What do you think?
Rate this book
Shadow Twin
New/unread signed limited edition published by Subterranean Press
114 pages, Hardcover
First published September 30, 2005
132 people want to read
About the author
Gardner Dozois
645 books360 followersGardner Raymond Dozois was an American science fiction author and editor. He was editor of Asimov's Science Fiction magazine from 1984 to 2004. He won multiple Hugo and Nebula awards, both as an editor and a writer of short fiction.
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...
Wikipedia entry: Gardner Dozois
http://us.macmillan.com/author/gardne...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
May 9, 2025
So here is a question. Why did it take three top-drawer science fiction writers and experienced collaborators more than a quarter of a century to produce a 120-page novella and six more years to turn it into a novel?
As best I can put it together, it started out to be a novel. Sometime in the 1970s, Gardner Dozois, who is best known as an editor and anthologist, began a novel with a Mexican hero on a distant planet. He read some of it to George R. R. Martin, who said he would like to work on it. Martin wrote a draft that fleshed out the planet’s ecology, but he could not find an ending and stuck it in a desk drawer.
In 2002, they gave it to Daniel Abraham, who was not yet famous as part of James S. A. Corey. Abraham found an ending and produced a tight, readable alien-captivity manhunt story with a couple of cute twists. It was published in 2005 as Shadow Twin in two expensive hardcover editions. But the story is not over. Dozois still wanted to write the novel. So he took the novella and Martin’s draft, added cultural and character details, and in 2008, found a new publisher and, voila, there was Hunter’s Run, the novel Dozois wanted all along.
I think the novella is better, but the novel is much cheaper and easier to find.
The story reminds me of Enemy Mine, Barry Longyear’s 1979 novella, which was the basis for the 1985 film with Louis Gossett and Daniel Quaid. A man marooned with an enemy alien matures as he begins to understand an alien culture. There is no war in Shadow Twin/Hunter’s Run, but aliens must hide from human predators in all three.
As best I can put it together, it started out to be a novel. Sometime in the 1970s, Gardner Dozois, who is best known as an editor and anthologist, began a novel with a Mexican hero on a distant planet. He read some of it to George R. R. Martin, who said he would like to work on it. Martin wrote a draft that fleshed out the planet’s ecology, but he could not find an ending and stuck it in a desk drawer.
In 2002, they gave it to Daniel Abraham, who was not yet famous as part of James S. A. Corey. Abraham found an ending and produced a tight, readable alien-captivity manhunt story with a couple of cute twists. It was published in 2005 as Shadow Twin in two expensive hardcover editions. But the story is not over. Dozois still wanted to write the novel. So he took the novella and Martin’s draft, added cultural and character details, and in 2008, found a new publisher and, voila, there was Hunter’s Run, the novel Dozois wanted all along.
I think the novella is better, but the novel is much cheaper and easier to find.
The story reminds me of Enemy Mine, Barry Longyear’s 1979 novella, which was the basis for the 1985 film with Louis Gossett and Daniel Quaid. A man marooned with an enemy alien matures as he begins to understand an alien culture. There is no war in Shadow Twin/Hunter’s Run, but aliens must hide from human predators in all three.
June 1, 2022
Really enjoyable short story with an interesting view into your own personality traits
April 11, 2013
At only a hundred and fourteen pages, this makes for a quick and entertaining read. I'm not a big fan of sci-fi but I am a huge fan of Martin's five-star Game of Thrones series of which I've read the first five books and loved it. If you're expecting this book to be anything similar to Martin's spectacular writing like with the Game of Thrones books, you would - like me - be quite disappointed.
February 2, 2015
It had a very strong intro and end, but I somehow get lost in the middle and wasn't that much hooked up. Maybe it was because I expected more of George R.R. Martin in it. Anyway, it was a good short SciFi story.
January 20, 2013
A good story, but I'm not sure it's worth the $150 cover price.
May 19, 2014
interesting story with unexpected twist in the middle.
I like the ending
I like the ending
January 30, 2015
This was a very good short novel. The premise was interesting and it kept me engaged for the duration.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews