The result is a neat little morality play that wouldn't have been out of place on The Twilight Zone. Tuf is petitioned by each ruling house in turn to give them the most ferocious beasts. The stories often resolve around moral quandaries: 'A Beast for Norn' sees Tuf recruited to help a planet which pits animals into gladiatorial combat against one another. During his initial visit Tuf incurs a massive repair bill and he periodically has to return to satisfy his monetary debt to the planet and renew his personal friendship (as much as Tuf has one) with Molly Tune, the planet's dockmaster. Three of these stories form a recurring narrative when Tuf has to visit the planet S'uthlam, one of the few worlds advanced enough to be able to repair and maintain the Ark. After the first, 'The Plague Star', which explains how Tuf came to possess the Ark, the rest relate episodes where Tuf has to use the Ark's amazing abilities to resolve a crisis or emergency. The book consists of seven short stories (the first of which is long enough to qualify as a novella).

It might not be quite the book that saved Martin's writing career, but it certainly helped give it a bit of a leg-up when it was urgently needed. The result, Tuf Voyaging, sold reasonably and kick-started Martin's literary career again, leading to the Wild Cards series and, a decade later, A Game of Thrones. In the mid-1980s, following the disastrous performance of the novel The Armageddon Rag and his move into Hollywood, Martin was convinced to repackage the old stories with several new ones to make a 'fix-up' novel, one book formed from several smaller tales. Martin began writing stories about Haviland Tuf in the mid-1970s. Accompanied only his crew of telepathic cats, Tuf sets out on a voyage that will take him to many worlds.and many problems. Fortunately for the galaxy, its new owner is the morally-minded and fussy merchant Haviland Tuf. With its cargo of ferocious beasts and genetically-engineered plagues, the Ark can lay waste to entire star systems. But one of the Empire's old seedships, the Ark, has been rediscovered. Most of its amazing technology was lost and the galaxy settled back into a period of decline.

A thousand years ago the old Earth Empire collapsed.

George rr martin tuf