Tuf Voyaging (George R. R. Martin, 1987)Sometimes when you read a really great book, you want to read something else by the author to capture that feeling. Even if you know it won’t be AS good, anything is better than nothing. I loved George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series, and we have still have a few more to be released. I can’t wait! First I read two of his novellas which are based on that world (but completely different timeline) and that was not bad, but very short.
And then I was left with nothing. Fine, I said, let me try whatever by him, and I got “Tuf Voyaging”, and it is nothing like “A Song of Ice and Fire”. It is science-fiction, somewhat comical, short stories linked together, and, well, a bit unimaginative. The book is set in the far, far future and has an EEC ship as its main focus. What is an EEC ship? I thought you’d never ask! It stands for Ecological Engineering Corps and was made for biological warfare or something, because it can create life forms from its cell library. Thing is, all are now lost or destroyed, as it belonged to an old Empire.
Except now a group of voyagers find one! Yay!
The first chapter is about this discovery, and probably the most boring, which is a shitty way to start. After that, it mainly is about a tradesman called Tuf who gets control of it and goes planet to planet solving their problems. The character of Tuf is the only reason the book eventually becomes interesting. He is humble, but smart, and goes by his own sense of morality.
It is a fairly normal science-fiction book, but I guess, normal science-fiction books is good enough in this genre, since it usually is filled with really bad books.
3/5
