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    Nightflyers
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    Nightflyers
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    Nightflyers
    Audiobook3 hours

    Nightflyers

    Written by George R. R. Martin

    Narrated by Mike Grady

    3.5/5

    ()

    Unavailable in your country

    Unavailable in your country

    About this audiobook

    Alien meets Psycho in this chilling mystery set on a spaceship, soon to be an original series on Netflix, by the #1 best-selling author of A Song of Ice and Fire George R.R. Martin. Brought to electrifying life with artwork by David Palumbo.

    On a voyage toward the boundaries of the known universe, nine misfit academics seek out first contact with a shadowy alien race.

    But another enigma is the Nightflyer itself, a cybernetic wonder with an elusive captain no one has ever seen in the flesh.

    Soon, however, the crew discovers that their greatest mystery – and most dangerous threat – is an unexpected force aboard the ship wielding a thirst for blood and terror…

    Coming to Netflix in 2019 – read it before you see it!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 7, 2019
    ISBN9780008298319
    Unavailable
    Nightflyers
    Author

    George R. R. Martin

    George R.R. Martin is the author of fifteen novels and novellas, including five volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, several collections of short stories, as well as screenplays for television and feature films. Dubbed ‘the American Tolkien’, George R.R. Martin has won numerous awards including the World Fantasy Lifetime Achievement Award. He is an Executive Producer on HBO’s Emmy Award-winning Game of Thrones, which is based on his A Song of Ice and Fire series. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

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    Reviews for Nightflyers

    3.5/5

    87 ratings6 reviews

    What did you think?

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      This is a book big on ideas, but doesn't go big enough, or it should be a bit more compact. The characters follow stereotypes, but at times manages to break out of the roles. The best character is Melantha Jhirl - an enhanced human being, tall, dark skin, capable. For a book originally written in 1980, its incredibly ahead of its time.Unfortunately, it suffers from parts that are at times, too sparse. Other times, it falls back on tropes from the 70's, specifically ESP type powers. The mystery was a bit of a let down, and the ending of the book is odd, but awesome. I can see why it is still in the pubic eye, and its worth a read.
    • 3/5
      Dragons have always been cool, Video games have always been cool, real ale has always been cool. (Union) Rugby has always been cool, Science Fiction has always been cool, and Fantasy has always been cool. Football has always been shit, same as radio 4 depressing plays that the controller seems to think everyone has been to Cambridge/Oxford and therefore they like this sort of thing as it’s so highbrow. Kill a mockingbird yada yada, the Royal Shakespeare Taliban society again shit. Give me dragon slaying and space ship battles any day of the week. There's very little in life that can't be improved by adding dragons. Anyway, since when was a game of thrones considered to be fantasy? To me, it is fantasy with the guts ripped out of it. Take away the undead and the dragons, and you would see no difference to the overall story. It is a medieval soap drama with fantasy elements tacked on. Fair enough, Martins wants to move the genre on - he wants to go beyond epic sagas and doomed heroes, and the romance that underpins all fantasy, but what has he replaced it with? Sex and misogyny. And death...meaningless death...If you constantly kill off your characters left right and centre as it also happens in "Nightflyers", you're admitting a failure to move their development on. After all, it's the easiest thing in the world to kill a character and start again with somebody else, it's a lot harder to have him face the consequences of his or her actions. That takes a skilled author. Fantasy used to be about something. Even Conan had more intellectual heft than the present generation of so called 'fantasy' fiction. Granted, it was a thing of mostly ugly meanings if you looked at it hard, but it least it was carving out a place to stand on and defend. Instead of a genera where the magic was used to place a light on man's imagination and philosophy, it's become a canvas of sound and fury signifying nothing. 90% of the fantasy on the shelf these days is indistinguishable. "Nightflyers" and some of the stories in this volume suffer from this same malady as well. There is more complex fantasy around than Martin, but it tends to not be as commercial. Steven Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen is certainly more complicated and dealing with a much vaster set of themes (he even has a Conan-like character who actually channels Howard's philosophical viewpoint instead of just having muscles and a sword). Scott Bakker's "Prince of Nothing" series deals with philosophy, existentialism and nihilism. Matt Stover's "Acts of Caine" series might just melt your brain. That's not to say they are all better than Martin, and none touch Martin's gift for varied characterisation, but the genre is in a much healthier state now because of the authors that Martin helped get off the ground and get on the shelf by simply re-popularising the genre. Elizabeth Bear's excellent "Eternal Sky Trilogy" can be read as a subtle rebuke on Martin's overly-simplistic take on the Mongols with the Dothraki, for example.
    • 5/5
      I have to admit that, although I love George R.R. Martin's writing, I didn't have the highest of hopes for this collection of short stories by him, written in the 1970's., simply because author's early works are not always as good as later ones.. and the cheesy cover art didn't help either, I must admit.

      However - I was wrong. The stories in this collection are truly top-flight sci-fi, with a horror edge. All demonstrate Martin's amazing talent for characterization, and are both emotionally effective and thought-provoking.

      Nightflyers:

      The title story is the most formulaic - it's a bit like 2001: A Space Odyssey meets Alien.
      A diverse team of research investigators on a badly-funded space mission run into trouble, and gradually meet diverse (and unpleasant) ends. Is their mysterious captain to blame? Or is the truth yet spookier than that?
      However, familiarity of the horror plot structure aside, the story succeeds (where many such tales do not) in being genuinely tense and scary.
      This story (novelette?) was made into a movie in 1987, which I've never seen. However, it apparently stars Michael Praed (of the BBC's Robin Hood fame), which makes me want to see it right there!

      Override:

      A short but effective story which explores labor relations on an alien planet.
      On an unspoiled paradise planet, executed criminals from offworld are mechanically turned into remote-controlled zombies used for onerous mining labor. But when a corporate boss who thinks the practice is disgusting threatens a corporate takeover which would ban the corpse-handlers, violence ensues.
      Notable for its remarkable use of perspective - the reader doesn't really side with what one might expect...


      Weekend in a War Zone:

      In a not-so-distant future, hardworking citizens can take the weekend off and play tennis, golf... or pay to sign up for a weekend of war games, tromping through the woods, roughing it, and 'playing soldier' - much as many people do in today's paintball games - except in these games, the guns are real, and casualties are frequent. A nerdy businessman signs up for one of these weekends for the first time, hoping to impress his boss into giving him a promotion - but ends up discovering a side to himself he hadn't guessed at.
      Excellent psychological insight....


      And Seven Times Never Kill Man:

      A group of militaristic Christian-esque fundamentalists colonizes a world inhabited by a furry, peaceful intelligent alien race whom they view as animals to be slaughtered, in order to clear the way for settlement. An independent trader is shocked and horrified by the violence, and tries to organize a resistance - but the effort is worse than pathetic. BUT - an unpredictable twist ensues!


      Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring:

      A brief but interesting musing on religion and the origins of universes, as a scientist experiments with wormhole technology.


      A Song for Lya:

      A competent and professional psychic couple are asked to investigate why human colonists are converting in disturbing numbers to an alien religious suicide cult. But what they discover may rip them apart.... A melancholy musing on love and the true desires of humanity...
    • 3/5
      Novella/short story sf collection from the 1970s. Martin’s complex characters and extremely grim but not entirely fatalistic worldbuilding were underway, but sometimes missed their mark. The story that affected me most, And Seven Times Never Kill Man, involving aliens genocidally slaughtered by a human cult, has a denouement that left me pretty confused about the mechanics, but was still creepy. For devoted fans only, I think.
    • 3/5
      I made the mistake of thinking this was a novel with six chapter titles. It is not. George R. R. Martin's "Nightflyers" is a novella followed by five more shorts. This was my first GRRM. The very first sentence of the very first story turned me off of him. Sentence eleven of the same page, same story—pg 1, "Nightflyers"—solidified my dislike of the story and its author.I understand that George thought he was being witty with his first sentence—doing as Horace had suggested writers do long ago; though if George tried, he could not come up with a first sentence that would be more inflammatory to what IS around 33% of the world's population. The first sentence of "Nightflyers" was very much in memoriam of that prideful and ignorantly cynical humanist Erasmus. The eleventh sentence was even more like Erasmus. I don't know why the Erasmus' of the world are driven to place their cruelty upon that which they have no faith in. I am justified in bitching out-right about it, because I am forced to digest their sneak-attacks in the likes of Sci Fi novellas, books for children, and television (all of which GRRM has infected by the grace of the masters). It would have been more productive for the now cancerous Christopher Hitchens to have spent his time on atheism, if atheism consisted of anything other than laughing at creationists and prodding them with the intellectual sticks which they have hoisted in place of their God-given phalluses. It would have been more productive for GRRM to stick to Sci Fi, instead of using it as a platform to proclaim Jesus of Nazareth long dead and turned to dust with Kleronomas when volcryn passed close to Daronne.Now.As I was saying, I wasn't impressed with "Nightflyers". You have the token black woman, some damned demon of a mother that probably is the likeness of GRRM's mother, and some weakling son. What I DID like about it was when the demon mother used telekinesis to animate the dead. Every story here contained zombie like characters. Speaking of which...The second story, "Override" was by far my favorite. You have blue collar corpse handlers with dead-man crews working an alien planet for peculiar crystals. It was great. I loved it.The third story, "And Seven Times Never Kill Man" I disliked. It centered around religion. Go figure. I couldn't make heads or tails out of it—which makes sense. Atheists don't have an understanding of any other faith but the faith that they place in atheism. I believe Martin uses religion as atheists claim believers use religion—as a toy."Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring" was fairly exciting, but the end was sagging."A Song for Lya" I had a love-hate relationship with. Again with the religion. It was like a woman—very emotive and wordy.It is said of GRRM that his works are dark and cynical. I like that. I may come back for more, being somewhat of a sadist.
    • 4/5
      And Seven Times Never Kill Man (I think I get it. The little furry creatures are killing the humans by using their powers to drive them insane. While you feel sorry for the furry creatures.)-Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring (Dark, cool, man is looking for something it can't beat so he can call it God.)-Override (Cool original idea, cool writing. Zombies for hire.)-Weekend in a War Zone (Cool funny writing, ok plot.)-A Song for Lya (1975 Hugo Award Cool creepy symbiotic organism brings you into God but is it an alien God or the one that Man is looking for. Also will it bring man to a cutural standstill like the alien race. Not that much action but cool idea.)-Nightflyers (Very cool. Great horror/thriller plot in a not to technical plot. Cool characters. Awesome. Plus spirits inhabiting computers.)