#135 Take these broken wings: Windhaven (1981) by George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle

On the constantly stormy planet of Windhaven, elite messengers take to the skies using flying rigs made from the remnants of an ancient starship. But who deserves to wear the wings?

George R. R. Martin is one of the world's best-selling novelists, and Lisa Tuttle is a multi-award winning author and a regular critic of new SF and fantasy work. Back in the 1970s, they collaborated on stories in Analog magazine, which were later extended into a fix-up novel - Windhaven (1981).

For more classic SF reviews and discussion, visit andyjohnson.xyz. To get free weekly classic SF updates, sign up here.

Transcript

Three human-scale SF tales of flight that read like fantasy

Windhaven is a novel in three parts by American writers George R. R. Martin and Lisa Tuttle. Originally published in 1981, it deals with that most definitive of human fantasies - flight. On the blustery planet Windhaven, a special elite can take to the skies using wings made from the remnants of an ancient starship. Peasant outsider Maris fights for the right to possess wings of her own, and succeeds. What goes up must come down, however, and Maris struggles also with the definitive human nightmare: falling.

A little-known, early novel for both co-authors, Windhaven is nominally science fiction but in practice it reads very much like fantasy. Due to its intense focus on human relationships and political conflict, it particularly anticipates Martin’s hugely successful later work. This fix-up novel thoroughly explores a society which is profoundly shaped by flight, and by the struggle over who is best-placed to wear wings.

How the wings were won

Windhaven comprises three tightly-linked novellas, two of which had been published previously:

• The Storms of Windhaven was originally published in the May 1975 issue of Analog Science Fiction and Fact. It won the 1976 Locus Award for Best Novella, and was nominated for the equivalent Hugo and Nebula Awards.
• One-Wing was originally published in the January and February 1980 issues of Analog. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novella.
• The Fall was written specifically for the novel version, along with a prologue and epilogue which create the sense of a more cohesive overall story.

Martin and Tuttle intended to extend Windhaven into a trilogy - with the second volume to be titled Painted Wings - but this never came to pass.

Out of the wreckage

Early on, Windhaven does explicitly situate itself as science fiction. The people of the planet are shown to be the descendants of the crew of a starship, which made a forced landing hundreds of years earlier. Over the succeeding generations, the technology and culture of the vessel were lost to time. By the point at which the novel begins, only one remnant remains. This is the almost indestructible, flexible material used to build the wings, which have long since become the critical invention holding Windhaven’s society together. 

This situation persists because of the planet’s unique characteristics. It is an ocean world, dotted with a number of mostly tiny islands - this is one of a few aspects of the novel that recalls Le Guin’s Earthsea series. While ships and sailors are present, long-distance journeys are rarely attempted due to the rough seas and abundance of hostile marine life. The planet’s almost constant strong winds encourage the use of wings. Flyers become the critical lifeline between islands populated by “landbound”, and the “landsmen” masters.

When the novel opens, Windhaven society has become rigid and bound by tradition. Crucially, the status of flyer is hereditary. Maris secures her wings only temporarily, and only due to a loophole in the system. She becomes a crusader for a meritocratic system, which is at the centre of the first novella. The following two stories deal with the consequences of her success, which - it is fair to say - are not uniformly positive.

No woman is an island

Windhaven is a novel that is principally about change. It is about the risk inherent in a struggle for real change, and the kind of drive and determination such a mission requires. It is also about the unintended consequences of change, which can cause unforeseen harms and which can provoke further shifts in society - for better or worse. 

What the novel does not explore very extensively is the topic of flight. While Maris and other flyers love their wings, and go to great lengths to keep them, the thrill of aviation is a relatively minor focus for Martin and Tuttle. Windhaven is a mostly quiet, thoughtful novel about human relationships and about societies. This is another similarity with the Earthsea series. Fans of Le Guin may find more to like in Windhaven than they might expect from a novel co-written by George R. R. Martin.

While hardly an essential part of the 1980s SF or fantasy canon, Windhaven is an interesting and unique collaboration.