I must confess that I was not aware of George R.R. Martin until the first book of his Song of Ice and Fire series, A Game of Thrones, came out. While this isn't necessarily the most ground-breaking of confessions (nothing like the time I confessed to having dressed up as our esteemed Editor in Chief for Halloween -- that certainly lead to an awkward-yet-amusing Geek Speak holiday office party!) as I'm guessing that is also the case for most of you readers (at least those who are even aware of Martin now), it is the case that Martin has been around and writing for quite some time now. Still, considering how I knew him only for the one series, and taking into account the massive amounts of time between books (which seem to be getting longer and longer... alas), one could imagine the excitement I felt upon first seeing these books in hardback. Then imagine my surprise (which shouldn't actually be hard to imagine, considering how shocked I am about... well... everything. Darth Vader is Luke's father?! NBC is making another superhero show?! Snow is cold?!!) when starting to read and discovering the true nature of Dreamsongs.

Dreamsongs (how often would I ever have the chance to use the word "Dreamsongs" twice in a row? That's Geek Speak for you... always providing new experiences and opportunities!) is, in fact, an anthology of some of Martin's short stories, mostly from his early years as a writer (which is handy, actually, 'cause otherwise it wouldn't really fit the topic for this month, now would it?). And there are enough stories to take up two full volumes (and even those don't include all of his works).

Included are, however, many of Martin's better known (for those who pay more attention to short stories and novellas outside of anthologies such as this, at least) and award-winning stories such as the Hugo Award-winning stories "A Song for Lya", and "The Way of Cross and Dragon", the Nebula Award-winning "Portraits of His Children", and the story that Martin himself claims to be his best known outside of the Song of Ice and Fire series, "Sandkings", which, much to his surprise, won both the Hugo and Nebula. There are, in fact, 34 stories across these two volumes, including 2 TV scripts, many of which are novella length, so it is quite the amount of Martin's work to peruse and enjoy, covering sci-fi, fantasy, horror and everything in between.

Now, you may wonder how exactly I know that the author was surprised by the success of "Sandkings", and much as I would like to claim it is due to my amazing powers of insight and intuition (I'd like to think that I was the model for the main character of TV's The Mentalist, despite there being absolutely nothing in common between me and him, up to and including his mental abilities), it is actually due to Martin stating as such within the pages of Dreamsongs. Many anthologies include a little commentary by the authors about each story, but Martin goes one step further by actively discussing his life situation that led to each story being written. The anthology is divided into nine different sections, and each has a somewhat lengthy mini-biography preceding the stories within. It not only provides some insight into what was the origin of each story, but also insight into what led Martin to write on the topics and genres he chose.

These biographical sections are quite interesting, but have a negative aspect to them, in that in many cases, there isn't that much discussion about each story. And usually more about what led to a story being written and not as much about the story itself. Plus, when there are five stories in a section, by the time you get to the fifth story, you don't really remember the mentions of that in the preceding bio, so there could end up being a lot of flipping back and forth if you want to try to get "the rest of the story" (if I'm allowed to say that without getting sued by Paul Harvey).

But the question at the heart of any review of an anthology is: are the stories any good? In this case: yes. Yes, they are. One might expect that, considering the number of them that have won (or been nominated for) awards, sure, but they all provide interesting reads -- though, of course, some are better than others). Do I recommend the anthology? Yes. I even think it would be worth reading for anyone who has never heard of George R.R. Martin (or his Song of Ice and Fire series... which you should all read). And heck, might as well jump on the Martin bandwagon now, as soon everyone will know who he is once the epic-looking TV series of A Game of Thrones comes out on HBO. Think of how cool you'll be at parties by being so well-versed in Martin's work once that comes out!

  -- K. Burtt