“Told with a true storyteller’s voice: clear, singing, persuasive, and wonderfully moving . . . a truly wonderful book.”—Jane Yolen
From #1 New York Times bestselling author George R. R. Martin and acclaimed author Lisa Tuttle comes a timeless tale that brilliantly renders the struggle between the ironbound world of tradition and a rebellious soul seeking to prove the power of a dream.
Among the scattered islands that make up the water world of Windhaven, no one holds more prestige than the silver-winged flyers, romantic figures who cross treacherous oceans, braving shifting winds and sudden storms, to bring news, gossip, songs, and stories to a waiting populace. Maris of Amberly, a fisherman’s daughter, wants nothing more than to soar on the currents high above Windhaven. So she challenges tradition, demanding that flyers be chosen by merit rather than inheritance. But even after winning that bitter battle, Maris finds that her troubles are only beginning. Now a revolution threatens to destroy the world she fought so hard to join—and force her to make the ultimate sacrifice.
“Martin and Tuttle make wonderful professional music together . . . shifting easily from moments of almost unbearable tension to others of sheer poetry and exhilaration.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“A powerful flight of the imagination . . . an entirely enjoyable reading experience, wrought by a pair of writers noted for excellence.”—Roger Zelazny
“It’s romance. It’s science fiction. It’s beautiful.”—A. E. van Vogt
“I didn’t mean to stay up all night to finish Windhaven, but I had to!”—Anne McCaffrey
Windhaven (Bantam Spectra Book)
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From Amazon
If Windhaven weren't a fantasy book, it would be a selection for Oprah's books club, in the best sense. It tells the life story of a girl whose desire is so strong that it literally changes her world.
Maris wants nothing more than to fly. But she is land-bound: she was not born into a family of flyers, those who inherit their wings from their ancestors and convey messages, songs, and stories between the isolated islands of Windhaven. She convinces the flyers to break their ancient dynastic traditions for a selfish reason--to gain a pair of wings. In so doing, however, she opens the skies to all the hopeful land-bound, with serious social and political repercussions for both populations.
Each of the five chapters relates a different incident in Maris's struggle to first become a flyer and to then open the skies, and the flyers' minds, to the rest of the land-bound. They are told in sequential order as Maris ages, but resemble short stories featuring the same character more than chapters in a novel. Although the background in each certainly enhances the understanding of the following one, this knowledge is not at all essential to appreciating each chapter as a discrete entity that can stand alone.
Windhaven is a thought-provoking book, challenging us by depicting the potential consequences when young idealists break ancient traditions. The authors gave us a heroine, a planet, and a story that teach as they entertain. --Diana M. Gitig --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Rereleased 20 years after its initial publication, this gentle tale of a woman's quest to live out her dream to fly by award-winning authors Martin (Sandkings, A Storm of Swords) and Tuttle (Lost Futures) concerns the hard choices that come from having a vocation. On stormy Windhaven, the descendants of long-ago stranded star sailors live on widely separated islands. Lacking metals to sustain industrial technology, the inhabitants depend on flyers, humans with wings made from the original star sail, to bring news and carry messages, uniting far-flung communities. Maris, a land-bound female adopted into a flyer family, loves to fly. But when her stepbrother, Coll, turns 13, he stands as first-born to inherit the irreplaceable wings, even as he dreams of being a traveling singer instead. When Maris tries to resolve both quandaries by stealing the wings, she challenges not only flyer law but the basic assumptions of Windhaven society. Establishing competitions to win wings and training academies for students from non-flyer families, and defending a "made" flyer accused of treason for stopping a war, Maris faces the lifelong consequences of talent come into conflict with privilege. Although Martin and Tuttle make the correct choices rather clear, they never ignore the costs. With a well-constructed plot (with only minor slips in logic) presented in prose that reads as fantasy, the book will appeal to a YA audience in addition to Martin and Tuttle fans.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
By John Bennett
Format:Mass Market Paperback
This book was nice change of pace for me. It wasn't too long and the characters were fairly entertaining. Wasn't engrossing or thought provoking just an entertaining short novel.
By A Customer
Format:Mass Market Paperback
I enjoy Anne McCaffrey books,and I really enjoyed WINDHAVEN. I could not put it down.
By Katie
Format:Mass Market Paperback
Agreeably not ASoIaF, this book is still not to be ignored. If it weren't for the high standards we have set for GRRM, this book would have a higher rating. Slower action, but this book really made me think. What would happen, say, if I couldn't ride horses anymore, the one thing I love to do? Maris dreamed of being a flyer since being a little girl. She thought that what you dreamed, you could make reality. She was right. With her father dead, he mother gladly gave her into the care of a flyer, one who flies on metal wings above the storm-wracked islands of Windhaven, delivering messages. When her adopted father's son comes of age, there is a new struggle. Coll, her adopted brother, doesn't want the wings. Maris does. And defying the odds, she changes the system, allowing those of low birth to compete, and have a chance to become a flyer. But then she is forced to help a boy who hates flyers as much as they hate him gain his wings. Fast forward, the most significant scene of all happens. Maris falls. She can never fly again. She no longer feels she has a place with other flyers. This book opened my eyes to the world around me. If you want something that makes you think, laugh, and cry, and reasses your values and how much things mean to you, while telling you the life of an extrodinary character who lead a specatular life, pick up Windhaven. You won't be disappointed.
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3.5 out of 5 stars
Most recent customer reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars
a disappointment
If like myself, you have enjoyed Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire Series and been completely blown away by the honesty of his characters, the brilliance of his politics and spent... Read more
Published on Sep 15 2003 by Heather Hall
3.0 out of 5 stars
Just an okay story
Windhaven is the story a one person's life in a fantasy setting. It is not a bad story, just not a great one.
Published on Sep 13 2003 by Julie Phillips
2.0 out of 5 stars
Dragonriders of Pern much better
Anne McCaffrey told this story first, and much better, with her Dragonriders of Pern series. Several plot elements within the two stories are so similar that Martin and Tuttle must... Read more
Published on Aug 11 2003 by M. Walters
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful!
I had read this book 20 years ago and had almost forgotten how wonderful it is. After just rereading it i cant emphasize what a unique story it is. Read more
Published on Dec 7 2002 by P. Robinson
4.0 out of 5 stars
More good stuff by George
The 1st 2 parts of this novel (previously published in ANALOG magazine as "The Storms of Windhaven" & "One-Wing") brilliantly Dliver the kind of mood,... Read more
Published on Sep 1 2002 by Tracy Deaton
3.0 out of 5 stars
Doesn't hang together
Windhaven is an ocean world: there's very little land and it's widely scattered. Sea travel is exceedingly dangerous due to weather and hostile native fauna. Read more
Published on Jun 30 2002 by ocelot
2.0 out of 5 stars
Grinning over eggs for breakfast has never been so grim
This is a pretty novel but not at all to my liking. It is so slow and unengaging at the start and seemed to be just an extension of the hang gliding experience. Read more
Published on Feb 26 2002 by A. G. Plumb
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Fun, Quick Read
I choose to read this book out of admiration for George R.R. Martin's other works.
On the whole, I enjoyed this book. The world was well developed and consistent. Read more
On the whole, I enjoyed this book. The world was well developed and consistent. Read more
Published on Oct 22 2001 by Erin Spock
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not what I expected
Every time I walk into a book store, I scan the shelves of new releases for the name George R. R. Martin, so I was pleasantly surprised when my wife pointed this book out to me. Read more
Published on Aug 26 2001 by "krmsam"
3.0 out of 5 stars
A pleasant flight
It seems unfair (or perhaps just ignorant) to criticize a book based on its author's other works, but Windhaven's faults are made all the more apparent because thanks to "A... Read more
Published on Aug 12 2001 by Anna Keaney
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