Review: Windhaven

Windhaven by George R.R. Martin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

One of the rare stories that I introduced to our family lore, Windhaven takes place on a distant planet with a never-resting, thick atmosphere, where a few select families pass down wings made of materials scavenged from their colony ship.

I even wrote a song for it, because songs are so important to the story AND IT HAS NONE IN IT! My son sings it better than I do, and I would have loved to present it to Lisa Tuttle.

On the planet of Windhaven, the atmosphere is thick and the winds (almost) never stop. The colonists who settled here scavenged their ship for usable parts, and a lot of it went into the manufacture of sturdy, lightweight wings. The current level of technology can't reproduce them, and they are handed down within families.

The book follows the life of Maris, a little orphan child who was semi-adopted by a Flyer. He even taught her to use the wings, and then, when his son by blood comes of age, they are snatched away from her. The original short story ends when she manages to get the laws changed, and wins her wings back. The rest of the book shows that changing the law doesn't change people's attitudes.

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