Meathouse Man

Meathouse Man is a science-fiction horror novelette by George R. R. Martin, first published in the June 1976 issue of Orbit magazine. It takes place in the "Thousand Worlds" universe, and is set on the Manrealm planets of Skrakky and Vendalia during the post-Interregnum period. It is about a lonely corpse-handler (someone who re-animates human corpses to perform manual labour) who has trouble connecting with people and visits corpse brothels to feel human intimacy. Meathouse Man forms part of Martin's "corpse-hander trilogy", along with Nobody Leaves New Pittsburg and Override.

Plot Summary
— WARNING: THIS SECTION CONTAINS SPOILERS — Greg Trager is a corpse-handler. He is skilled at his job, but has little in his life other than spending his days controlling corpses to mine ores in the rundown  world of Skrakky. He dreams of something better, of feeling alive, of falling in love. Yet he’s also afraid, insecure and lonely. Initially pressured by his colleagues, Trager becomes a customer of meathouse brothels where the sex workers are corpses that respond to their clients’ thoughts. Meathouses are an ambiguous experience for him, bringing him a sexual satisfaction that no real woman could match, while also intensifying his feelings of loneliness and self-loathing.

Trager’s life starts to change when he meets Josie. The two become friends, and he falls in love with her. This love makes him feel more alive than ever before, but also brings him a new type of agony. Struggling with his fears and insecurities, Greg finally confesses his feelings for her. She rejects him, while also urging him not to lose hope. Time passes, and Greg has a better life and a better job in Vendalia. He shares his dreams with his friend Donelly, and one day meets and falls in love with Laurel. Unlike Josie, Laurel reciprocates his feelings and the two enter a loving relationship. Donelly also falls in love with Laurel. Eventually, Laurel leaves Trager for Donelly.

Trager never recovers completely from this loss. Josie advises him to keep on hoping, but her words have lost their power. Other relationships feel meaningless to him, other people feel distant. Trager questions how many times you can fall in love or tell someone you love them, before you lose faith in love. Eventually, he gives up. He becomes a corpse-master in a gladiatorial arena, a job he otherwise considered a repulsive use of his corpse-handler skills. And he finds a new lover: a corpse he can control just like the ones in the meathouse. — END OF SPOILERS —

Themes
Meathouse Man is a horror story, but one that provokes revulsion more than fear. It depicts the emotional horror of Greg Trager’s descent into heartbreak, loneliness, and finally his refusal of reality. Trager’s pain and the questions he asks himself may find echo in many readers’ thoughts and experiences. Martin presents his journey from the beginning, helping the reader gain a better understanding of what he wants and who he is as character. We learn of his hopes and dreams, are encouraged to get involved, to root for him, and ultimately lament his choices. According to Priscilla Zorzi from The Fandomentals, Trager's "dark descent is made all the more horrible because it is ultmately he who decides to embrace the fantasy and simulated intimacy, rather than continue to seek genuine human connection."

Meathouse Man depicts the social objectification women, symbolised in both Trager's love interests and the meathouse prostitutes he frequents. For example, everything we see of Josie and Laurel is filtered through the male gaze and related to their effect on the life of the male protagonist. Their individuality is not important, their opinions and desires don’t matter... hey exist to heal or ruin these male characters. Zorzi notes that "the sequences which take place in the brothels are disturbing in their mysogyny... the idea of having female bodies at men’s disposal, to be used as they wish with no regards to these women’s feelings or opinions, is an awful naturalisation of male feelings of entitlement over women." Martin is problematic in his descriptions of the brothels. On one hand, Martin seems to invite us to question the ethics of the practice: “The others had gone to other rooms, had left him alone with her (no, it, not her but it, he reminded himself, and promptly forgot again).” On the other hand, expressions like “female meat” emphasise the female corpses as objects to be used and discarded. Their reanimated condition is almost eroticized, shown as part of the appeal of the meathouses. Their objectification is a natural and more explicit extension of the way Josie and Laurel were objectified.

The descriptions of re-animated human bodies being forced to undertake manual and sexual labour, evokes the dehumanisation and exploitation of enslaved peoples of colour during the colonial era. Like slavery, corpse-handling is considered an unethical practice in most of the galaxy, and is banned on all but a few planets. Being transformed into a corpse is often punishment for breaking the law, echoing the involuntary servitude forced upon convicts, even in post-colonial western societies. Trager even recalls dark rumours of sick people and tourists were forced to become corpses, echoing the brutal commodification of human life at the expense of human dignity and morality, perpetrated by imperial powers. Greg is initially disgusted by corpse prostitution and gladiator matches, but gradually indulges in them as a respite from his isolation. Ironically, the harsh economic structure that under girds this society may in fact be one of the causes of his isolation.

Author's Notes
Martin has stated that he still finds Meathouse Man difficult to read, because the emotional pain of the protagonist was inspired by Martin's real life romantic heartbreaks. He describes the horror in Meathouse Man as "sexual and psychological, rather than visceral" and that it is "easily the darkest thing [he has] ever written."

The story had a difficult publishing history. The original version, according to Martin, was very different from the published version, being much shorter and sharing only the title and a few character names. It was conceived for Harlan Ellison’s The Last Dangerous Visions anthology, but was roundly rejected by the editor. Martin found Ellison's feedback--"aside from shirking all responsibility to the material that forms the core, it's a nice story"--both devastating and energising. Martin then claims he "ripped the guts out of the story and rewrote the whole thing from page one, and this time I opened a vein as well, and let the blood drip down right onto the paper… I was wounded, and in a lot of pain. I put it all into ‘Meathouse Man,’ and sent the story back to Harlan …only to be rejected again." At this point, Martin considered giving up on Meathouse Man, but he had already put too much work on it and continued submitting it to magazines until it was finally published.

Meathouse Man forms part of Martin's "corpse-hander trilogy," along with Nobody Leaves New Pittsburg and Override. He had originally intended to write many more instalments, and even had a four-page fragment of a fourth story, but never got around to completing it. He intended to combine them into a single book called Songs the Dead Men Sing, but when he did use that title for a collection, only Meathouse Man was included.

Publication History
Meathouse Man was first published in the June 1976 issue of Orbit.

It was included in Martin's short story collection Songs the Dead Men Song, published in 1983.

It was later included in his 2003 anthology Dreamsongs: A RRetrospective.

Adaptations
In 2007, Martin's short story anthology Dreamsongs was released in audiobook format. It included a recording of Meathouse Man read by Kirby Heyborne.

In 2013, Meathouse Man was adapted into a graphic novel by Raya Golden. It was a 2014 Hugo Award finalist for Best Graphic Novel.

Reception
In 1977, Meathouse Man was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Novelette.

In 2014, the Vassals of Kingsgrave podcast released a review of Meathouse Man:

Connections to the "Thousand Worlds" Universe
Meathouse Man is set on a "corpse world," where it is legal to reanimate human corpses for labour. Nobody Leaves New Pittsburg and Override also both take place on corpse worlds and focus on characters working within that industry.

The story mentions duralloy, a technology which is ubiquitous throughout the "Thousand Worlds" universe.

Allusions to Other GRRM Works
The scene of Greg having sex with a corpse prostitute parallels a scene in A Dance with Dragons (book 5 of A Song of Ice and Fire). While travelling through Volantis, a drunken Tyrion Lannister visits a brothel and has sex with a mute, despondent young woman. Afterwards, he thinks to himself that "I have just fucked a corpse" and feels ashamed.