Kirkus Star
THE KIRKUS STAR
Awarded to Books of Exceptional Merit

BROWSE BOOK REVIEWS




George R.R. Martin


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Cover art for DYING OF THE LIGHT
FICTION
Released: Oct. 1, 1977

"Labored, inflated, intermittently arresting."
On the edge of the galaxy, the "rogue" planet Worlorn has drifted within warming distance of a star system for just long enough to attract a decade-long "Festival" created by terraformers, biologists, and architects from every neighboring world. Read full book review >
Cover art for WINDHAVEN
FICTION
Released: April 24, 1981

"A pleasant, undemanding read, then, without subtlety or surprises."
A longish, predictable, charming but syrupy expansion of the linked stories The Storms of Windhaven (1975) and One-Wing (1980). Read full book review >
Cover art for FEVRE DREAM
FICTION
Released: Oct. 8, 1982

Good vampires vs. evil vampires on the ante-bellum Mississippi—with a fat, tough old steamboat captain perilously caught in between. Read full book review >
Cover art for THE ARMAGEDDON RAG
FICTION
Released: Oct. 21, 1983

"The result, then, is a busy, ambitious hybrid—too shallow to engage thoughtful Sixties veterans, too pretentious to please thrill-seekers, but energetic and flashy enough to keep a fair-sized audience reading."
Simpleminded, heavy-going nostalgia for the Sixties-rock counterculture—gotten up as lurid melodrama, with a murky mixture of psycho-whodunit, conspiracy-thriller, and (in the feverish, limp final chapters) vague occultery. Read full book review >
Cover art for A GAME OF THRONES
FICTION
Released: Aug. 12, 1996

"You won't get it: Be prepared for a lengthy series with an indefinitely deferred conclusion."
After a long silence (Portraits of his Children, stories, 1987), the author of the cult The Armageddon Rag (1983) returns with the first of a fantasy series entitled, insipidly enough, A Song of Ice and Fire. Read full book review >
Cover art for A CLASH OF KINGS
FICTION
Released: Feb. 9, 1999

"And since this one tips the scales at a gargantuan 896 pages, you can build up your biceps as you read."
Second installment of Martin's fantasy —A Song of Ice and Fire,— following A Game of Thrones (1996), that enormous yarn about the strife-torn Seven Kingdoms and the various powerful families that aspire to rule them. Read full book review >