A Song For Lyra by George RR Martin (book review)
Back in the early 1970s, George RR Martin had short stories in a variety of American SF magazines at the time. There are ten of them here in this book, ‘A Song For Lyra’.
I wasn’t impressed by some of the early ones here. However, ‘The Hero’ hit the mark. Kagan, an off-world soldier, had done his military duty and wanted to retire to Earth, a planet he had never been to. His commanding officer tries to persuade him otherwise and even reenlist or train new soldiers. The solution is spoiler and telling.
Don’t ever think all short stories have to be the full 40 page length. Most aren’t. ‘fta’ runs only at 3 pages but doesn’t need to go further with the snap ending where it makes a point which is going to be spoiler about hyperspace and a different expectation.
Contrary, ‘Run To Sunlight’ is 26 pages long after a war with the Brish’diri and 7 years peace, these squat aliens want to submit a team in a junior football game off-world. I should point out this is American football so Martin must be presuming that it will exist in the future. Although the human organisers can get out of it by saying that the admission date had already passed, they were convinced to change their minds and open up for a dozen teams to a lot more by the Federal E.T. Relations Board. Although I have little interest in sport or how it is dealt with here, the undertone of racism there and the Brish’diri home-world illustrates how a game can conceal what is really going on.
An interesting contrast is ‘The Exit To San Breta’, where a driver of an old car thinks he’s crashed into an older car and later discovers it to be a ghost car. It works without explanation, but any ghost story can work given enough detail.
How those who think romance/gay-SF is new, the book title name and novelette last story, ‘A Song For Lyra’ shows it isn’t. Told in the first person, two Talents are sent to Shhkeen to find out why humans are joining this species as they end their lives in their 40s. Lyanna or Lyra is telepathic while Robb is empathic. Oddly, Martin doesn’t describe their powers as such but does explore the protocols of how they use their powers. I think they probably drink too much wine but the exploration of this society is driven by the human administrator. This story won a Hugo and the depth will pull strings in a sensitive ways without parading its nature.
Something that should be apparent from this book is anthologies rarely have stories that will please everyone. Back in the day, it was still a learning curve for arranging stories so the opening stories would please the most people as the taster to keep going. Here, the opening stories were a struggle until the middle and then they suddenly got extremely good. If I’ve convinced you to try out anthologies, whether by single authors or a group, and you come across this situation, persist with reading. I don’t cover all the anthologies I read here and tend to side-step when I don’t think there are good enough stories to attract your interest but that’s my job.
These days, George RR Martin is known more as the originator of ‘Game Of Thrones’ than his SF output where he started and his novels were very prolific. Back in the early 1970s he was only just starting out so you can see how he was developing.
GF Willmetts
June 2025
(pub: Coronet Books, 1978. 205 page paperback. Price: varies. ISBN: 0-340-22779-6)
