I won’t reveal the ending, but it’s a unique and satisfying close involving a life-or-death repair to the ship, undead creatures, the truth about Royd and the inhuman presence on board… and the powerful volcryn, drawing nearer and nearer. Royd remains unseen, hidden behind sealed bulkheads for the entire trip, communicating with the rest of the crew only through the telecom, and a hologram which looks strangely out-of-date. But is Royd even human? As the weeks pass and odd things begin to occur on board, the crew begins to speculate that Royd is an artificial intelligence, or a previously unencountered alien… or something even stranger… Lack of funds forces him to select an unusual ship-for-hire: the Nightflyer, crewed by a single man, Royd Eris. It opens with an unnamed narrator describing an ancient and mysterious race of aliens, the volcryn, who have been traveling at sublight speeds right through the very heart of interstellar civilization for thousands of years, all unknown to other races… A single man, Karoly d’Branin, pieces together myths and legends from a handful of alien civilizations and puts together a poorly-funded research organization to find and intercept the volcryn for the first time. I re-read the story yesterday, and it was just as powerful as I remember it. Here’s my synopsis from my 2012 Vintage Treasures article. “Nightflyers” was one of the first major adventures set in Martin’s “Thousand Worlds” universe, home to much of his early short fiction. It will be published by Tor at the end of the month, in advance of the new series debuting on Syfy later this year. The new edition, with a vibrantly colorful cover from an uncredited artist (above right), is the first over over three decades. It was reprinted two years later with a new cover to tie-in with the 1987 movie version (above middle cover artist unknown). Nightflyers was originally published by Bluejay in 1985, and reprinted in mass market paperback in February 1987 by Tor with a cover by James Warhola (above left).
Nightflyers contains six stories, including the Hugo-award winning novella “A Song for Lya,” but by far the most famous tale within is the title story, a science fiction/horror classic which won the Analog and Locus Awards in 1981, and was nominated for a Hugo for Best Novella. So it’s not surprising that much of his back catalog is returning to print, including his 1985 short story collection Nightflyers. In terms of global book sales his only living rivals are J.K. Martin may be the most popular genre writer on the planet.
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