‘d hung onto this book since 1986, given how I remembered enjoying it. And only when I located it again during the great termite disaster of ’25 did I realize that the author was none other than George R.R. Martin, famed for his “Game of Thrones” series.

What did I remember? That cats.

So this series of short stories begins with Haviland Tuf, a huge, hairless and chalk-white man of refined vegetarian tastes, aboard his tramp freighter (of the starship variety) with two cats (who are rare in this future galaxy). His current job is to ferry a number of unpleasant (and increasingly unscrupulous) types to a world that has an orbiting “plague star” that continually rains down sickness and death on the struggling inhabitants of the planet every third generation. It turns out that the star is actually a 30 KM long starship, a relic from a thousand years ago, flying the banner of the Earth Ecological Corps (and mostly used as a weapon of planetary destruction). Of course, the group falls on each other – this ship is too much a prize to let slip. The fight even claims one of Tuf’s feline companions (a callus anthropologist throws it out of the airlock and into the landing bay to see if the air is clean – it isn’t and the cat suffers until Tuf kills it). But even with that, Tuf turns tables and out-thinks the lot of them, the sole survivor whose first act is to (of course) clone up a couple of more cats.

There follows a series of short stories, with Tuf bringing his megaship into various planetary situations, ones that require Tuf’s wits (and the abilities of Dax, a cat bred with enhanced psi powers) to win. The stories are all amusing in their own ways, with Tuf always coming out on top. The final story (from a brace of three) involve a planet that follows a religion of birth and overpopulation, with Tuf saving them twice and, on the third time, making a very final decision, one not taken lightly and written so well I was breathless by the end of it.

So yes, a fantastic book you should seek out – whether you like scifi or cats (and I like both), it was a hell of a read.

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