Dying of the Light (Paperback)

by George R.R. Martin (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
A whisperjewel summoned him to Worlorn, and a love he thought he’d lost. But Worlorn isn’t the world Dirk t’Larien imagined, and Gwen Delvano is no longer the woman he once knew. She is bound to another man, and to a dying planet that is trapped in twilight, forever falling toward night. Amid this bleak landscape is a violent clash of cultures in which there is no code of honor—and the hunter and the hunted are often interchangeable.

Caught up in a dangerous triangle, Gwen is in need of Dirk’s protection, and he will do anything to keep her safe, even if it means challenging the barbaric man who has claimed her—and his cunning cohort. But an impenetrable veil of secrecy surrounds them all, and it’s becoming impossible for Dirk to distinguish between his allies and his enemies. While each will fight to stay alive, one is waiting for escape, one for revenge, and another for a brutal, untimely demise.

From the Inside Flap
A whisperjewel summoned him to Worlorn, and a love he thought he'd lost. But Worlorn isn't the world Dirk t'Larien imagined, and Gwen Delvano is no longer the woman he once knew. She is bound to another man, and to a dying planet that is trapped in twilight, forever falling toward night. Amid this bleak landscape is a violent clash of cultures in which there is no code of honor--and the hunter and the hunted are often interchangeable.

Caught up in a dangerous triangle, Gwen is in need of Dirk's protection, and he will do anything to keep her safe, even if it means challenging the barbaric man who has claimed her--and his cunning cohort. But an impenetrable veil of secrecy surrounds them all, and it's becoming impossible for Dirk to distinguish between his allies and his enemies. While each will fight to stay alive, one is waiting for escape, one for revenge, and another for a brutal, untimely demise.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Bantam (September 28, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553383086
• ISBN-13: 978-0553383089
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #473,673 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favourite books, September 26, 2004

By	Tango - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dying of the Light (Hardcover)

Purely by accident, while looking for something else in the library, I stumbled on a couple of George R. R. Martin's books, a collection of short stories called "A Song for Lya" and one of his early novels, "Dying of the Light", both published in the 70s. Friends have been recommending his later fantasy writing to me for years, so I thought - what the heck, I'll give him a go.

My god. I had no idea!

The short stories were enough to leave me wanting more, but it was "Dying of the Light" that really took my breath away. The writing is completely engrossing; I found myself missing bus after bus and staying late at work because I couldn't drop the book even for the ten minutes it would take to get to the bus stop. It's one of those rare books where everything fits together perfectly: the characters, the atmosphere, the setting, the way the story is resolved.

The premise seems deceptively simple: a man is asked by his former lover to meet her on a strange planet that has no star, a dying world that has been all but abandoned. But when he gets there, he finds that his Gwen has found a new place for herself among the ruins, and what's more -- she is married. So why did she call him? And is she really as happy as she seems to be? I should mention that the man she's married belongs to an alien culture where the strong hunt the weak for sport. Oh, and he already has a husband. Things only become more complicated when we meet all the characters and find out more about their cultures.

And the cultures alone are spectacular. It would be grossly unfair to try to cover them all, and completely unnecessary in a review. Suffice it to say that the breadth of Martin's imagination is matched only by the iron grip he has on his world and the plot of the story. Part of the experience is the way the story unfolds, the way the writer cleverly feeds you bits of information -- but he always remains one step ahead.

One image that particularly touched me was a city where the buildings are constructed in such a way that when the wind blows across the rooftops, it plays a symphony -- a lament that is almost hypnotic. Much of the book is like this, hovering right on the thin line between tragic and uplifting.

I was surprised to see that this book got some rather negative reviews here. A few people said there wasn't enough action, or that you couldn't see where the story was going, or that the characters are too complicated to be interesting. I guess if someone was expecting a shoot-em-up with cardboard villains and shining golden heroes, this book would definitely disappoint: the characters are deeply flawed but intensely sympathetic (even the apparent villains), the action unfolds as much in the minds of the people as in the world they inhabit (although there are still shoot-em-ups and chases), and the conclusion of the story is an organic and plausible development for the protagonist. It's the answer to the question he doesn't know to ask when he first sets out to find his long-lost love.

It's just a beautiful, intricate, deeply human story.

38 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Comments on G.R.R. Martin's First Novel, July 9, 2002

By	Pablo Iglesias Alvarez "Glossu" (Mexico City, D.F. Mexico) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Dying of the Light (Paperback)

"Dying of the Light" was George R.R. Martin's first novel, and it certainly shows. He is very ambitious in this initial attempt and the results are mixed. The book is usually catalogued as Science Fiction, but it hardly feels like it. Sure, there is a glimpse of a history of human expansion into other galaxies and even 'Old Terra' is mentioned, but it is a mere background to set the story, not a relevant ingredient. Even when Martin uses scientific aspects ( technological applications ) throughout the book it is in a rather superficial and somehow 'pulp' way; Martin is more interested in the landscapes and in his characters.

As I said, the book feels over ambitious, the length being to short to be able to develop in a proper way the complex cornucopia of names, places, languages and customs that Martin set to create. The drive of the plot depends entirely in the amusing planet Worlorn, a once bright world where for a decade a 'Festival Of the Worlds' was held, but which now is turning dark, little by little leaving the sun than once brightened it. Worlorn is now almost unpopulated but the past glory of its cities still remains and is the stage for a story which moves around a past romance and the traditions of war-like people called Kavalar.

Martin tries hard to make his characters be as 'flesh and bone' as possible but in my opinion he only partially achieves it: At the end of book the Kavalar characters seem much more interesting than the main ones, Dirk and Gwen (although probably that was all along Martin's final intention).

Don't expect a fast paced adventure; Sometimes the story drags with seemingly no apparent direction but Martin is building tension towards a quite philosophical finale when the experiences on this planet have transformed the main character's views on life

It is in the impressive set of vistas from Worlorn that we get the best parts of the novel. The exquisite description of each abandoned city and its secrets already shows the magnificent talent that Martin will develop fully in his most successful saga: 'The Song of Ice and Fire'.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars filled with promise but flawed. light on action, heavy on explanation, January 23, 2007

By	Joe Sherry (Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Dying of the Light was the first novel published by acclaimed fantasy author George R. R. Martin. Martin is better known as the author of the fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire. Dying of the Light is a science fiction novel set on a dying world called Worlorn. Dirk t'Larien is summoned to the world by a whisperjewel, a promise made by his younger self to his former love Gwen Delvano. But Gwen is bound to another man, a man bound to a different code of conduct and different cultural mores. Getting his love, who may not love him any more, to leave Jaan Vikary for Dirk is only half the problem. The other half of the problem is dealing with another human culture, from another world, on a world which those laws do not apply. Dying of the Light is a clash of cultures, science fiction, and could be considered something of a Western.

George Martin opens up a sprawling, lawless landscape on an alien world which feels like it could quite possibly exist. Martin gives out enough information that one could believe that all of these human cultures spread to the stars could possibly be real. Martin gives us authentic feeling cultures that are distinct and raw and those cultures clash in Dying of the Light.

That's really what Dying of the Light is, an examination of culture clash in a lawless outback. There is a very large amount of exposition and explanation of what these cultures are and how they interact. Dying of the Light is small on action, though near the end we get to the action and the chase sequences.

This is perhaps the greatest flaw of George Martin's debut novel. He spends too much time explaining and not nearly enough time showing. For what he was so great with A Song of Ice and Fire Martin is sadly lacking here. The characterizations are strong in the sense that the characters are distinctly drawn, but they are weak because it is difficult to care for a single character because these characters just stand around and explain their cultures to each other and that does not work so well for a novel.

Reluctantly I cannot recommend Dying of the Light. It is a novel that has a lot of promise and showed that Martin had the potential to put together what he later did with his fantasy series. It also showed that he had a ways to go yet.

-Joe Sherry