Talk:Dying of the Light (Martin novel)

Book Review

(The following book review was entered on the primary page. I have edited it down and preserved the original here.)

Note : This is a review I myself wrote for Amazon.com (you can finf it there). I presume there si no copyright violation in posting it here?

David Rasquinha

For a first book, "Dying of the Light" deserves high praise. The storyline is complex and the quality and depth of imagination that Martin displays is tremendous. The title is clearly drawn from Dylan Thomas' great poem with the well known lines : "Rage, rage against the dying of the light; Do not go gently into that good night". Dylan Thomas wrote the poem for his father (who was then blind and close to death), urging him to battle, rather than surrender. So it is but natural to find that "Dying of the Light" is a story of death. Death on many levels, and how death is faced by the dying.

To start with, the plant of Worlorn, the locale for the book, is itself dying; a rogue planet whose erratic course is taking it irreversibly far from its neighboring stars, into a region of cold and dark where no life will survive. Worlorn's 15 cities, built during the brief festival when it passed close enough to a red giant star to permit a brief window for life to thrive, are dying too. Built to celebrate the diverse cultures of 15 planetary systems, they have been largely abandoned, their systems and maintenance are failing and soon they will be cold dead shells. And of course the cast of characters is also flirting with death. Dirk t'Larien, the protagonist, finds life empty and of little attraction after his girlfriend Gwen Delvano drops him. Most poignant of all, the Kavalar race, into which she has married (the relationship is too complex to describe in a review so I use the word married) is itself dying in a cultural manner of speaking. Their home plant has survived a numerous attacks in a planetary war and in response they have evolved social institutions and human relationship patterns to cope with the depredation of the war. Yet now that the war is long past, they find themselves trapped between those who would recognise that the old ways need to be reviewed for the current day, and those who believe that any dilution of the old ways spells the end of Kavalar culture.

The battles then, of all these varying actors are played out beneath the dying light falling on Worlorn. At the end, many of the characters have indeed died (Martin leaves some endings deliberately ambiguous) but it is the manner in which they have faced their fears (of death and of life) that make the story great. This is not simplistic, easy reading science fiction, with lasers and spaceships and other bells and whistles, but rather mature science fiction, looking at human relationships in a context that is difficult to comprehend.

As with all Martin's work, the characters are humanly grey rather than stark black and white. The "good guys" are tainted by weaknesses, while the "bad guys" often have some redeeming features. "Dying of the Light" also foreshadows the breadth of imagination and the depth of focus that characterize Martin's subsequent works, most of all the Song of Ice and Fire series. Martin's descriptions of the various cultures (as embodied in the festival cities) is matchless. An excellent example is his description of the city of Kryne Lamiya, designed by its planetary culture in such a way that the winds which blow through its streets and bounce off its towers, play an actual symphony of music. This book is puny when viewed against the Ice and Fire series, but well worth a read all the same. I highly recommend it to Martin's fans and to all readers of quality science fiction.

Wikipedia is non-point-of-view, meaning you cannot put opinions of works on the relevant pages. You can put up references to professional reviews, either print or online, but they must not be fan reviews. Fan and Amazon reviews are not regarded as viable sources. Reprinting reviews ad verbatim is indeed in violation of copyright, especially as Amazon reviews become the property of Amazon.com upon submission.--Werthead 11:24, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:GeorgeRRMartin DyingOfTheLight.jpg

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Other Dungeons & Dragons influences on this book

Did you notice the "Baldur" planet, like Baldur's Gate on the Forgotten Realms D&D campaign setting ? I also have noticed other little references throughout the book but can't remember them right now... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.57.50.42 (talk) 09:31, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Forgotten Realms was first released in 1987, ten years after this novel was released. Although the first development date is 1967, ten years before this novel. The game D & D was first released in 1974. It is doubtful that GRRM knew of D&D, though of course he might have. So, all-in-all, it is more likely that Forgotten Realms makes reference to this book, than that this book makes reference to the not-yet-released D&D campaign setting.Nick Beeson (talk) 15:53, 18 October 2014 (UTC)

Requested move 27 July 2021

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved. Consensus for the two articles to be moved to Dying of the Light (Martin novel) and The Dying of the Light (Dibdin novel) respectively. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jack Frost (talk) 23:06, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

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• Dying of the Light (1977 novel) → Dying of the Light (novel)
• The Dying of the Light (1993 novel) → The Dying of the Light (novel)

– WP:SMALLDIFFS; novels are disambiguated by author, not by year. –LaundryPizza03 (dc̄) 09:13, 27 July 2021 (UTC)

• Comment. Sorry, but if I had to imagine the best recipe for mistakes/confusion, those two proposed moves would fit the bill! Martinevans123 (talk)
• Oppose as @Martinevans123: per WP:SMALLDIFFS ironically, we don't make a big thing of a small diff unless it helps people this proposal just seems designed to make life difficult. However counter-propose per normal dabs Dying of the Light (Martin novel) and The Dying of the Light (Dibdin novel) to help readers. In ictu oculi (talk) 15:49, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per In ictu oculi. I'm fine with the pages either where they are or the counter-proposal. Having the two pages only differentiated by "the" seems like asking for pain for users. Darker Dreams (talk) 16:10, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
• Move to Dying of the Light (Martin novel) and The Dying of the Light (Dibdin novel) - A difference of only a grammatical article is almost never enough to clearly disambiguate. WP:BOOKDAB does state to use author not year for disambiguation, and there's no clear reason not to do that in this case. OPs suggested destinations could be created as redirects to the specific books though. -- Netoholic @ 23:57, 27 July 2021 (UTC)
• Disambiguate by author per Netoholic. Years are poor disambiguators. No such user (talk) 10:39, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
• Oppose per Netoholic. Martinevans123 (talk) 11:03, 28 July 2021 (UTC)
• Support alternative suggestion by author. -- Necrothesp (talk) 13:25, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.