Tuf Voyaging Book Review – Story 4/5:
So after Game of Thrones has ended, you might be wondering what else has R. R. Martin created? Well, it seems that he likes sci-fi as much as fantasy.
This book is made of short stories about the huge ECC ship and its captain. It’s not only a big warship with tons of guns from the old human empire, but also it can create and spread diseases, has monsters from all around the galaxy, and can even manipulate time itself. All that gives the captain a great opportunity to visit far-off places, have a lot of conflicts, and try to stay true to his morals.
Martin has a perfect sense of world-building, and the first chapter shows just how powerful and different this ship is and what it feels to be on the receiving side of this weapon’s power. It’s a wild ride. From fighting to get to this warship to helping overpopulated worlds, from gladiator arenas to massive ecological battles with exotic monsters. From politics to cats, it’s creative and fun to follow our lovable fat captain on his journey.
And this Captain always has an ace up his sleeve. But the ending did feel a bit short, taking the focus away from our hero and giving the final lines to a different character, I just wanted maybe a final sentence about our hero’s plans or journeys, but maybe that’s just me.
Recommend for the Story? – YES
Tuf Voyaging Book Review – Characters 4/5:
Because it’s R. R. Martins book, there are rarely plain good or bad characters, they do bad things, but there’s always a reason or a setup for it. No one snaps and then just starts burning children… While most characters don’t have much time dedicated to them, they still are well defined and their actions make sense.
It’s because Martin likes to develop the character and then stick to it, not flipping or changing them. Even if there’s not a lot of info about that particular character, you feel like you know them, you can understand or even relate to their situation. Our main hero is a tall, fat space trader that has a smooth and a bit formal way of talking.
He likes to plan and think one step ahead of everyone. And he might look selfish or even bad, but usually, our captain has a bigger picture in mind, and not just quick solutions. Also, he LOVES CATS. And cats become a huge part of the story. Having different ways of acting Cats create a fun and interesting sidekick to our big problem space Hero. Oh and don’t worry there is a character that you want to strangle every time they are talking and that gets suuuuuch a satisfying death.
Recommend for the Characters? – YES
Tuf Voyaging Book Review – Writing style 5/5:
Two things that always scares me about Fantasy and Sci-Fi books are “Mumbo Jumbo” and “Techno-Babble”. But Martin avoids these two problems by either naming things so we could easily understand ( We all know rice, so a more advanced version is just called SuperRice ) and not stopping to explain things we know or using technologies that are established before or already existing in our world.
Because of this the characters and places feel real, lived-in worlds that we just take a peek at. This book doesn’t waste your time with fillers or nonimportant parts of this world, if that information is necessary for the story it will be in the book. And it’s fun to find a book that doesn’t start naming 500 galaxies and 100 events that happened before.
Because of its scale and focus, it’s a really smooth story that you can devour easily in a couple of days. I would call it light Sci-Fi because the ideas are easily understood. The focus is on the story and characters, rather than creating a complex world where you need a guide just to understand what’s happening.
Recommend for the Writing style? – YES
Tuf Voyaging – 13/15 – Very entertaining Sci-fi book, full of interesting ideas and characters. It’s an easy recommendation for everyone who likes sci-fi.
Spoiler Field (After you read the Book) !!!!
- Is it just me or did Celise ( One of the crew that flys to the ECC ship at the beginnings) was just the goddam worst, at one point I wanted to blow my brains out just reading her dialogue. She’s selfish and never understand just how dangerous things are. But the point of these characters usually is to kill them in a satisfying way. So when she gruesomely dies from basically a space cat attack, it’s a moment of relief.
- It’s interesting that the main plot of the story is about overpopulation. And the people are not bad guys for doing this, it’s easy to understand them and feel a bit sorry for this. The government is afraid of the people and the people blindly trust the government, you know, for the Greater Good. They have the answer they need right in front of them ” If you want to feed the planet, you have to stop making babies”, and yet every time they try to find any other solution or blame it on someone else. Reminds me of us a lot…
- It’s an interesting twist that cats have telepathic powers and that’s why the Egyptians worshipped them. It gives you information that you know and adds a more sci-fi twist to it, making you (the reader) feel like you know and understand about this world. And it actually uses that as a plot point, and not just a “uuu how cool is that” moment. The creatures of this book don’t really know about cats that much, so you, seeing cats online every day, have the upper hand when it comes to understanding these deadly and cute creatures.
