I finished reading Tuf Voyaging recently. It is written by George RR Martin, yes, THE George RR Martin who wrote A Song of Ice and Fire, a.k.a. the Game of Thrones. George is one of my favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy writers, who always has great ideas, unique perspectives, detailed fabrications, and touching plots in his works.
In this book, the main character Tuf acquired a seedship, which is a powerful relic from the ancient war, and sailed over the space and experienced a series of adventures. I’ve never thought of seasoning a space opera with biologic technology, but it turns out to be good under the magical hands of George.
Apparently George is referring to the Bible in this book, which is quite obvious when you see chapter titles: “Loaves and Fishes”, “Call Him Moses”, and “Manna from Heaven”. It goes chapter by chapter with stories about how Tuf uses the seedship to provide solutions to all kinds of problems from worlds along his voyage over the space. The reference to the Bible makes it interesting to see how Tuf reproduces something old on a brand stage, grants the story with a little bit religious style, but unfortunately also drives the character development to an improper direction. At the end of the story, Tuf has made up his mind to be the actual speaker of the greater good, and fulfilled his thought with the power of his seedship. In other words, he (regards himself as if he) became a semi-god and not a common human any more. I cannot say that I agree with this attitude. Though great power comes with great responsibility, novels and comics about this topic usually will not let the main character to express this opinion in a way with such arrogance.
George usually likes to put an avatar of himself in his novels, such as Samwell Tarly in the Game of Thrones. In Tuf Voyaging, the avatar is Tuf himself. Considering that the idea of the novel is to discuss power and responsibility, and the avatar of the author is the one who holds the power, I kinda smelled the stink of a Mary Sue story when reading the book. You know, it always feels a little bit subtle when you find the author imagining himself to have some kind of great power. Except for that, my overall experience with the book is OK. There are some good characters established, and the main plot about the population issue of S’uthlam is well composed and intriguing.
All in all, I have complicated feelings about this book. On the one hand, George presents a set of great stories with his wonderful imagination and storytelling techniques, but on the other, there are also some annoying setups in the major plot that cannot be ignored. I would say yes, it is worth the time for reading, and it could be interesting to see how far can George RR Martin go to make a Mary Sue character.