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Feb 05, 2008

Laura rated it:

I have never read anything by George R. R. Martin before. I am highly skeptical of science fiction writers, unless they come highly recommended by someone whose opinion I trust, because of the vast mountains of crap which exist in the genre. I came upon Dreamsongs in my local library, and decided to check it out, to put my toe in the water, as it were. I am now interested enough that I have dug out my boyfriend's copies of the Song of Fire and Ice series. I plan to dive in to those next, and Dre More...

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Sep 16, 2010

Alex rated it:

DREAMSONGS VOLUME I BY GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: The two great mysteries of this world are when scientists will come up with a unification theory for quantum mechanics and relativity, and when George R. R. Martin will release the very long-awaited fifth book in his “Song of Ice and Fire” series, A Dance With Dragons. With a hopeful but doubtful release some time next year, for the time being there is thankfully Dreamsongs, a two-volume collection featuring George R. R. Martin’s short stories and nov More...

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Nov 05, 2011

Ryan rated it:

Like many people, I hadn't heard of George RR Martin before the excellent Song of Ice and Fire series made him a household name among fantasy nerds. Those books kept me busy for a while, and I ignored Dreamsongs, figuring the next one would be out soon enough. Well, not quite. After three years of waiting, I decided (in 2009) that it was as good of a time as any to check out Martin's back catalog.

What was Martin's earlier, pre-Game of Thrones Work like? As it turns out, fans who haven' More...

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Feb 22, 2010

Raj rated it:

This is the first volume of a retrospective of Martin's short fiction, split into four sections, each introduced by the author. It starts off with some of Martin's very early work written for the fanzines in the 40s and 50s, moving on to his professional work in the 60s and 70s before touching on some of his fantasy work and ending with a selection of his horror work.

Newer readers may be mostly familiar with Martin's fantasy work, most notably A Song of Ice and Fire but he has worked i More...

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Jan 28, 2010

Lori rated it:

I'm awfully glad Game of Thrones was the first George R.R. Martin I tried. Had I stumbled across some of his early sci-fi, showcased here in Dreamsongs, I'd have never pursued more. But if I hadn't fallen in love with A Song of Ice and Fire, I would've never turned enough Dreamsong pages to get to some of the best short fiction I've ever read.

Martin's commentary is honest -- he knows the early stuff isn't good. And honestly, a lot of my problems with it are genre specific. I don't wh More...

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Jan 17, 2012

Anna rated it:

Very very mixed-bag. Then again, vol II is too and thats awesome
if people are coming to GRRM only after Game of Thrones expecting more of same, they've clearly been missing out some fun stuff & should be ready for 90% of anything-but

Some of the early stuff is laughable and you can see him getting better as a writer as the pages turn. Plus can pretty much pinpoint births of some of his fav tropes right there, hoorah!

"Song for Lya" did nothing for me, but "T More...

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Dec 30, 2009

Ethan rated it:

Surprisingly good! I didn't know what to expect, and figured it was just a collection of castoffs and crap stories (and there are a few, but they're interesting nonetheless from a developmental point of view).... but this book actually contains a lot of good stories, many of which were nominated for a Nebula/Hugo (and a few winners). The short blurbs by Martin before each loosely-grouped chapter are pretty interesting as well.

I originally starting reading this for Martin's novella More...

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Dec 19, 2008

Ben rated it:

George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire books were some of the first fantasy I read, back when I was in grade seven. One of my friends introduced me to fantasy by way of David Eddings' The Belgariad, and after polishing that off, I read the first three A Song of Ice and Fire books (yes, all three were out then, and the fourth one just came out recently!). Martin is one of my favourite authors, truly a brilliant combination of writer and storyteller: a master of the technique as well as the More...

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Nov 23, 2011

Derek rated it:

I picked this book up from the bargain shelf and didn't touch it for a while. I'd heard of Martin because of the popularity of the TV adaptation of A Game of Thrones. I only came back to this one after I had started reading A Game of Thrones.

The man is a genre genius. If you like short speculative fiction, get this book. There isn't a bad story in this bunch. Martin handles SF, fantasy, and horror with obvious nerdy love and an amazing sense of humor, and he blends the three genres art More...

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Jan 02, 2010

Doreen rated it:

Well, it wasn't terrible. This book collects the short stories/novellas of George RR Martin, and to a certain extent, it's a pretty good collection. His earliest stuff is fairly bad, but it's almost reassuring to the novice writer to know that even an author as consistently good as Mr Martin started pretty weakly, too. I personally believe that this collection starts getting good after Tower of Ashes (mostly because I thought A Song For Lya was way too hippie-touchy-feely for a lapsed introvert More...

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Sep 20, 2011

Maria rated it:

Как и любой сборник, и этот не однозначен: есть просто восхитительные рассказы, есть и рассказы послабее, которые, сами по себе, может, и не так плохи, но это же Мартин, от него ждешь больше, чем просто 'неплохо'.
По жанру это фантастика, но даже в ее рамках поражает разнообразие: тут и чистая НФ, и фентези, и история, и ужастики...
В целом отличная книга. Особенно мне понравились "Путь креста и дракона", "Вспоминая Мелоди" и "Ледяной дракон" More...

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Sep 22, 2011

Stephen rated it:

This book is a wonderful collection of short stories. It reminded me of reading the magazines F&SF and Analog (which many of the stories were first published in). I had a great time going through all of the stories. Some of them were not that great, but Sandkings, Ice Dragon, and The Pear Shaped Man (which made me squirm in my seat) were worth getting the book alone.

Also, it was nice to get an insight into the life of George R. R. Martin. I liked seeing how his career has progressed th More...

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Apr 25, 2011

Jenna rated it:

It's hard to rate a collection like this. The short stories in the book span the first half of Martin's literary career. Some are excellent, and others...not so much. But reading the collection as a whole is definitely worthwhile. By the final page of the book, I was astonished by the sheer impact his writing has had not only in science fiction, but also in literature, graphic novels, horror, and even television. Despite being one of the most accomplished writers (in terms of literary awards and More...

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Jul 08, 2009

Tom rated it:

A good look at the growth/development of one of my favorite writers. In this first volume, we see some of Martin's earliest works... stories of the fantastic and horrible, written for an earlier age. "Only Kids Are Afraid Of The Dark," the earliest of this. It's courageous of Martin to re-publish this, because it reads like the work of an overly-earnest teenager. You don't know if you should take it seriously or if its intentionally corny.

By the end of the volume thou More...

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May 13, 2011

Michael rated it:

As a fan of GRRM Song of Ice and Fire series I picked up Dreamsongs to get a taste of other stories written by one of my favorite authors.

Dreamsongs Volume I is a collection of Martin's early work and shows the growth of Martin's writing abilities. From simple short stories to far more complex and interesting stories. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and not every story is amazing, but they were able to show styles of his writing. Among the collection some of my favorite stories were a ' More...

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Feb 05, 2012

Debbie rated it:

It has taken me an incredibly long time to wade through this book. I started it in 2010 whilst on holiday, and it just didn't really grip me at all. I couldn't relate to any of the earlier stories, and had started to come to the conclusion that maybe I just wasn't a short story fan.

Eventually, this idea did get abandoned when I found "A Song for Lya" which was very moving, and then "Bitterblooms" which sucked me in from the word go. This was probably my favourite More...

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Feb 29, 2008

Curtis rated it:

This book is really worth reading, not for the fiction, which is varied in quality, and at times really special (more on that later). But it shines as a documentation of how a young man became ensconced in the authorship world, sought his own style and obtained it. He also painstakingly documents his literary influences, as a reader, it's a joy to read about someone else discovering the breadth of works out there, and seeing what influence him the most.

The fiction is pretty varied, More...

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May 03, 2010

Joel rated it:

I first knew of the author as the editor of the Wild Cards series, which got me into his epic A Song of Ice and Fire, easily one of the better fantasy series today. After wading through some of his earlier works in here (some OK, some not so OK -- some old and creaky SF in there) I have to say that he seems to have always had the creative ability to do this sort of thing, uneven results or no. I've also always wanted to read Sandkings, and now that I've finally read it, I believe it deserves t More...

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Dec 17, 2007

Annie rated it:

Synopsis:
The first of two anthologies featuring short stories by George RR Martin, ranging from fantasy to science fiction to horror to genre hybrids.

Review:
I am one of those readers who had never heard of George RR Martin before encountering A Game of Thrones, book one in his Song of Ice and Fire series. What I did not know is that Martin has had a prolific career as a short story writer, primarily in the genre of science fiction. Dreamsongs Volume 1 includes some of Mar More...

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Jul 28, 2008

Matija rated it:

A fascinating collection of short-stories, intertwined with Martin's own recollections of how he came to write them and what his life was like in that period. The stories are mostly science fiction, but there is some fantasy and horror as well as some crossovers mixed in.

The quality of the stories ranges from superb (A Second Kind of Loneliness, Meathouse Man, Sandkings) to average (Only Kids are Afraid of the Dark), but is generally very high overall - I do not regret reading a sing More...

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Nov 23, 2010

Glenj rated it:

4 stars for fans of Martin, but 3 stars for the casual fan. This is not a slight on the book, but the book is what it is. A collection of earlier works of one of the truly great writers of our time. Some of the short stories are hard to get through and some suffer from being under the influence of the times (Song of Lya is clearly a product of Martin's earlier hippy-influence). However this is an absolute must read for Martin's commentary and that alone makes this a book worth owning.

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Jul 22, 2011

Josephine rated it:

a mixture of short stories, I listened to this on audio. Liked the author's background of some of the stories, it would have been nice to hear a little more with all of them. Enjoyed most of them. It's a little hard listening to short stories one right after another, that why a little background before or after would have been nice. It was a little difficult moving from one to the next.

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Apr 14, 2010

Chris rated it:

Something about writers talking about their writing process, I can't get enough of it. Martin's inerludes made this volume more than worth the read. I love seeing those "behind the scenes" things.

As for the stories themselves, you can definitely see why Martin is considered one of the greater living writers of our time. If these were his "early" work, it's no wonder he's grown to be such a well-known author. Truly, he is an amazing writer that deserves his status. More...

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Aug 12, 2011

Dale rated it:

Can not stand the tone of his dialog telling about himself etc etc. The lead ins are longer and a whole lot more boring than the extremely blah short fiction. About a quarter the way through the book and can't recall one intersting thing from it at this point. Can't recommend it unless you really like dry auto-biograghies or just have to read all R.R. ever wrote.

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Dec 03, 2008

Rhonda rated it:

I didn't read this cover to cover but I did read quite a lot of the stories! As always Martin can go from genre to genre with ease. Want science fiction? He can write it. Want medieval fantasy that reads like historical fiction? He can do it. Want a modern tale about rock and roll? Well he can do that too. So if you are looking for short stories that are varied in subject matter, check this one out as well as Volume 2!

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Oct 15, 2011

Karla rated it:

An online book group I frequent chose this book and since I could download it to my Kindle from the library I picked it up. Eh- Not too impressed, I read the first section and won't finish it. The author's explanations are interesting, but the short stories themselves. . . mediocre. I have never read anything else by this author, and it seems geared at his fans.

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May 27, 2011

Ethernight rated it:

I don't usually read short story collections, but picked this one up by way of A Song of Fire and Ice--like many of his fans, I'd run out of books in the series and wanted more.

This collection left me with a strong impression of Martin's writing style, with themes that I now recognize in the Song series. Even in his earliest and least mature work, he is still a gifted story teller with a talent for weaving words together beautifully. His worlds are vivid, his characters distinct an More...

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Mar 20, 2008

Ratiocination rated it:

I came into this anthology having read Song of Ice and Fire and a handful of Martin's short stories. Turns out this book is very well-suited to someone in that position. It's a career retrospective to this point; Martin has worked in a number of genres, and the works included seem chosen to be varied and representative as well as high-calibre. Many of them would be hard to find elsewhere, since they ran in magazines or anthologies long-since out of print. Volume I even includes some amateur and More...

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Oct 31, 2011

Ben rated it:

What a great book. It's very rare that I'll be reading a book and immediately think that I need to buy it for my own collection. This is one of those books.

Some of the short stories in this book are less than spectacular, but A Song For Lya, The Ice Dragon, and Sandkings more than make up for any sub-par stories.

I was also interested to see some aspects of A Song of Ice and Fire creep up in these stories. If you pay attention you'll see how some of Martin's creations ar More...

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Dec 17, 2009

Wm rated it:

Some of the stories here are terrible; some haven't aged well. Such is the danger of doing a comprehensive collection of an author's work. What saves some of the early stories, though, are the essays that precede each section. In them, GRRM mixes biography with light literary criticism and publishing history to provide great context for the various periods of his career.

And, I should note, that some of the best stories in the collection are some of the best around. And it really is a More...

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