Windmaster’s Bane had its origins in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I’m fond enough of specific details that I included specific details of – especially – the music and cars typical of that time. Unfortunately, some of those details now render the original work a bit more of a period piece than I’d like, and since I hope this book will reach – and appeal to – a new generation of younger readers, I didn’t want it to seem too old fashioned, especially since many aspects of the culture depicted were already mired in a past that was passing away even as I wrote about them.  So I made a few changes in terms of musical and automotive references, though I kept David’s fondness for The Byrds – because that’s one of the things he and I share.  It’s just that he now thinks of them as even older oldies than when he first discovered them.  I don’t even need to mention (but I will) that there was no way I was going to update the “Mustang-of-Death.”

And then there’s the matter of technology. 

Cell phones and the internet are now givens of society – and exactly the sorts of things that folks like David and Alec and Liz would have embraced as a matter of course while growing up.  So if I wanted my young heroes to seem at all contemporary, I had to allow for the presence of those two things.  Happily, I’d already established that a lot of tech doesn’t work in David’s neck of the woods, so I was able – I hope – to allow for the existence-but-absence of “tech” without disrupting the overall logic and flow of the book too much. I’ll let you readers (especially you readers who have read the older version) decide if it works.

Finally, on what I hope are a toned-up set of muscle-and-bones, I’ve applied a spiffy new skin.

As I said, I think I’ve learned a lot about writing in twenty-five years – a lot about style, in any case.  And many of my preferences in terms of style have changed.  What this means in the real world is that I’ve cut about half the original adverbs and generally adopted stronger verb forms throughout.  And I’ve given the whole thing a thorough going over for consistency, for punctuation, and for sentence rhythm (which is very important to me, and which I hope readers will appreciate if they try to read this aloud).  Along the way I’ve had valuable input from Judith Geary, whose primary complaint about the original was that it was “adverb happy” – and who, in the process of editing this edition, helped me excise even more of the wretched things than I already had.

The upshot is, I hope, fresher, more detailed, more up-to-date, and generally better written that that first novel I began, all unknowing, back there in 1980 (or whenever): a novel that retains all that was good about the initial version, while still incorporating changes that – I hope – make it richer, more enjoyable for those of you who’ve taken the journey with me, and a more accessible, more contemporary experience for those of you who are entering my imaginary world for the first time.

I hope you all enjoy it.

 

Tom Deitz