Rogues by George RR Martin & Gardner Dozois

Book Review by Paul Cockburn | 03 Oct 2014
Book title: Rogues
Author: George RR Martin and Gardner Dozois

Thanks to Game of Thrones, George RR Martin has leapt from fantasy ghetto to mainstream. The same can’t be said of Gardner Dozois, although the multi-award winning former editor of Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine is arguably just as influential a figure in SF/Fantasy. So, what to expect of Rogues, the seventh themed anthology that Martin and Dozois have put together in just five years? An opportunity to read the best new writing, hooked with the bait of a new Game of Thrones story?

Sadly, though the pair deliberately 'mix-up' genres from one story to the next, this remains an all-too-repetitive collection; while some stories are entertaining enough, the result’s hardly ground-breaking. While one assumes Dozois does the heavy editorial lifting (Martin still has some eagerly awaited books to write, after all), the big man remains a commanding presence with invited writers as diverse as Joe Abercrombie, Neil Gaiman, and Connie Willis echoing his choice of strongly narrated stories featuring characters or situations steeped in their own work. The result is that this 800+ page anthology is best approached if you already have some previous experience of the respective authors’ imaginary worlds. [Paul Cockburn]

Out now, published by Titan Books, RRP £30