Downfall of a dynasty in other stories?

“Avoid incest at all costs. I may write about incest but I do not endorse it, let us make that perfectly clear.” –George R.R. Martin, Playboy interview

This page is here to list the stories of George RR Martin and how many he uses the concept of real or implied genetic manipulation of incest and its effects in his literature. This is a companion page to the main Incest=Downfall of a Dynasty page. This is not a real world comparison essay because real world rules have little to nothing to do with this element of his fiction. The included story list what I have read of Martin’s bibliography outside of the complete A Song of Ice and Fire universe. This includes most everything not lost to time, or just not published anywhere. If you find something not on this list, please let me know.

The genetic manipulation of incest and selective breeding is not a factor in most of the stories because it just doesn’t happen. Out of the seventy-plus stories listed, it is only addressed in seven, with all characters either avoiding it, or it brings a downfall to the family.

If it is added to the plot, then we see that that clan/lineage is dying out. This includes the controlling of women. The most we see manipulating the natural order of things is in the Tuf Voyaging stories where there is a morality to playing with genetics to create “super beings” of some sort. The story always ends at some cost to lives and the environment.

Let’s take a quick look at the different stories. Incest stories implied or actual are in bold…

Novels

1. Dying of the Light (1977)Plenty of relationship issues in this one, but none of them are about genetics or incest as a way of success. Polygamy and poly-amorous relations are a huge theme. Here you can see a situation that is parrallel to the current situation in the Night’s Watch. This society has a armageddon-like collapse and the sexual tendencies are arranged based on sorrow and necessity, with women being available, yet kept safe underground like we see in Mole’s Town. In A Dance with Dragons we see Jon sending various Free Folk people to Mole’s Town to keep them safe.
   • Jamis-Lion wrote that sin had finally passed from High Kavalaan when the eyn-kethi were safely locked away from the daylight, back in the caves from which they had issued, where their shame could not be seen. Vikary wrote that the Kavalar survivors had fought back as best they could. They no longer had the technological skills to construct airtight sterilized chambers; but no doubt rumors of such places had drifted down the years to them, and they still hoped that such places could be proof against disease. So the surviving women were secured in prisonlike hospitals deep under the ground, in the safest part of the holdfast, the farthest from the contaminated wind and rain and water. Men who had once roamed and hunted and warred with their wives by their sides now teamed with other men, both grieving for lost partners. To relieve the sexual tensions-and maintain the gene pool as best they could, if they even understood such things-the men who lived through the Sorrowing Plague made their women sexual property of all. To insure as many children as possible, they made them perpetual breeders who lived their lives safe from danger and in constant pregnancy. The holdfasts that did not adopt such measures failed to survive; those that did passed on a cultural heritage.
     Other changes took root as well. Tara had been a religious world, home of the Irish-Roman Reformed Catholic Church, and the urge to monogamy died hard. The patterns appeared in two mutated forms; the strong emotional attachments that grew up between male hunting partners became the basis for the intense total relationship of teyn-and-teyn, while those men who desired a semi-exclusive bond with a woman created betheyns by capturing females from other holdfasts. The leaders encouraged such raidings, Jaan Vikary said; new women meant new blood, more children, a larger population, and thus a better chance of survival. It was unthinkable that any man take exclusive possession of one of the eyn-kethi; but a man who could bring a woman in from outside was rewarded with honors and a seat in the councils of leadership and, perhaps most importantly, the woman herself.

   Also, here again we see GRRM using a “gathering” as a means to relationships and protection of people and such. This “gathering” idea is also seen in Bitterblooms and even in ASOIAF.

   • Vikary cradled his beer mug between two large hands and drank from it thoughtfully. “That is simple enough,” he said. “I am a highbond Kavalar of the Ironjade Gathering, bonded to Gwen Delvano by jade-and-silver. My betheyn was sent to Worlorn by vote of the highbond council, so it is natural that I am here too, and my teyn. Do you understand?”

   And we see a prototype to the free folk “stealing” and how the woman is in charge. And new blood means better survival and those who bring new blood are honored (like in Bitterblooms):

   • Other changes took root as well. Tara had been a religious world, home of the Irish-Roman Reformed Catholic Church, and the urge to monogamy died hard. The patterns appeared in two mutated forms; the strong emotional attachments that grew up between male hunting partners became the basis for the intense total relationship of teyn-and-teyn, while those men who desired a semi-exclusive bond with a woman created betheyns by capturing females from other holdfasts. The leaders encouraged such raidings, Jaan Vikary said; new women meant new blood, more children, a larger population, and thus a better chance of survival. It was unthinkable that any man take exclusive possession of one of the eyn-kethi; but a man who could bring a woman in from outside was rewarded with honors and a seat in the councils of leadership and, perhaps most importantly, the woman herself.
2. Windhaven (1981, with Lisa Tuttle). I have the three original magazine stories, as well as the fix-up novel that includes a prologue and epilogue. No issues here.
   • The Storms of Windhaven (1975)
   • One-Wing part 1 (January 1980)
   • One-Wing part 2 (February 1980)
3. Fevre Dream (1982)
4. The Armageddon Rag (1983)- The “flop” of Martin’s that tells the tale of the rock n’ roll band, Nazgûl. There is something that could be considered a slight version of implied incest, but not in any actual sense of an adult would consider it. Instead we have a young boy of around 8-9 years of age who sees his first naked female and gets aroused (Much like Bran witnessing the couple having sex). The main character, Sander (Sandy) Blair, witnesses his naked female cousin when he is a young boy. This situation happens in a similar setting as Jon and Ygritte in the cave. The thing is, nothing happens at all between Sandy and his cousin, and Sandy never thinks about his cousin again at all, not even when he is having sex with or desiring other women. It was simply an arousal of sexuality in a young boy, not a desire for sexing with family. In the end, Sandy rejects the fire-woman Ananda and sticks with the hippie flower children/free folk.
   • Maggie dropped his shirt on the concrete, pulled up his undershirt. It got stuck as she tried to get it up over his head. She left him that way, pressed against the car. He reached up and tried to untangle his tee shirt, and felt Maggie kiss his bare chest. It was cold out there. He pulled the tee shirt free, dropped it, and she ran a tongue around one nipple, making him shiver. Her hands were undoing his belt buckle. “I had a hard-on like this once in 1959, when I saw my cousin Sally taking a bath,” he announced. “It was so hard it hurt.” Maggie pulled down his jeans. “This isn’t fair,” Sandy said. “I’m freezing to death, and you’re completely dressed.” She stood up, grinning, and undid her own blouse.
5. Hunter’s Run (2007, expanded version of the novella Shadow Twin, with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham)

Short Stories, Novellas & Novelettes

Fanzine and Comic work

1. Only Kids Are Afraid of the Dark (1965, fully transcribed and noted on this page here.)
2. The Fortress (1968, revised as Under Siege)
3. The Hero (1968, first professional sale in 1971)
4. And Death His Legacy (1968)

Professional Publications

1. The Hero (1971)
2. The Exist to Santa Breta (1972)
3. The Second Kind of Loneliness (1972)
4. The Computer was a fish (1972). Not set in any world, this is a journalistic take describing the development and relationship between computers, humans, and chess at that date in time.
5. Dark, Dark Were the Tunnels (1973)This is another interesting case of a civilization rejecting incest which results in a choice/risk to die off instead. After a bit of a global Armageddon situation, some humans left Earth and went to the moon (Luna), and they stayed “human” looking. The rest of the humans went underground on Earth to survive, and they mutated. An inversion to the “human” who came from space looking “human” as we readers know it, but the real humans who stayed on Terra-forma proper now look “alien”. The Humans who went underground and changed also developed the talent to psi-link/telepathically talk with their animals. The Luna-Humans are now coming back down to Earth to look for humans to breed and live with in order to re-develop civilization. This concept is just what Jon and Val are going to do with the free folk as they (or one or the other) integrate the two now-separate civilizations back in to one.
   • “Maybe,” Von der Stadt said. “I can’t see what you are so hot on discovering survivors for anyway, though. I mean, the expedition is important and all that. We’ve got to re-establish spaceflight, and this is a good test for our new hardware. And I guess you scientists can pick up some good stuff for the museums. But humans? What did Earth ever get us besides the Great Famine?”

   Ciffonetto smiled tolerantly. “It’s because of the Great Famine that we want to find humans,” he said. He paused. “We’ve got enough to entice even Nagel now. Let’s head back.”

   He started walking back in the direction they had come, and resumed talking. “The Great Famine was an unavoidable result of the war on Earth,” he said. “When supplies stopped coming, there was absolutely no way to keep all the people in the lunar colony alive. Ninety per cent starved.

   “Luna could be made self-sufficient, but only with a very small population. That’s what happened. The population adjusted itself. But we recycled our air and our water, grew foods in hydroponic tanks. We struggled, but we survived. And began to rebuild.

   “But we lost a lot. Too many people died. Our genetic pool was terribly small, and not too diverse. The colony had never had a lot of racial diversity to begin with.

   “That hasn’t helped. Population actually declined for a long time after we had the physical resources to support more people. The idea of in-breeding didn’t go over. Now population’s going up again, but slowly. We’re stagnant, Von der Stadt. It’s taken us nearly five centuries to get space travel going again, for example. And we still haven’t duplicated many of the things they had back on Earth before the disaster.”

   Von der Stadt frowned. “Stagnant’s a strong word,” he said. “I think we’ve done pretty good.”

   Ciffonetto dismissed the comment with a wave of his flashlight. “Pretty good,” he said. “Not good enough. We’re not going anywhere. There’s so damn few changes, so little in the way of new ideas. We need fresh viewpoints, fresh genetic stock. We need the stimulation of contact with a foreign culture.

   “Survivors would give us that. After all Earth’s been through, they’d have to have changed in some ways. And they’d be proof that human life can still flourish on Earth. That’s crucial if we’re going to establish a colony here.” The last point was tacked on almost as an afterthought, but caught Von der Stadt’s approval. He nodded gravely.

   They had reached the station again. Ciffonetto headed straight for the platform. “C’mon,” he said, “let’s get back to base. I can’t wait to see Nagel’s face drop when I tell him what we’ve found.”

6. Night Shift (1973)
7. Override (1973)- No incest, but definitely brings to light the idea that Bran is stronger than Bloodraven in his talents. No genetics issues at all. Greenseeing is Enlightenment.
8. A Peripheral Affair (1973)- The Peripheral Affair is the story of Admiral Jefferson Mandel, a space captain who is assigned to investigate the disappearance of a ship from the fleet of humans. This disappearance can be taken almost like a declaration of war of other alien races, and no sexy times.
9. Slide Show (1973)
10. With Morning Comes Mistfall (1973)
11. Fast-Friend (1973) Some sources say this story was written in 1976, but the copy I have says 1973.
12. F.T.A. (1974)
13. Run to Starlight (1974)- space football and so much more.
14. A Song for Lya (1974, Hugo Award winner)- No incest, but a few male-female non-related relationships, and even the mention of “open” relationships in more than one form. No genetics issues at all. We do get the very clear idea for the first time that to touch someone creates a better psi-link bond, and to have sex with someone creates the strongest psi-link bond of all.
15. …And Seven Times Never Kill Man (1975)No sex or genetics at all. This is about religious and racial superiority of the Steel Angel dragons coming in with fire and burning out the indigenous, and the pyramids with Bakkalon having mind control over its worshipers. Read about Bakkalon here.There is, however, this one line that leaves open the possibility that Arik may have been in some sort of inter-species relationship with the bitter speaker Jaenshi female. Arik “cloaked” the bitter speaker. The cloak is a mix of grey Jaenshi fur and Arik’s red hair. The second quote, (which is like the ASOAIF scene of the free folk paying homage to Jon as they pass through the gate), we see earlier in the story what that could mean here:
    • The bitter speaker stared at her. “Arik deathcloth. Gave.”  Ryther nodded, abstractly. She had it now, hanging just above her bunk; a strange small thing, woven partly from Jaenshi fur and mostly from long silken strands of flame red hair. On it, gray against the red, was a crude but recognizable caricature of Arik neKrol. She had wondered at that, too. The tribute of a widow? A child? Or just a friend? What had happened to Arik during the year the Lights had been away? If only she had been back on time, then . . . but she’d lost three months on Jamison’s World, checking dealer after dealer in an effort to unload the worthless statuettes. It had been middle autumn before the Lights of Jolostar returned to Corlos, to find neKrol’s base in ruins, the Angels already gathering in their harvests.
    • Other workmen came and went as the morning turned to afternoon and the afternoon to dusk, setting their craft before him. He looked over each piece carefully, taking some and declining others, paying for what he took in salt. Before full darkness had descended, a small pile of goods sat by his right hand; a matched set of redstone knives, a gray deathcloth woven from the fur of an elderly Jaenshi by his widow and friends (with his face wrought upon it in the silky golden hairs of a pseudomonk), a bone spear with tracings that reminded neKrol of the runes of Old Earth legend; and statues.
16. The Last Super Bowl Game (1975)
17. Night of the Vampyres (1975)- Nope. This short story is a back and forth between two POV’s that covers the perspectives of what is basically a modern day civil war between the government and the “movement” of the continuing hippie doctrine.
    • Possibly related in-universe to Armageddon Rag.
18. The Runners (1975)
19. A Beast for Norn (1976, revised for Tuf Voyaging)
20. The Computer Cried Charge! (1976, fully transcribed on this page here.)
21. For a Single Yesterday (1976)Despite a huge world war that has decimated almost all of the world’s population, this one surviving group of people are not opting for incest. Instead, the hero in the end, Rob Winters, turns the struggling group around and saves it in the end. This is also another story where the Bloodraven-type man is used:The years since then have been good ones, I guess. Winters is a better leader than I was. The timetrips never turned up any knowledge worth a damn, but the search expeditions proved fruitful. There are more than two hundred people in town now, most of them people that Winters brought in.It’s a real town, too. We have electricity and a library, and plenty of food. And a doctor—a real doctor that Winters found a hundred miles from here. We got so prosperous that the Sons of the Blast heard about us and came back for a little fun. Winters had his militia beat them off and hunt down the ones who tried to escape.
22. In the House of the Worm (1976)This story could count as an “implied” incest. While the yaga-la-hai are not explicitly noted as being an incestuous society, but there is enough to draw that conclusion among the limited elites. They all look the same and are supremely snobbish to any who rank “below” them (even though it is the “lowly” who provide the elite with their food and comforts). The Targaryens are a House of Wyrm/Dragons, while Jaime and Cersei Lannister are more visually depicted here. Annelyn even describes Caralee as looking like him in this scene:
    • “Don’t you worry about the sun dying?” Caralee asked him, tossing blond curls easily as she turned to face him. She looked enough like Annelyn to be his sister-twin; perhaps that was why he wanted her so. “About the burrows growing cold?”
    • The Meatbringer laughed; his thick body shook and the cape of golden ringlets danced on his shoulders. “The Manworm! You want to know, Groff, not your mindless master. Why? Because among the yaga-la-hai I am something less than a man, because among grouns I am something less than a groun. I am the first of the Third People. The yaga-la-hai decline, as do the grouns, but I go among both and plant my seed,” he looked at Annelyn “in those like Caralee, and in the groun-women. Soon there will be others like me. That is why. And to know. I know more than your Manworm, or you, more than the Great Groun. You live lies, but I have seen and heard all who live in the House of the Worm, and I believe none of it. The White Worm is a lie, do you know that? And the Manworm. I think I even know how that came to be. A pleasant tale. Shall I tell you?”

    And in the end, after Annelyn comes back from his “ranging” and he is armed with his new truths, he is laughed at even though the enemy is coming to eat them… just like Slynt and co. when Jon returns and they don’t believe him, but Aemon does.And Annelyn also doesn’t desire Caralee anymore after his “third eye” opens, just as we see Jaime is rejecting Cersei as he realizes what she is.

    

    • Afterward, he became a familiar figure among the yaga-la-hai, though he lost his flair for dress and much of his fine wit. Instead, he spoke endlessly and persuasively of forgotten crimes and the sins of bygone eons, painting deliciously dark pictures of monster worms who bred beneath the House and would one day rise to consume all. He was fond of telling the worm-children that they ought to lie with grouns, instead of cooking them, so that a new people might be fashioned to resist his nightmare worms.
23. The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr (1976)
24. Meathouse Man (1976)- No incest, but plenty of failed human relationships, “prostitution” in a weird way. Truly a sad story in the end. No genetics issues at all.
25. Men of Greywater Station (1976)
26. Nobody Leaves New Pittsburg (1976)
27. Nor the Many-Colored Fires of a Star Ring (1976)- No incest at all. There is a romance between two co-workers; one a loner man who likes to view everything and his supportive scientist girlfriend.
28. Patrick Henry, Jupiter, and the Little Red Brick Spaceship (1976)- No, no incest whatsoever. There is one romantically linked couple, but that is not in anyway a main focus of the story.
29. Starlady (1976)- No incest, but plenty of open relationships and prostitution between all races and genders.
30. This Tower of Ashes (1976)- No incest, but a failed relationship… and weird white spiders
31. Bitterblooms (1977) Transcribed and book club noted here. As mentioned in the main post, the main clan elder titled Voice, Creg, is an overbearing control freak. It is not until after Voice Creg dies, that the people of Carinhall start to rebound in population. Also, GRRM rarely uses the same names from story to story, but this is a rare case of using the name Creg again as Cregan Karstark, and we readers all know that the Arnolf and Cregan were going to try and push incest because they wanted power and control… it is all manipulation, that is it.The same reason why GRRM said Tywin chose to marry Joanna- power and control=GREED! Just as Tywin made the match between Tyrek and the infant Lady Ermesande just so the Lannisters can claim their lands; the way Tywin forced the marriage between Tyrion and Sansa so that the Lannisters can claim Winterfell, the way Tywin schemed with Sybell Spicer adding Jeyne Westerling to the Red Wedding element.

    Q: We see marriages that are almost always between families seeking to ally themselves to one another. Given this context, it always seemed strange that the marriage of Tywin Lannister was to a first cousin, and even stranger when you consider how pragmatic and ambitious Tywin was. Or was it truly a love match?

    GRRM: “Noble houses usually make marriages of convenience to build alliances. As a matter of fact, it’s a common practice not only among the noble class, but also among the middle class and even among peasants: If somebody has a piece of land, he marries his daughter with somebody who has an even bigger piece of land, in the hope that all that land will belong to his grandchildren some day.

    “There is another clear motive [for Tywin], which is to reinforce the family’s bloodline. The Targayren are the extreme example of that policy: they only marry within the family to keep the purity of the blood, and that way you avoid the problem of having several candidates for the throne or the rule of the family.”

    And in ASOIAF, Jon Snow automatically puts an end to it before it happens by instead taking the northern/Westerosi way and marrying Alys to Sigorn to create a new union between two houses. Link to essay that details Jon acting as the Sun’s son, or, father of the realm.

    And Shawn of Carinhall in Bitterblooms is honored for bringing in new blood:

    • Devin honored her for bringing so much fresh blood into Carinhall, and later another Voice would name her for exceptional prowess as a trader.
32. The Stone City (1977)- no incest, but plenty of open relationships and prostitution between all races and genders. No genetics issues at all.
33. Weekend in a War Zone (1977)- Nope. No incest issues. Just a story about how bloodlust and war can change a man into an unrecognizable terror.
34. Call Him Moses (1978)
35. Sandkings (1979, Hugo and Nebula Award winner)- No incest, but a failed past relationship with a girlfriend. Oh, and the main guy reeealllly wants to be worshiped. No genetics issues at all.
36. Warship (1979)- No incest, but mentions of a past (non-related) relationship with someone. No genetics issues at all.
37. The Way of Cross and Dragon (1979, Hugo Award winner)- it has been a long, long time since I have read this one. There isn’t any sex at all in this one, as it is more about the creating of “gods”, and that to have worshipers is to have control, and lots about heresy and religion distorting the truth.
38. Nightflyers (1980, revised for Nightflyers)This is more to the “implied” end of the spectrum so I am including it anyway for the compare/contrast. The main guy, Royd Eris, was created for the purpose of a future romantic relationship. The mother (a fire/Targaryen protoype, who flies around in a ship made of three eggs) ends up dying and second-lifing herself in to a crystalline ruby jewel, but before that, the notion of incest doesn’t go over very well and is rejected from the start as Royd never had sex with his “mother”, and he is not technically her son.
    • They had boarded starships before, all of them, but never like this. Most ships docked flush against the station, but the craft that Karoly d’Branin had chartered for his mission was too large, and too singular in design. It loomed ahead, three small eggs side-by-side, two larger spheres beneath and at right angles, the cylinder of the driveroom between, lengths of tube connecting it all.
    • “Serious,” he said, “but not dangerous. Hold three is a complete ruin, hanging from my ship like a broken metal eggshell, but the damage was confined.

    And Melantha is an “improved model” because she comes from two smart scientist people from Prometheus. Here we see open/non-monogamous relationships again. This is that sexually strong feminist thing that GRRM favors writing about.

    • By the third week out she had sexed with all four of the men on board and two of the other women. Even in bed she was always active, exhausting most of her partners. Royd watched her with consuming interest.

    Here Royd explains his origins as a lab created partner to his “mother”. Note how many details match Mad King Aerys, as well as Daenerys “Mother of Dragons”:

    • My mother did not worry about how often she and her crews returned home. Her ships were her home. She seldom visited the same world twice if she could avoid it.”
      “Adventurous,” Melantha said.
      “No,” said Royd. “Sociopathic. My mother did not like people, you see. Not at all. Her one great dream was to free herself from the necessity of crew. When she grew rich enough, she had it done. The Nightflyer was the result. After she boarded it at Newholme, she never touched a human being again, or walked a planet’s surface. She did all her business from the compartments that are now mine. She was insane, but she did have an interesting life, even after that. The worlds she saw, Karoly! The things she might have told you! Your heart would break. She destroyed most of her records, however, for fear that other people might get some use or pleasure from her experience after her death. She was like that.”
      “And you?” the xenotech said.
      “I should not call her my mother,” Royd continued. “I am her cross-sex clone. After thirty years of flying this ship alone, she was bored. I was to be her companion and lover. She could shape me to be a perfect diversion.
      She had no patience with children, however, and no desire to raise me herself. As an embryo, I was placed in a nurturant tank. The computer was my teacher. I was to be released when I had attained the age of puberty, at which time she guessed I would be fit company.
      “Her death, a few months after the cloning, ruined the plan. She had programmed the ship for such an eventuality, however. It dropped out of drive and shut down, drifted in interstellar space for eleven years while the computer made a human being out of me. That was how I inherited the Nightftyer. When I was freed, it took me some years to puzzle out the operation of the ship and my own origins.”
      “Fascinating,” said d’Branin.
      “Yes,” said the female linguist, “but it doesn’t explain why you keep yourself in isolation.”
      “Ah, but it does,” Melantha Jhirl said. “Captain, perhaps you should explain further for the less improved models?”
      “My mother hated planets,” Royd said. “She hated stinks and dirt and bacteria, the irregularity of the weather, the sight of other people. She engineered for us a flawless environment, as sterile as she could possibly make it. She disliked gravity as well. She was accustomed to weightlessness, and preferred it. These were the conditions under which I was born and raised.

    And we read a few times how Royd is choosing Melantha, which makes the mother-ship jealous, but this makes Royd nervous with fear, because every time in the past that he has tried relationships with outside people, the mother-ship kills them.

    “I watched you copulating.”
    She smiled. “Ah,” she said, “I’m good at it.”
    “I wouldn’t know,” Royd said. “You’re good to watch.”
    Silence. She tried not to hear the steady, faint dripping off to her right. “Yes,” she said after a long hesitation.
    “Yes? What?”
    “Yes, Royd,” she said, “I would probably sex with you if it were possible.”
    “How did you know what I was thinking?” Royd’s voice was suddenly frightened, full of anxiety and something close to fear.

39. The Ice Dragon (1980 short story, 2006 children’s book)
40. The Fall (1981, with Lisa Tuttle, revised for Windhaven)
41. Guardians (1981, revised for Tuf Voyaging)
42. The Needle Men (1981)- No incest in anyway. There is a love interest, but I will let you read it here if you so chose.
43. Remembering Melody (1981, later made into an episode of Twilight Zone.)Nope, no incest. But again in this ghost story we get information that orgies and open relationships were the norm between people. In the current timeline the main protagonist is a committed relationship with his girlfriend, and she is supportive of him and the difficulties he is going thorough.
    • I want to point out that this story was made into a tv episode that I have watched. While it was rather close to the book canon, the showrunners changed the girlfriend from supportive and cordial to a jealous “minx” type of cliché. Disappointing.
44. Closing Time (1982). A very short story and precursor to skinchanging and Armageddon.
45. In the Lost Lands (1982)
46. Unsound Variations (1982)
47. The Monkey Treatment (1983)
48. Loaves and Fishes (1985, revised for Tuf Voyaging)
49. Manna from Heaven (1985, revised for Tuf Voyaging)
50. The Plague Star (1985)- Prologue transcribed here.
51. Portraits of His Children (1985)- I often mention that some stories there in “implied” incest, and aside from House of the Worm being one, the character Richard Cantling in Portraits of His Children is another. This story appears to be a personal critique GRRM is applying to himself and his writing career. Martin has said the story Meathouse Man is deeply personal and it is easy to see how this story written in a similar time period could also be an introspective analysis. There is no actual incest in Portraits… , but the crazy Cantling (crazy in the way Cersei, Lysa, and Arnolf Karstak are) fantasizes in a dreamlike sequence that this painting (one of a few) comes to life and calls him “daddy” and it gets supremely weird and often emotionally difficult to read; the “show me where it hurts” scenes. All of these surprise paintings of his own book characters are being sent to him by his real-life daughter, Michelle. The ongoing issue with Cantling is that he considers his book characters his “children”, and they come to life for him, and he is “mad” and he goes to his own mental “darkling stream” journey. To cut to the end, Michelle ends up rejecting Cantling  like her mother did before she died. The difference being Michelle accuses her father of rape because of a novel he wrote and published that was based on her life. Michelle has a caustic fallout with her father over the “mind rape” he causes her. It is because of these inappropriate “relationships” the main character has with his “children” combined with the dysfunction he faces in real life that he brings on a downfall of his own dynasty.
52. Second Helpings (1985)
53. Under Siege (1985, revised version of The Fortress)
54. The Glass Flower (1986)- no incest, but the main Daenerys type girl, Cyrain of Ash, is in a relationship with a slaver Daario guy named Khar Dorian. Cyrain is now a slaver, but in a different way; she steals bodies and minds. She tries to excuse it to make herself feel better about it. Cyrain is discussed more in the Daenerys posts.
55. The Pear-Shaped Man (1987)
56. Shell Games (1987, Wild Cards)
57. From the Journal of Xavier Desmond (1988, in Wild Cards: Aces High)
58. The Skin Trade (1988, World Fantasy Award winner, DS) Mostly laid out on the page 1 to this incest topic, with book quotes.  Basically it is a limited number of elite families that practice incest and the results are a dying of werewolf talents. The “mutts” are the one to save the day. Incest has been rejected with each new generation, and even the Native Americans avoided the area because of the incest practitioners.
59. Doorways– 1991-1993. Script published in Dreamsongs, an almost television show that had a lot to do with dimensional travels and adventures. No incest.
60. The Great and Powerful Turtle (1992, in Wild Cards: Dealer’s Choice)- Nothing.
61. Starport– 1993-1994. A series made for television (not picked up), then published in Quartet, and recently made into a graphic novel. No incest, but plenty of inter-species love.
62. Black and White and Red All Over (2001, unfinished novel fragment, noted on this page here.)
63. A Night at the Tarn House (2009, in Songs of the Dying Earth, fully transcribed on this page here.)- No incest, but lots of magic!
64. Quartet– novella-length excerpts from A Song of Ice and Fire
    • Blood of the Dragon (1996, Hugo Award winner)
65. Fire & Blood, volume 1- 2018
    1. read my post about my trip to NJ for the release here.
    2. read my post that discusses the released Alysanne-Stark excerpt here.

Television Shows Watched:

• The New Twilight Zone
  • The Last Defender of Camelot (1986)
  • The Once and Future King (1986)
  • The Road Less Travelled (1986)
• The Hitchhiker
  • Remembering Melody (1984)
• Doorways [pilot]. Pilot filmed, but a change in management at the station dropped the show.

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Known works not available

Or, at least just not available to me 🙂 These are the comic book series that GRRM contributed to in his early days of writing. I have not read the list below because I just cannot find them anywhere. If you know where I may locate these stories, feel free to send a message. I appreciate any help given.

1. Garizan, the Mechanical Warrior (written 1964, lost)
2. Meet the Executioner (1965, comic)
3. The Isle of Death (1965, comic)
4. The Strange Story of the White Raider (1965)
5. Powerman vs. The Blue Barrier! (1965)
6. The Sword and the Spider (1965, comic)
7. The Coach and the Computer (1966)
8. The Added Safety Factor (1968)

The one novel fragment that I would sell my right leg for is Avalon, the last in the Thousand Worlds series and what Martin was working on (and put away) when he started with Bran and the wolf pups in the snow for A Song of Ice and Fire.

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Main Downfall of a Dynasty Page

Main Blog Page

Main Daenerys Page

Main Jon Page

Main Bran Page

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Thanks for reading along with the jambles and jumbles of the Fattest Leech of Ice and Fire.