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A review by mwplante
In the House of the Worm by George R.R. Martin
3.0
This SciFi-masquerading-as-Fantasy entry in Martin's "Thousand Worlds" future history series represents an interestingly vertical version of the hero's journey. In addition to the interesting orientation of the well-crafted narrative structure, Martin's depiction of the sheer terror of scrabbling through a pitch-dark (and sometimes rather squishy) space is wonderful.
The story ends a bit abruptly, but that is often the challenge with stand-alone, short-form genre fiction, I find. The author has created this intriguing world and character, and we are forced to move on at the end -- it is often a bit unsatisfying. But who knows, maybe if and when the Song of Ice and Fire is finished, Martin will return to his Thousand Worlds and the House of the Worm and perhaps allow us to see what happened to men and Grouns in the years and generations after Annelyn's journey.
The story ends a bit abruptly, but that is often the challenge with stand-alone, short-form genre fiction, I find. The author has created this intriguing world and character, and we are forced to move on at the end -- it is often a bit unsatisfying. But who knows, maybe if and when the Song of Ice and Fire is finished, Martin will return to his Thousand Worlds and the House of the Worm and perhaps allow us to see what happened to men and Grouns in the years and generations after Annelyn's journey.