Windhaven by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle

[meganbmoore]

Maris is a Landbound, the daughter of a beachcomber. As a child, she watched the Flyers-men and women who carry messages between the islands of their world and fly using large, metal wings- in the air and wished to join them. She thought she finally had her chance when a childless Flyer, Russ, took her in and raised her as his own, declaring her his heir. That changed, however, when Russ finally had a biological child of his own, and tradition demanded that, when her step-brother, Coll, came of age, Maris turn the wings over to him. However, not only is Maris the better Flyer of the two, but Coll himself dislikes flying and wishes to become a bard, but the rules of his class forbid him any path but that of a Flyer. So Maris challenges the Flyers’ council and convince them to implement a new system where the Landbound can be trained and challenge Flyers for their wings, so that the system will be based on merit instead of bloodlines, and the children of Flyers who wish to pursue different paths can do so.

Normally, that would be the end of the book, the result of several hundred pages of Our Heroine’s efforts. Here, it’s not even the first hundred pages. Instead, the rest of the book focuses on the consequences of Maris’s actions over the next several decades. There is, of course, an increase in equality and equal opportunity, as well as an increase in the quality of the Flyers, not to mention biases from both the old blood and the new. On the other hand, there’s an infusion of people who don’t fully understand the responsibilities of being a Flyer, people who simply want the ability to fly, and others who try to make the Flyer’s role be more than a messenger. For the most part, the book avoids making a moral judgement either way, instead focusing on Maris’s unique perspective. The first “One-Wing”(Landbound-born Flyer) Maris both understands the wants of the One-Wings, but also understands the need for the other traditions and responsibilities of the Flyers, having been raised by one, and much of the book focuses on the conflict between that.

For some reason, though, while I liked it, the book never really took off for me. I think I have the same problem with it as I did with Caroline Stevermer’s A Scholar of Magics. There, we were supposed to believe that the school the book was set in made everyone fall in love with it. While it seemed amazing in terms of scenery and architecture, the people there kept me from understanding why the hero wanted to stay there so badly, especially given his other option. Jane totally wouldn’t have objected to his stalking her across Europe. Here, so many Flyers are such pain in the butts that I can’t picture people wanting to be stuck with them for years so desperately. Sure, there are plenty of likable characters, too, but the Flyer society as a whole would rather benefit from a few punches in the face. I did, however, get a bit choked up at the end.

And finally, I have to ask: is anyone else kind of tired of how many fantasy novels just describe their world’s origin as “oh yeah, our ancestors colonized the planet umpteen generations ago and left us this toy/humanity developed this gift” and that’s the entire background? Here, it really seemed unnecessary. There wasn’t really a need to throw in SF elements to explain the wings. I should also mention that this is fantasy in the context of it being set in a world not our own. Aside from when it states their ancestors came from another planet, there are none of the typical fantasy magic elements, and no real SF elements, either. 
 
Possibly, I also kept looking for flying ships.  Because I like those.  But they really would have made it a different kind of book.