Tuf Voyaging

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Honest space trader Haviland Tuf, the owner of the last seedship of Earth's Ecological Engineering Corps, comes to the aid of an emperiled colony struggling to cope with a variety of hostile monsters, an obsessed populace, and a dictator who unleashes plagues to get his own way.

448 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15,1986

Literary awards

About the author

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George Raymond Richard "R.R." Martin was born September 20, 1948, in Bayonne, New Jersey. His father was Raymond Collins Martin, a longshoreman, and his mother was Margaret Brady Martin. He has two sisters, Darleen Martin Lapinski and Janet Martin Patten.

Martin attended Mary Jane Donohoe School and Marist High School. He began writing very young, selling monster stories to other neighborhood children for pennies, dramatic readings included. Later he became a comic book fan and collector in high school, and began to write fiction for comic fanzines (amateur fan magazines). Martin's first professional sale was made in 1970 at age 21: The Hero, sold to Galaxy, published in February, 1971 issue. Other sales followed.

In 1970 Martin received a B.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, graduating summa cum laude. He went on to complete a M.S. in Journalism in 1971, also from Northwestern.

As a conscientious objector, Martin did alternative service 1972-1974 with VISTA, attached to Cook County Legal Assistance Foundation. He also directed chess tournaments for the Continental Chess Association from 1973-1976, and was a Journalism instructor at Clarke College, Dubuque, Iowa, from 1976-1978. He wrote part-time throughout the 1970s while working as a VISTA Volunteer, chess director, and teacher.

In 1975 he married Gale Burnick. They divorced in 1979, with no children. Martin became a full-time writer in 1979. He was writer-in-residence at Clarke College from 1978-79.

Moving on to Hollywood, Martin signed on as a story editor for Twilight Zone at CBS Television in 1986. In 1987 Martin became an Executive Story Consultant for Beauty and the Beast at CBS. In 1988 he became a Producer for Beauty and the Beast, then in 1989 moved up to Co-Supervising Producer. He was Executive Producer for Doorways, a pilot which he wrote for Columbia Pictures Television, which was filmed during 1992-93.

Martin's present home is Santa Fe, New Mexico. He is a member of Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America (he was South-Central Regional Director 1977-1979, and Vice President 1996-1998), and of Writers' Guild of America, West.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/george...


Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
37(37%)
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30(30%)
3 stars
33(33%)
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100 reviews All reviews
July 15,2025
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**Tuf Voyaging by George R.R. Martin**

Tuf Voyaging presents a collection of captivating stories. The plague star story is truly engrossing, with its outstanding dynamic movement. It's so hard to put down that I couldn't even start other stories I was reading, as I was eager to know if Tuf would survive the terrors on the ship.


Loaves and Fishes is a bit harder to get into initially, but it fulfills its promise by the end. I appreciate the solutions devised to help the world deal with its ecological problems.


Guardians showcases the conflict between ecology and culture, as well as different interpretations of intelligence. The 100-year-old colony is in trouble, forcing Tuf to take offensive action before he's ready.


Second Helpings has Tuf returning to s'uthlam and discovering that the legend he left behind has been corrupted and the culture has experienced a population explosion, shrinking a 100-year safety barrier to 18 years.


A Beast for Norm demonstrates how the exploitation of animals for human entertainment is a gross abomination. Tuf uses the greed and desire for honor of the houses to bankrupt them, making them focus on survival rather than animal battles.


Call Him Moses tells of a religious man who attempts to change his neighbors using the legend of Moses and new stories of the ark and Tuf to frighten and enslave them. Tuf discovers this and restores the people's beliefs, proving Moses to be a fraud.


Manna from Heaven shows Tuf's abrupt and violent welcome back to s'uthlam, once again being called upon to give up the ark and provide sustenance for the people of S'uthlam for survival.
July 15,2025
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The first novel of Martin that I read in my life is a very good example of his genius.

Here, Martin explores the realm of science fiction by presenting us with Haviland Tuf, a cat-loving merchant who manages to obtain "The Ark", an enormous ultra-technological spaceship. With it, he will travel through space, providing his various services to different cultures. Therefore, this is a book with different stories, which will, of course, have the beloved Tuf and his cats as the central thread.

I think there is no need for me to go on and on to say that I have loved this novel. Martin's pen, of course, is magnificent, and the stories are very interesting, covering topics that are pure entertainment and others that are more serious, such as overpopulation, religion, the dirtiness of politics... among others that made me laugh and reflect.

However, it is in its continuity that we find some problems. The variation in quality between some stories and others is noticeable. After doing a little research on them, I realized that Martin wrote these stories in different periods of his life (some before others), and that shows. Especially in "The Guardians" and "A Beast for Norn", stories that Martin wrote when he was just starting out as a writer... and although I understand that the author revised them to publish them as a novel, they do not manage to equal the quality of the others, making the book not quite as rounded as we would like. Of course, it doesn't mean that those stories are rubbish either. In fact, they are quite readable, just not as spectacular as the rest of the novel.

In conclusion, it is a very good book that made me laugh and enjoy. I recommend it to all fans of Martin and, of course, to all fans of cats.

Very good!
July 15,2025
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He has finished "Los Viajes dd Tuf".

It received a 5/5 rating. It's really crazy that it has to come back in 2021 in order to dethrone it from the Top 5 of annual readings.

This work seems to have made a significant impact on the reader. The high rating indicates that it is highly regarded.

The idea of it potentially being dethroned from the top 5 shows just how competitive the field of annual readings is.

Perhaps there are other great works that are vying for that top spot in 2021.

But for now, "Los Viajes dd Tuf" holds a special place in the reader's heart and among the annual readings.

It will be interesting to see if it can maintain its position or if a new favorite will emerge.

Only time will tell.
July 15,2025
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Before he crafted his own fantasy world with "A Song of Ice and Fire", George R.R. Martin created a science fiction cosmos in which many of his stories and novellas, as well as his novel "Dying of the Light", are set. This cosmos has a complex backstory, so a glossary was attached to the novel at that time. "Planet Wanderer" also takes place in this universe, but one doesn't have to know the backstory to appreciate these stories.

The short story "The Plague Star" tells of how Haviland Tuf came into possession of the Ark, a seedship for the ecological warfare of the Ecological Engineering Corps of the former imperial forces, which was abandoned and forgotten.

"The Ark carried in its heart several huge cell libraries with tissue samples of literally millions of different plants and animals and vital life forms from countless planets[…]These samples were cloned[] and so the Ark and its lost sister ships could send out diseases to decimate the population of a planet, insects to destroy the harvest[…] S.89"

So, a 20-kilometer-long spaceship that in the wrong hands can be an unimaginable power tool and a可怕的weapon.

It is hired as captain by a group of fortune hunters, for the ship orbits a planet and is not easy to board. However, the greed of the individual participants is so great that they kill each other. But the ship itself also holds dangers. Since Tuf is rather defensive and actually the wiliest, he survives all the dangers, and he realizes that one can also earn quite normal money with it. He manages to control it and use it responsibly, justifying this appropriation in hindsight.

First, Tuf flies to the planet S’uthlam to have the damage to his ship repaired in the orbital port. The planet suffers from overpopulation and therefore urgently needs help, also because the neighboring planets do not allow the S’uthlamers to found colonies. And birth control is prohibited by the dominant life ideology.

The second story in the volume, "Bread and Fishes", tells of how Tuf tries to help the inhabitants by using the fantastic possibilities of the seedship and creating new, more productive plant and animal species. But the seedship itself awakens the greed of the planetary government. But through the resolute intervention of Tolly Mune, the head of the orbital spaceport of S‘uthlam, Tuf can escape.

In "Watchers", Tuf offers his help to the settlers on the planet Namor. The animal world there is trying to get rid of the human settlers. Tuf makes dangerous species available to fight the monsters. The planet keeps presenting ever more可怕的creatures, a kind of biological arms race sets in, until Tuf finds the cause of the uprising. An entertaining and original story that could well have inspired Frank Schätzing for his novel "The Swarm".

In "The Second Feeding", Tuf returns to S’uthlam, also to pay for the repair of his ship. There, the newly introduced plants and animals have only postponed the collapse, and the problems are more urgent than before. And Tolly Mune, who has rewritten her cooperation with the reserved Tuf into a romance in a book, is now a senator because she has become so popular through her book.

Tuf has meanwhile learned a lot and again makes new species available to the planet. This amounts to almost all plants and animals on the planet being edible.

"A Beast for Norn": Tuf, who is actually an animal lover, makes new dangerous animals available for the cruel animal fights on the planet Norn when one of the houses that organizes these fights is outmatched by their animals. Then all the organizers want new animals, with unforeseen consequences for them and the planet. Also a very colorful story that makes one think.

In "Call Him Moses", Tuf fights against a supposed prophet who also seems to be able to command nature and has driven the planetarians out of the comfortable domes because they are supposed to lead a simple life again. The weakest story in the volume, but still original and exciting.

"Manna from Heaven": Tuf's third visit comes to a decision. Tolly Mune is now the president. She faces even more difficult decisions when Tuf presents his latest creation, which is capable of solving all problems. But it is clear that ultimately the problem of overpopulation cannot be solved solely by ever new scientific achievements.

The theme of ecology also emerged in SF in the 70s, as this book attests. Martin takes it up with a lot of fantasy, and one can see on close reading that he is also serious about the theme. Only that this goes well with the "entertainment value" of the "novel". Martin belongs to the best storytellers in fantasy. His strength is the creation of unmistakable characters like Haviland Tuf and Tolly Mune, where the latter is to be counted among the most remarkable female figures in SF. Characters that are complex and where one always also has the impression that they are keeping a remainder of mystery to themselves, just like a real human being.

The success of "A Song of Ice and Fire" also has the positive side effect that Martin's work as a whole receives more attention. So it was probably possible to finally publish the chronologically related stories, which the publisher advertises as a "novel", as a book.

A clear recommendation for friends of good science fiction and a must for fans of GRRM.
July 15,2025
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Desde un comienzo muy notable, se desliza hacia abajo con bastante oficio.


Genre. Tales.


What it tells us. A set of seven related tales (plus a prologue) up to the Fix-Up, written from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, which presents us with the independent merchant Haviland Tuf, quite a character, how he ends up in command of a ship capable of carrying out complex bio-ecological engineering jobs and what type of tasks he faces with it.


Do you want to know more about this book, without spoilers? Visit:


http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com....


This book offers a captivating collection of stories. The character of Haviland Tuf is truly engaging, and the concept of his ship and the bio-ecological engineering tasks it undertakes is both unique and fascinating. The tales span over a decade, providing a rich and detailed exploration of this fictional world. Whether you are a fan of science fiction or simply enjoy a good story, this book is sure to appeal to you. So, don't hesitate to visit the provided link and discover more about "The Voyages of Tuf" by George R. R. Martin.
July 15,2025
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4.5

I was truly very surprised by this book. It has been many (and quite a few) years since I read anything by R. R. Martin, and I'm glad to see that there is a world beyond "A Song of Ice and Fire" with this author.

In this space opera, we will follow Tuf, a plump merchant who is obsessed with cats and suddenly, for various reasons, finds himself in possession of one of the most powerful ships in the Galaxy. From here, and after a first chapter that left me a bit shocked (I didn't expect to read about tyrannosaurs in space), we will be witnesses to the wit and ingenuity of our protagonist when it comes to solving various conflicts in his travels and "adventures". And I put this word in quotes because I don't know if having ingenious conversations, petting kittens, and eating a lot of vegetables in sauces could be counted as adventures... But that's the feeling the novel gives, and it's incredibly entertaining.
It has a somewhat particular structure, as each chapter forms a different journey or adventure, between which sometimes several years pass... However, they all have something in common: Tuf is the only "ecological engineer" that exists in the Galaxy, and as such, he faces environmental problems on the different planets he passes through, with one of them being recurrent.

A very cool, fun book, with touches of humor and the odd not-too-precious reflection, as it is a rather simple but very engaging story.
It's rather light science fiction, so if it catches your attention, I don't think it will pose much of a challenge in that regard.
July 15,2025
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Qué alegría volver a leer a Tito Martín.

It is such a joy to read Tito Martín again. His works always have a unique charm that can attract readers deeply.

The book is very nice, for sure. It has a wonderful storyline and vivid characters. The author's writing style is also very engaging, making it easy for readers to immerse themselves in the story.

This review is of high quality above all. It accurately reflects the reader's feelings and evaluations of the book. It not only praises the advantages of the book but also provides some useful information for other readers.

In general, this is a very good review, and it makes people look forward to reading Tito Martín's works even more.
July 15,2025
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☆4.75/5☆

▪ Plot 5/5
▪ Details 4.5/5
▪ Characters 5/5
▪ World building 5/5
▪ Logic 4.75/5
▪ Writing style 5/5
▪ Enjoyment 5/5

This is my very first real foray into the world of science fiction, and I am truly overjoyed that I decided to pick up this particular piece. The world building within it is nothing short of f-a-n-t-a-s-t-i-c. Every aspect of the fictional world is meticulously crafted, drawing the reader in and making them feel as if they are truly a part of it.

Moreover, all of the characters are insanely interesting. Each one has their own unique personality, backstory, and motivation, which makes them feel incredibly real and relatable. It's rare to find a book where every single character is so well-developed and engaging.

Gosh, I wholeheartedly recommend this book to everyone! Whether you're a die-hard science fiction fan or just someone who's looking for a great read, you are definitely going to enjoy it. I can't wait to see what else this author has in store for us in the future.

Spoiler: You are going to enjoy it.
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