George R.R. Martin is a lifelong writer, though his most famous work, A Song of Ice and Fire, did not begin publication until he was 48 years old. Martin sold his first short story at the age of 21, and for many years he earned a living writing fiction and TV scripts. That means he had over a quarter century of professional work before he took his readers to Westeros and introduced us to A Game of Thrones. The author intends for A Song of Ice and Fire to be his magnum opus — and it may be when it's finished, but in the meantime some of his earlier work still stands out as his best.
Martin has a unique place in history among writers, having lived through monumental shifts in the publishing industry and in technology. The author is among the last generation who were able to earn a meaningful income from short stories published in magazines and anthologies. These days, Martin may be known for door-stopper novels with hundreds of pages dedicated to food descriptions alone, but for years he honed his craft with novellas that could be read in one sitting. Short form writing can be even harder than thousand-page epics, and in many ways these shorter works highlight Martin's strengths better than his novels.
Martin published six novels outside of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, but at the time of this writing only three of them have been adapted into audiobooks. The others are widely available in paperback and digital formats, but for those interested in the author's earlier work — and in Martin himself — the best resource is a collection called Dreamsongs. The book includes a curated sampling of stories and novellas from throughout Martin's career, along with brief memoir interludes from the author between sections. It's available as a single volume for audiobook listeners or in two volumes in print or digital formats. Below are five stand-out stories by Martin, all of which are included in Dreamsongs and none of which are set in Westeros.
The Stone City
"The Stone City" is a novelette first published in 1977 in the anthology New Voices in Science Fiction. It takes place in the same setting as many of Martin's science fiction stories, which he refers to as "The Thousand Worlds." This is a future setting Martin concocted with its own unique history, where humanity has spread to many planets and met with other intelligent life forms throughout the universe. This particular story stands out among them as it centers around a small group of humans trapped on a planet controlled by alien species, with no hint of what the rest of humanity is up to in the wider world.
While its characters are in the dark and at the mercy of the Dan'lai, "The Stone City" provides some of the best context about The Thousand Worlds for readers. We're told that humans are among the most populous species in the galaxy, but there are still vast swaths of space they haven't explored. Michael Holt and Jeff Sunderland were on an exploratory mission towards the galactic core when their ship was stolen on Grayrest, an ancient world where many species stop to refuel. They struggle to live as refugees alongside incomprehensible alien beings of all kinds, and they are drawn to an abandoned structure called the Stone City, where they begin to see visions.
The story highlights one of the most fun and unique things about The Thousand Worlds — Martin's bold attempts to write about all kinds of alien species. While his sci-fi setting often reminds readers of other authors' work like Dune or Foundation, its endless array of lifeforms sets it apart. The story also increases the scale of The Thousands Worlds. This novelette takes place late in the fictional timeline after humanity has spread to countless planets and met some of the most powerful species in the galaxy — both in war and trade — yet there's still so much we haven't seen. Even the cataclysmic war known to humans as the Interregnum is just an inconsequential rumor from the perspective of Grayrest.
Under Siege
"Under Siege" is a sci-fi story that's not set in The Thousand Worlds. It's a fun read in its own right, but it's also a perfect study of Martin's storytelling style, and it may even have important implications for A Song of Ice and Fire. For those that read Dreamsongs, you'll encounter two versions of this story — first is "The Fortress" which is a straightforward historical fiction. In the accompanying memoir section, Martin explains that he wrote it in college for a history class. It concerns the Siege of Sveaborg in 1808 during the Finnish War. Years later, Martin reworked the story with a sci-fi twist, resulting in the novelette "Under Siege," published in 1985.
Both stories are about one man in Sveaborg who somehow has the insight to see that Sweden didn't need to surrender this fight, and he tries to persuade his superiors to hold fast. However, in "Under Siege" this insightful man is actually a time-traveler from a post-apocalyptic future. This future technology allows people with certain mutations to cast their consciousness back in time and inhabit another person's body. The U.S. Military identifies a few points in history where an alteration to the past could avert nuclear war, and Sveaborg is one of them. The main character struggles to alter the timeline, all the while resenting how much this work is costing him in quality of life.
The notions of consciousness-only time travel and of seizing control of another person's body could both be relevant to the story of Bran Stark in A Song of Ice and Fire. The theme of resenting the world for missing out on a normal life also seems to unite these two characters. Many fans have cited "Under Siege" as evidence for their theories about Bran's stories in the upcoming books, so it's worth a read from that perspective if nothing else.
A Song for Lya
Speaking of psychic powers, Martin's 1974 novella A Song for Lya is an essential part of the author's work. It won the Hugo Award for Best Novella in the year it was published, and was nominated for several others. Set in The Thousand Worlds, the story follows a couple named Robb and Lyanna — "Lya" for short — who are both telepaths. They are dispatched to a planet called Shkea to investigate odd interactions between humans and the native alien population, called the Shkeen. Although they are intelligent, the Shkeen have never progressed past Stone Age-level technology, devoting their entire lives to a religion based around a massive parasitic being on the planet called the Greeshka. All adult Shkeen eventually volunteer to be infected by the Greeshka, and subsequently consumed by it.
Robb and Lya are sent to the planet to determine how the Greeshka is luring people to itself, and why so many humans are now doing so. Along the way, they grapple with the limits on their telepathic powers, as well as the vulnerabilities it imposes on them. It's a tragic story, which Martin claimed was inspired by the first serious romance of his own life. It has been collected many times, and its use of character names later seen in A Song of Ice and Fire has drawn a lot of attention from fans.
Nightflyers
One of Martin's only other stories adapted to the screen so far, Nightflyers was first published in 1980. The novella is set in The Thousand Worlds, and follows a group of scholars on a research trip to see if they can detect signs of an advanced, elusive alien species called the volcryn. To get themselves and their equipment into deep space, they hire a modified trading ship called the Nightflyer captained by Royd Eris, who never shows himself to his passengers. Royd claims he is disfigured and immunocompromised due to a life spent entirely in zero-gravity, but it quickly becomes clear that there's more going on here.
Sharing more about the plot would risk spoilers, but Nightflyers is essential reading for fans of Martin. It has some of the most unique sci-fi concepts the author has ever utilized, all woven neatly into a story with real pathos. It also has more tantalizing worldbuilding for The Thousand Worlds, with glimpses of what life is like among human population centers as well as the inconceivable wonders that lie out in unexplored space.
Nightflyers was adapted into a horror movie in 1987, though Martin was unhappy with the way it turned out and the changes that needed to be made. It was adapted again in 2018 into a TV series for SyFy, which lasted one season. The series got mixed reviews, with a limited budget and changes to the source material once again impacting its reception. The show did include most of the plot from the novella, but it added new material as well, and ended on a cliffhanger with the expectation of a second season.
Guardians
Finally, Game of Thrones fans who want a taste of Martin's earlier work can't do much better than "Guardians," a 1981 short story about Martin's repeat protagonist Haviland Tuf. This was Martin's third story about Tuf — a mysterious but generally kind and gentle protagonist who has somehow become the owner and sole operator of a powerful "seedship" called the Ark. The massive ship is equipped for advanced ecological engineering, and Tuf travels the galaxy using its powers to help communities live in harmony with their environments — even if they don't always like his solutions at first.
"Guardians" finds Tuf on the planet Namor, where the human population is suddenly under attack by giant sea monsters they've never seen before. The Namorians are impatient for Tuf to use the awesome power of the Ark to help them, but Tuf takes time to study the situation at length before intervening. We get to spend a lot of time with Tuf and his psychic cat Dax, getting to know our protagonist. He's a fun twist on the static, white-hat cowboy archetype — drifting into town to help the locals in ways they couldn't imagine, then drifting off to the next adventure.
This is one of two Haviland Tuf stories in Dreamsongs, the other being A Beast for Norn. Both stories are also included in Tuf Voyaging, a "fix-up novel" made up of six previously published short stories about Tuf, all set in The Thousand Worlds. Sadly, Tuf Voyaging is not available as an audiobook at the time of this writing, but it is widely available in print and digital formats. There is also a graphic novel adaptation of another Tuf story, The Plague Star, which, despite being published later than some of others, takes place first chronologically. Featuring artwork from Martin's longtime art director and collaborator Raya Golden, that edition is simply titled Voyaging.
Dreamsongs is available now in paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats, with hardcover editions fetching a hefty price. Many of Martin's stories are worth checking out after Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire.
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