The Books Of George R.R. Martin
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George R.R. Martin is an American author of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror stories, who recently achieved widespread popularity among fans of the fantasy genre with his epic series “A Song Of Ice And Fire”. Martin first came to prominence writing (mostly science fiction) short stories in the 70's and 80's, several of which won awards, including the Hugo award (4 times), the Nebula Award (twice) and the World Fantasy Award. His first novel was the science fiction tale “Dying Of The Light”, which was followed by vampire novel “Fevre Dream”, “Windhaven” and “Armageddon Rag”, all published in the 1980s. In the late 80's and early 90's Martin concentrated on editing the superhero anthology series “Wild Cards”, and screenwriting for various TV project. In the late 90's he published “A Game Of Thrones”, the first volume in “A Song Of Ice And Fire”, quickly getting much critical praise and building up an audience that was much larger than that for his previous efforts.
A Song Of Ice And Fire
“A Song Of Ice And Fire” is a work of impressive scope, even in it's unfinished state. With over ten main characters and a supporting cast numbering in the hundreds, as well as a fully detailed (and relatively original) world, its size and complexity is noteworthy, even in the epic fantasy market where such qualities are traditional. It is set in a world which is in a state roughly comparable to Medieval Western Europe, with the addition of a few fantastic elements (although there's a lot less magic than in “The Lord of the Rings”, for example). Most of the series is set in the continent of Westeros, a land ruled by a single king, but which comprises the remnants of seven different nations united several centuries before. Most of the main characters come from four main families – the Starks, Lannisters, Targarayens and Baratheons. The Targarayens had been in power for several centuries after conquering all the existing Seven Kingdoms with the help of the devastating effect of their King’s three dragons on enemy armies. A dozen years before the start of “A Game Of Thrones” they were deposed in a rebellion led by Robert Baratheon, who then had himself crowned King, with the Targarayen’s dragons all having died out decades ago they were forced into exile. Robert's closest friend was Eddard Stark, the lord of the icy northern half of the continent, and at first it is Eddard who appears to be the main character.
After King Robert's closest advisor dies in mysterious circumstances, Robert rides to Eddard's castle to ask him to replace the advisor, and incidentally take over much of the running of the Kingdom. Eddard, not interested in the additional power of the role he is offered is initially reluctant to leave his family and home, but eventually agrees, wanting to keep an eye on the King's in-laws, the Lannister family who betrayed the Targarayen Kings, and have a reputation for ruthlessness and greed. After his young son Bran, who witnessed something he should not have seen while climbing around the old castle walls and was thrown onto the hard ground below by a Lannister with a secret to hide (leading to injuries that mean he can’t remember what he saw), is the target of a follow-up assassination attempt Eddard suspects the Lannisters in that as well as the murder of the King’s adviser but has no proof to accuse them.
When Eddard arrives in the capital with his family he finds that his notions of honour and duty make him poorly suited to deal with the labyrinthine politics of the Kingdom. With few allies in the South he finds himself largely isolated. Eventually the whole situation breaks down into a bloody civil war in the second and third books, with several different forces claiming the throne. This is where most of the plot threads, and most of the characters are concentrated – but events elsewhere may have a big impact later on in the series.
Eddard is one of several “point of view” characters used in the series, each chapter is told from one character’s point of view. In the south as well as Eddard there are a number of other point of view characters. Eddard’s daughters Sansa and Arya both get their own set of chapters. Teenage Sansa is excited about going to court, naïve and with a fondness for romantic stories she doesn’t realise the corruption of the nobility or the unsuitability of the petulant and cruel teenage Prince Joffrey, the King’s eldest son, who Sansa is determined to marry. Her younger sister Arya is more headstrong, less naïve and very reluctant to do what she is told. Initially their role in the series is merely to provide differing viewpoints on the machinations at the court, but they later become more closely involved in events at the Kingdom begins to break down. Eddard’s wife Catelyn also gets her own chapters. After a message from her sister (wife of the murdered adviser to the King) warning of a conspiracy at court she travels south separately from her husband and the King’s party to investigate things for herself. Her son Bran, crippled after injuries sustained in his fall, is left in the North and is the final Stark point of view character, observing his family’s land’s preparations for war as the situation in the South deteriorates.
There are also three point-of-view characters from the Stark’s main rivals, the Lannister family. Queen Cersei, a reluctant bride to a King she feels doesn’t respect her is continually trying to ruthlessly manipulate everyone around her for her family’s and children’s advantage. Her twin brother Jaime, a member of the King’s personal bodyguard and infamous for having treacherously murdered the last Targarayen King is more loyal to his family than the King he supposedly serves. Their younger brother Tyrion, is the black sheep of the family, his serious disabilities that lead to him to be nicknamed ‘the Imp’ by his fellow nobles is held in contempt by his father and most of the rest of the nobility despite being clearly the most intelligent and cunning of the Lannisters. Although the Lannisters are, to a large extend, the villains of the series, Martin still succeeds in showing that from their point of view what they do is sometimes justified and Tyrion is arguably one of the heroes of the series despite being on the same side as most of the series’ antagonists.
Another plot thread follows Eddard's illegitimate teenage son, Jon Snow. Faced with his stepmother's hostility, he leaves home to join the Night's Watch – an army of men who guard the Northern frontier of the kingdom, from behind a giant wall of stone and ice. He finds it difficult to adjust to the Watch's harsh lifestyle and attitudes, but there are more serious difficulties ahead as sightings of the walking dead are reported in the wild lands beyond the Wall. Although the “Others”, beings who once controlled the whole continent with their armies of undead are widely believed to be merely ancient myths the isolated men of the Night’s Watch soon discover that they were anything but stories, and with the rest of the country falling into Civil War they’ll have to hold the Northern frontier as best they can.
The final plot thread follows the two surviving members of the Targarayen dynasty, in exile on a distant continent. Viserys Targarayen is the notional heir, and he is determined to reclaim the kingdom for his family, to achieve this he marries off his teenage sister Danerys (the main character in the plot thread) to the leader of the Dothraki, a nomadic tribe of warriors, who he thinks will help him reclaim his crown. However, the Dothraki have their own plans, and Danerys finds herself more willing to go along with them than her cruel elder brother. After being given a gift of supposedly fossilised dragon’s eggs she realises if she can hatch them, she may be able to regain her family’s Kingdom.
In later books additional point-of-view characters including female knight Brienne, smuggler-turned-noble Davos and intelligent but overweight and pampered Night’s Watch recruit Sam (exiled by his noble father, disapproving of his son’s weakness as a heir) are added to the story providing additional perspectives on the plot.
The basic premises are reasonably complicated, but things quickly get more convoluted in each of the plot threads, every character (and there are a lot of characters) has their own agenda and their own motivations. Martin also has a liking for sudden (and generally violent) plot twists, including a few surprising deaths of seemingly major characters – even though there is some foreshadowing, there are bound to be a few surprises for even the most alert reader. It can be difficult to keep track of every small event, but Martin does a good job of highlighting the major plot points.
Martin has an efficient writing style that manages to convey all the important details and nuances of a situation without wasting time on excessive description (unlike some other epic fantasy authors, such as Robert Jordan) so the action is quite fast moving. Despite this, the sheer amount of story means that all four volumes published so far have been around the 1000-page mark. Martin's characters are well thought out, and their motivations are convincing. This is not one of those books where good triumphs over evil by default, even if a character acts with the best of intentions there is still a strong chance of things going horribly wrong. Most of the characters can't be neatly divided into 'good' or 'evil' categories, his heroes tend to be flawed in some way and most of villains either aren't so villainous from their perspective, or at least have some redeeming features.
Despite the complexity of the story, there were few signs in the first three books of control of the plot getting away from Martin. However, the fourth book was, while still being good, a comparative disappointment as the pace of the plot slowed significantly and only small steps were made towards the main story arcs being resolved.
The series is currently four books long, “A Game Of Thrones”, “A Clash Of Kings”, “A Storm Of Swords” and “A Feast For Crows” have been published so far, with book five “A Dance With Dragons” scheduled to come out sometime in 2007. The eventual series is tentatively estimated to be seven books long, although it would not be surprising if it turned out to be longer.
Even in its current, unfinished, state “A Song Of Ice And Fire” is a very impressive, superbly written, work of fantasy that stands as one of the best pieces of work in its genre.
The Hedge Knight
As well as the novels, there are also a couple of short stories written in the same setting, both set several decades before the start of “A Game Of Thrones”. “The Hedge Knight” was published as Martin's contribution to the “Legends” anthology. It tells the story of Dunk, a squire to an elderly itinerant knight who frequently reminisces of his glory details competing in tourneys. After his master's death Dunk resolves to attempt to enter a jousting competition and seek fame for himself. When he reaches the competition venue he befriends a young boy named Egg and has some small success in the jousting. However, things start to go wrong when, defending some tradesmen from an arrogant noble, he offends the heir to the throne – the teenage Prince Aerion Targarayen – who challenges him to a rare form of armed combat, in which each combatant is backed up by six other knights. Dunk must find someone to help him in the challenge, due to not knowing any other knights this is obviously a problem. This story would be a great introduction to Martin's work for someone wondering whether to tackle the multi-volume “A Song of Ice and Fire” – it is superbly written, the characters are interesting and the plot has a few surprising twists.
The Sworn Sword
Dunk and his sidekick Egg returned in the second Legends anthology, working for an elderly minor noble involved in a property dispute with one his neighbours. As the dispute threatens to turn violent Dunk finds out some secrets his employer has been hiding about his past. Although a decent enough story, it isn’t the most memorable of Martin’s works. Although the plot is still fairly interesting it isn’t as compelling as “The Hedge Knight” was.
A third “Dunk and Egg” novella has been written and may appear sometime in 2007 or 2008.
Dying Of The Light
Until “A Song Of Ice And Fire”, Martin was best known for his science fiction short stories, many of which are set in the same universe. They are set several centuries in the future after humanity has dispersed among the stars. Any semblance of organisation between the colonies ended after a ruinous (but ultimately successful) two-front war against two alien races. The stories are set several centuries after the war, just as some interstellar trade is starting to resume and the connections between the star systems rebuilt.
One work set in that universe is Martin's first novel. “The Dying of the Light” is little-known compared to “A Song of Ice and Fire”, and was out-of-print until the success of that series increased the demand for Martin's earlier works.
It is set on Worlorn, a rogue planet that is drifting through space. For a period of several years this planet passes close enough to a large multiple star system that the conditions there became habitable. For those short years it became host to a great interstellar festival as neighbouring colonies established outposts of their culture on the planet. The book begins as Worlorn is drifting out of range of the star, and the climate is starting to collapse. Most of the population has left the planet, with only a few remaining in the shells of the former cities. The main character, Dirk T'Larien, comes to the planet on an infrequent supply ship in response to a message from his former love, Gwen Delvano. She is now married to an important leader from the world of High Kavaalan, a colony which fell into barbarism during the great two-front war and has only recently regained interstellar flight. Dirk, who is from a much more advanced world finds a great deal of culture shock as he finds himself caught in a conflict between Gwen's husband and his main rival among the Kavalar, a traditionalist hunter who believes anyone not from High Kavalaan is a ‘mockman’, a soulless mockery of a human. As the confrontation between the two groups of High Kavaalanites becomes violent, and he inadvertently offends one of the hunters, Dirk and Gwen are forced to go on the run, pursued across a dying planet.
This isn't exactly a cheerful book, the main characters face a lot of hardship as it becomes clear just how out-of-his-depth Dirk is. Martin's well-written, almost poetic, prose evokes a very gloomy, wistful atmosphere as he draws parallels between how both Worlorn and Dirk himself don't really have a very meaningful existence any more. There is also a fair amount of suspense as the hunters draw in on their quarry, seemingly able to find Dirk and Gwen wherever they go. The various cultures involved in the book are often intriguing and the abandoned cities left by the various civilisations are a good setting for the chase scenes. One notable thing about the book is its shockingly abrupt ending, as it builds up to a climax then ends just before a final event, its clear what should happen but we never see the final event resolved. It’s a bold move on Martin's part and it works surprisingly well, although it must leave a few “A Song of Ice and Fire” fans worrying about the possibility of him doing the same thing at the end of that series.
Fevre Dream
Martin's next book was a complete switch in genres, from science fiction several millennia in the future, to “Fevre Dream”, a horror fantasy novel set in 19th Century America. The main character is Abner Marsh, a veteran captain of the huge steamboats that travelled the Mississippi and its tributaries. Down on his luck after a series of disasters, he seizes on a business opportunity offered by Joshua York, a mysterious European gentleman, who offers to build with Marsh the finest ship on the Mississippi. The ship is duly built, but as the voyage commences Marsh becomes increasingly puzzled by York's behaviour – although he seems quite friendly, he only appears and night and avoids sunlight, and he makes frequent unscheduled stops at locations where brutal murders have recently occurred.
“Fevre Dream” is an effective horror novel, superbly written with a suspenseful atmosphere. Martin presents an intriguing and original take on vampire mythology and builds an excellent story around it. The background detail is another notable feature, the author seems to have done plenty of research on the era and he manages to convey the majesty of the great steamboats. There's also a good amount of commentary on the social issues of the time, as a voyage into decadent New Orleans makes Marsh, despite his conservative instincts, increasingly conscious of the inhumanity of slavery. Martin's novels are noted for their surprises and this no exception – there are a number of interesting plot twists and he is very good at eliciting sympathy for a character who could easily have been the villain of the story.
In summary, “Fevre Dream” is the best piece of Martin's early work. It is very well written and manages to present a fresh approach to a frequently clichéd genre. It managed to gain a fair amount of critical acclaim on its original release, and has recently been re-issued as part of the excellent “Fantasy Masterworks” series.
Windhaven
Martin's third novel was “Windhaven”, a collaboration with Lisa Tuttle. It's a change of pace from his more suspenseful novels; this is a comparatively prosaic tale of a young woman challenging authority. The planet of the title is a largely oceanic world, with only a few small islands for humans to survive on. After a wayward colony ship crashlands on the planet, the survivors build a low-technology community on the small islands. As the name suggests, the planet is extremely windy and the ocean is inhospitable – sailing between the islands is quite risky, and prone to frequent delays in bad weather. One of the main forms of communication on the planet is carried out by the Flyers. These people take advantage of the perpetual strong winds to fly between the islands, using wing-like gliders built from material scavenged from the crashed spacecraft. The flyers need a great deal of skill and physical stamina, but the best of them could fly for hundreds of miles.
Over the centuries since the crash the flyers have become an elite on the island – the wings being handed down from father to child. Maris, a young woman of common birth adopted by a flyer, decides to challenge the society's traditions, in an attempt to earn her foster-father's wings instead of her brother Coll – especially in light of the fact that her foster-brother doesn't like flying and would rather be a minstrel. Of course, conservative elements in the society are opposed to this move, while more liberal people want those outside of the elite to have a chance of becoming a flyer.
This is a fairly un-ambitious story, reminiscent of Anne McAffrey’s “Pern” series, and disappointingly predictable. Despite this, it is still reasonably entertaining and quite well written, although it is almost certainly the weakest of Martin's novels.
Armageddon Rag
Martin's final novel is the only one outside of the Science Fiction/Fantasy genre, and for a long time the only novel that remained out of print (it has recently been reissued) - “Armageddon Rag”, the story of a seemingly cursed rock band.
The main character is Sandy Blair, a former music journalist and survivor of the rock scene of the late 1960’s. He is coaxed out of his career as a novelist to investigate the murder of the manager of the former stadium-filling heavy rock band “The Nazgul”. The band had split a decade before (the novel is set in the early 1980s) after their leading singer had been assassinated by a sniper in the middle of one of their biggest concerts. As Sandy travels round attempting to interview the surviving members of the band, he begins to suspect that someone may be forcing the band back together to do another tour. Despite their largely unsuccessful lives the surviving band members realise that they would be a poor shadow of their former selves, but are tempted by the prospect of reforming. As he travels the country Sandy also takes the opportunity to look up his old friends from the 1960s and see how life has been treating them.
In the later stages of the book some fantasy elements start to creep in (although there is nothing definitely magical happening) as Sandy starts to have premonitions that the Nazgul’s new tour will end in a bloodbath.
This is a sporadically interesting novel with some significant flaws. When the Nazgul’s tour starts Martin does succeed in making the concert descriptions both convincing and compelling. At times it seems a pity that the Nazgul are merely fictional because a soundtrack CD would be a great accompaniment to the book. The characterisation is variable, Sandy is a likeable protagonist but the members of the Nazgul (other than bassist and songwriter Peter Faxon) lack depth and his old friends tend to be fairly irritating archetypes. Sandy’s quest to visit his old friends isn’t nearly as interesting as the main Nazgul plotline and some of the subplots (his visit to his insufferable catchphrase-quoting friend Froggy in particularly) would have been better left out. One subplot, the story of his old friend Slum whose life was ruined by his father’s hatred for him refusing to fight in Vietnam, is interesting but too short and peripheral to really have much impact on the rest of the novel.
In summary, this is an entertaining book overall, but not Martin’s best. It is however recommended for fans of classic rock music or people who (unlike me) actually remember the 1960s.
Short Stories
Before “A Song Of Ice And Fire”, Martin was primarily known as a short-story writer, producing dozens of stories of a consistently high quality. They were largely out-of-print (aside from the "A Song For Lya" collection) until the release of “George R.R. Martin : A Retrospective” (retitled "Dreamsongs" in the UK). The latter book is a collection of some of his finest work, along with extensive commentary by the author writing about his career in writing.
Review of A Song For Lya to follow.
Songs Of Stars And Shadows
“Songs Of Stars And Shadows” is one of the earliest of the (out-of-print) short story collections. It is a compilation of a dozen or so stories written during the 1970s. It starts off with “This Tower Of Ashes”, a story narrated by a lonely man who lives in an abandoned tower, built by an ancient civilisation. He makes his living from the surrounding forest, a wilderness populated by giant spiders whose venom makes their victims hallucinate. When his ex-girlfriend visits with her new husband, he takes them on an ill-advised trip into the forest, in a doomed attempt to impress her. It's quite a slight story, although it does have a nice twist at the end, but it is very well written.
The last story, “And Seven Times Never Kill Man”, is the other stand-out story in the book. It tells of a trader in alien artefacts who lives on a planet inhabited by a peaceful non-human race who worship mysterious metallic pyramids that they build their settlements around. Unfortunately, the peace is shattered by the arrival of a militaristic religious cult, who claim increasingly large sections of the alien's land. The trader tries to organise the aliens to fight back, but they seem largely indifferent to the threat. This is an excellent story, the aliens are interesting and original, it’s well-written and it has a very effective ending.
The other stories in the book are of consistently good quality. “The Lonely Songs of Laren Dorr” is a nice fantasy story, about a woman who travels between worlds, running from powerful supernatural enemies. She comes to a vast planet with a single inhabitant, the Laren Dorr of the title, who is imprisoned there, and tries to persuade her to stay with him. “Night of the Vampyres” is a fairly standard tale of a near-future revolution in the USA, with a group of laser-armed fighter pilots thrust into the middle of the conflict. “... For A Single Yesterday” is a wistful tale of a post-apocalyptic future, focusing on a group of survivors, some of whom focus on the past more than is healthy. “Men of Greywater Station” (co-written with Howard Waldrop) is a claustrophobic tale of a group of scientists trapped on a world with hostile alien life that is capable of controlling humans. They are reasonably safe in their camp, but it’s a long wait until a rescue team can fight its way through a hostile wilderness. Like many of the stories in the collection there's an effective twist at the end. “The Runners” is another example of this, a man is on the run from a mysterious group of strangers, and he enlists a telepath to tell him why he is being chased. However, the answer is not what he – or the telepath expects. The remaining stories are relatively insignificant – the whimsical “Patrick Henry, Jupiter and the Little Red Brick Spaceship” and the wants-to-be-gritty “Night Shift”.
Sandkings
Martin's most famous short story is probably “Sandkings”, which won a Hugo short story award and was later adapted into the first episode of the 1980s “The Outer Limits” TV series. The main character is a rich, arrogant man on a distant colony planet who collects exotic pets – the more vicious they are, the more he likes them. He thinks he may have found the perfect pet in a newly-opened shop – an army of tiny insect-like creatures called Sandkings. The Sandkings he buys are in four different colours, each colour has its own controlling mind called a Maw – a larger creature which is served by the ordinary Sandkings, which build a miniature castle to protect it, and bring it food. The different tribes are fiercely competitive and will fight each other to the death, trying to get the food that their owner tosses into the pen. For a while the main character is suitably entertained, and invites his shallow friends around to watch the miniature battles. After a while he begins to grow bored and he tries to spice up the battles by introducing other exotic creatures for the Sandkings to fight, and withholding food to make them fight harder, despite the pet shop's warning not to do that. This is especially risky since the Sandkings have a small telepathic ability whereby they can sense their owner and respond to his actions. After an accident some of the Sandkings escape and he finds himself trapped in his own home. This is a superb short story, the Sandkings are fascinating creatures and there is plenty of suspense in the later stages of the book as their erstwhile owner tries desperately to survive. Previously the story was published in the now out-of-print “Sandkings” compilation, it is now available as part of the “The Reel Stuff” compilation of short stories that have been turned into films (also including Martin's Hugo award-winning story “Nightflyers”, turned into a second-rate B-movie).
The “Sandkings” book also contains six other stories. “The Way Of The Cross And Dragon” is another Hugo winner, although its far from being Martin's best work. It is a reasonably effective religious satire about a religious inquisitor who travels to a small colony planet to examine a cult that have begun worshipping Judas Iscariot. Martin makes good points about the benefits and costs of religion but there isn't much of a story here, the plot takes second place to the ideas. “Bitterblooms” is a drab story about a country girl who meets a woman who claims to be from another planet. “Starlady” is probably Martin's worst piece of writing, with a disastrous attempt to use an alternative style of writing that ends up just being irritating. The plot isn't good either, telling the tale of a woman stranded on a space station with no money who is forced to rely on the dubious charity of a local ruffian. “The Stone City” is much better, a tale of explorers who have wandered far from human space and find themselves stranded on an alien planet built around a mysterious ancient labyrinth. The titular city is quite intriguing, although the plot itself is nothing special. “In The House of the Worm” is another good story; a small human civilisation exists in the caves at the top of an extensive series of caverns, inhabited by a semi-sentient hostile group of creatures who are hunted by the humans. When a group of foolish young men decide to follow the mysterious hunter known as Meatbringer down into the caverns they are in for some shocks, and a desperate struggle to survive. Again, the atmosphere in this story is very well done – both in the eccentric rituals of the humans and the inhospitable caves - and the plot has plenty of suspense. “Fast-Friend” is the remaining story in the book, a story unmemorable enough that I can't remember anything about it.
Tuf Voyaging
Another example of Martin's short-story work is 1987's “Tuf Voyaging”, a series of short stories following planetary ecologist Haviland Tuf on his interstellar journeys. The first story “The Plague Star” is probably the best as Tuf, an eccentric trader with a dislike of human contact, finds himself involved with a group of mercenaries and scientists who track down the last of the lost-for-centuries Ecological Engineering Corps starships. This ship was used initially for terraforming planets, and allowing large scale environmental changes by genetically modifying creatures and plants, later it was used as a for biological warfare against alien races threatening humanity. It’s an exciting adventure story as Tuf and his companions have to deal with the various monstrosities that guard the abandoned space ship. The second story sees Tuf in command of the vast resources of the star ship; he teaches himself Ecological Engineering and resolves to make a living helping out various colonies. The rest of the book sees Tuf visiting various worlds and sorting out their problems. However, as the book goes on Tuf gets increasingly arrogant and when he decides to help someone he is determined to do it in his own way. His eccentricities, strange phobias and continual deliberate misunderstanding of people's conversations get quite irritating after a while. The second story, “Loaves And Fishes” sees Tuf helping an overpopulated world with its chronic lack of food, this planet is revisited in the last story “Second Helpings”, when Tuf realises more extreme measure are necessary to control the problem. “A Beast For Norn” sees him breeding creatures for gladiatorial combats popular on the planet Norn. Other stories seem him dealing with vicious sea monsters and a rebellion. The ecological focus is unusual for a science fiction story, and they are quite well written, but the main character is too insufferable and this ends up as one of Martin's lesser works.
Martin's next book published will be "Hunter's Run" a Science Fiction novel collaboration written with Gardner Dozois and Daniel Abraham, Martin having written his part of the story several years ago.
Links
Martin's website - including the latest update on new book releases.
Westeros.org - fan site with an impressive amount of information about Martin's work, particularly A Song of Ice and Fire.
Westeros forums - very busy forums featuring a huge amount of discussion about A Song of Ice and Fire, as well as every other topic.
Chronicles' sub-forum less busy than Westeros but still some discussion.
There is also a usenet newsgroup alt.fan.grrm.My review of the Sankings TV movie, based on Martin's short story.
All content ©2003-2006 William Marnoch.
Comments? Agree/Disagree with the Reviews? Suggestions? Random Ramblings? Whatever you might want to say, feel free to e-mail me at william@wmarnoch.freeserve.co.uk .