ways, it’s a rumination on the hippie revolution of the ’60s, and of its legacy. It follows a disillusioned writer, Sandy Blair, as he is drawn into a murder investigation that leads down an eerie rabbit hole, with a supernatural twist. Oh, and it features a rock band called “The Nazgûl”. What’s not to like, right?

It’s unfortunate then that this book is perhaps more famous for its impact on Martin’s career than it is for the story itself. Despite its huge anticipation, The Armageddon Rag never sold or received the critical acclaim that was expected of it. After the book’s flop, GRRM went to work in television, where he stayed up until he wrote 1996’s A Game of Thrones. He’s referred to The Armageddon Rag as the book which “almost destroyed my career.”

The other thing this book was notorious for was the ample amount of legal rights that needed to be attained for all the songs it quoted. Each chapter starts with a relevant thematic quote from an actual song. That meant that for each song, the publisher had to get in touch with the appropriate record label and get the rights to reprint that lyric. No small task.

All that said, The Armageddon Rag is an interesting book, and one that stands on its own among Martin’s catalog. It’s his only novel set in modern times, with commentary that’s very directly about the real world. That alone makes it worth checking out.

5. Tuf Voyaging (1986)

Haviland Tuf is the vegetarian space faring fix-it man of the “Thousand Worlds” universe, the universe in which many of Martin’s sci-fi stories take place. He’s a cat person who lives alone on a warship that is also capable of environmental engineering, and often finds himself hired to solve issues that only his unique ship (and no-nonsense attitude) can handle. Sound eccentric enough?

Tuf Voyaging is a collection of short stories, all featuring one of GRRM’s most memorable protagonists. Haviland Tuf was a very intentional attempt by GRRM to make an unforgettable hero, and he definitely succeeded. Tuf is unlike any other sci-fi protagonist out there.

The stories were originally published from 1976-1985 (mainly in Analog magazine) before being gathered into this neat omnibus detailing Tuf’s adventures. It’s similar in format to the first Witcher book, The Last Wish, with separate stories being connected by bridging material to make it work as a novel.

The worlds, cultures, and creatures introduced in these stories give the book an episodic feel that is reminiscent of shows like Firefly. It’s quirky and fun with plenty of laughs to go around. And its exotic locales and people call to mind Essos from ASOIAF. It’s lighter than some of Martin’s other works, with strong environmentalist themes throughout.

6. Hunter’s Run (2007)

This one is kind of unique among the bunch. While much of the early writing for it was done by George R.R. Martin and his long-time conspirator Gardner Dozois, the lion’s share of the prose was penned by Daniel Abraham, one of the writers of The Expanse novels. It’s a sci-fi story set on a frontier planet named São Paolo, where human settlers are trying to carve out a niche amidst a vast and uncharted wilderness.

Onto this planet lands Ramón Espejo, a fortune seeker of questionable moral fiber. After accidentally killing another settler in a bar fight on his first night planetside, Ramón goes into hiding in the wilds. Not all goes according to plan, however, as Ramón soon stumbles on a hidden alien installation far to the north of his colony and runs afoul of the beings inside.

If I told you anything else, we’d be in serious spoiler territory. Hunter’s Run, perhaps more than any other novel in Martin’s catalog, is better the less you know going into it. It is a twisty, mind-blowing thriller, exciting and darkly contemplative by turns.

It also has a deep examination of the human condition that is right at home among the best of science fiction. How do our flaws rule our actions? Can those flaws ever be overcome? And what does it truly take for a person to change?

No matter what those questions brought to mind, I can almost guarantee it isn’t what happens in Hunter’s Run. The big twist of this book is one of Martin’s best, period.

7. Wild Cards

Aside from ASOIAF, Wild Cards is the other big intellectual property in Martin’s back pocket. The Wild Cards books are “mosaic novels” comprised of connected novellas written by different authors, which George R.R. Martin edits. Though the origin for the Wild Cards universe lies with GRRM, these books are very much in the vein of comic book writing collaborations, with each writer contributing their own characters and plot ideas to the overall series.

After World War II, a space virus crashes to the planet’s surface and spreads across the globe, infecting a huge chunk of the populace and killing 90% of the people exposed to it. Of those who are left, 1% gain incredible super powers and become known as Aces. The other 9% suffer horrible physical mutations, and become known as Jokers. Think X-Men meets Watchmen and you’ll have a decent idea of what Wild Cards is about.

If you’re looking for a series with a ton of material to sink your teeth into, Wild Cards might be just the thing. In addition to the 27 mosaic novels and anthologies, Tor.com regularly publishes Wild Cards shorts online. These books are still coming out pretty regularly at this point, and Tor has been doing a good job of re-releasing the older, harder-to-find volumes to make it easier for new readers to get into the series.

In a last bit of news, Hulu recently started work on a TV adaptation of Wild Cards — one of their horses in the race to have the next Game of Thrones. Expect to hear a lot more about this series in the years to come.

8. Short Stories and Novellas

As many novels as George R.R. Martin has written, he is far more prolific when it comes to shorter fiction. Short stories and novellas are what started his career, and what won him his first awards in the Science Fiction and Fantasy community. By the time Dying of the Light came out in 1977, he’d already published upwards of 10 shorter works. It almost feels like a crime not to write a whole other article just about his short stories. There really are that many of them.

There are a ton of notable works here to consider. Nightflyers, a sci-fi horror adapted for the big screen in 1987 and for the small one on SyFy in 2018; A Song for Lya, a haunting story about two lovers/telepaths named Robb and Lyanna (yes, Martin likes to reuse names) who try to understand an alien species’ religion, with beautifully tragic results; The Skin Trade, Martin’s take on werewolves; Meathouse Man, the darkest, most messed up story in GRRM’s entire catalog (remote controlled zombies doing all sorts of awful stuff. That’s all I can say without making this NSFW); Sandkings, an award-winning story that revolves around a kind of black-market style fighting ring.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, there’s also a children’s book called The Ice Dragon. That story follows a young girl who befriends a dragon that breathes ice instead of fire. It’s recently been re-released as a small hardcover book with a ton of beautiful artwork, so now you can get your kids started on GRRM from an early age.

And of course, there’s always Dunk & Egg. These novellas follow Ser Duncan the Tall of Westeros and his squire. They have everything there is to love about A Song of Ice and Fire, but condensed down into 100-150 page shorts. They’ve been collected in the book A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, and can’t be recommended enough for any Game of Thrones fan.

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The list of shorter works goes on and on and on. Many of them, including some of the Haviland Tuf stories, have been combined into anthologies over the years, and in many cases those are the easiest way to find them. A Song for Lya and Sandkings both have an anthology bearing their name that houses other short stories as well. And there’s also Dreamsongs Vol. I & II as well, which are some of the most comprehensive short story collections you can find of Martin’s work.

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