All of which is not to say that these attributes are negative-you may well be looking for just this style of book, and of its type Tuf Voyaging is certainly not a bad example-but it’s this type of book, and not another. It’s also a fix-up novel, a picaresque-flavoured set of loosely-connected adventures, big beefy SF problem-solving tales (most of which first featured in Analog in the late 70s and early-to-mid 80s), ordered in time and space but lacking in discernible character development. This is not a new book by Martin almost thirty years old, it’s a book which has been re-released with a cover somewhat redolent of a certain book and TV epic fantasy series with which I believe Martin may currently be associated. Haviland Tuf, former trader, devotee of games of strategy, ailurophile, vegetarian, loner, and (it has to be said) pedant, finds himself, almost inexplicably, in sole possession of a spaceship that might, without exaggeration, be claimed to be the most powerful weapon throughout the known galaxy. (Review first published in ASIM 58, June 2013)
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