Greetings readers, and welcome back to the Short Short Review where I’ll attempt to review a short film or story in a really short number of words. This week I’ll be reviewing George R. R. Martin’s Game Of… I mean “The Second Kind of Loneliness” in exactly 314 words, which is the number of ‘locations’ the story is on my Kindle.
“The Second Kind of Loneliness” was originally published in the December 1972 issue of Analog. This story was written at the beginning of Martin’s career but it is still a shining example of his work.
The story is about an unnamed man who has been assigned to operate The Cerberus Star Ring, a method of rapidly travelling from one end of the universe. This man is waiting for his replacement to arrive and the story details the loneliness and madness he experiences because of his isolation.
The story is written in a journal style that allows for the protagonist’s thoughts to be directly portrayed to the reader. The style also gives the reader a look into the length of time that he spends alone in outer-space and why he ended up out there.
The plot itself is deep and emotionally fruitful. When the protagonist is reflecting on his time on the ring he describes “a second kind of loneliness… It’s the loneliness of people trapped within themselves. The loneliness of people who has said the wrong thing so often that they don’t have the course to say anything anymore.” This is an insight into another aspect of what it means to be lonely and lets the reader reflect on why people feel lonely. Furthermore, it makes you think and that’s what makes a good story.
To wrap things up “The Second Kind of Loneliness” is an amazing story and definitely worth a read. I give it five large space rings out of five.
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