Windmaster's Bane

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy, with a little bit of Southern flavor.
Review: I bought this little paperback while I was attending the University of Georgia back in the late 1980s. The book immediately captivated me. It's a mixture of fantasy, with a little bit of southern flavor. The story is about the adventures of young David Sullivan and his friends, all high school students living in a rural area of the Georgia mountains. Not your typical rural teen ager, David's interests tend to focus on legends, myths, and magic. He spends a lot of his time trying to learn as much as he can about the mystical, while at the same time, doing the things that most boys his age do. The adventure begins when David accidentally makes contact with the Sidhe, a people with magical powers who live in some sort of parallel world.

I met Mr. Tom Deitz back in 1987. He was working at the University of Georgia main library at the time. Mr. Deitz was kind enough to sign my copy of the book.

Rating:
Summary: Fantasy, with a little bit of Southern flavor.
Review: I bought this little paperback while I was attending the University of Georgia back in the late 1980s. The book immediately captivated me. It's a mixture of fantasy, with a little bit of southern flavor. The story is about the adventures of young David Sullivan and his friends, all high school students living in a rural area of the Georgia mountains. Not your typical rural teen ager, David's interests tend to focus on legends, myths, and magic. He spends a lot of his time trying to learn as much as he can about the mystical, while at the same time, doing the things that most boys his age do. The adventure begins when David accidentally makes contact with the Sidhe, a people with magical powers who live in some sort of parallel world.

I met Mr. Tom Deitz back in 1987. He was working at the University of Georgia main library at the time. Mr. Deitz was kind enough to sign my copy of the book.

Rating:
Summary: An under-appreciated gold mine of an author...
Review: I loved this book! Like most fantasy fans, I like to daydream and what-if a good story. I couldn't find anything that I would change. This story is well written, creative, thought out, and imaginative. Tom Dietz deserves kudo's for this one!

Rating:
Summary: Magical - portraying every fantasy fan's dream.
Review: I loved this book! Like most fantasy fans, I like to daydream and what-if a good story. I couldn't find anything that I would change. This story is well written, creative, thought out, and imaginative. Tom Dietz deserves kudo's for this one!

Rating:
Summary: A Diamond in the Rough
Review: It's a good thing I met Tom Deitz at a book festival here in Nashville. Otherwise I would have never heard of the David Sullivan series. Windmaster's Bane begins this highly original series. Mixing elements of Irish, Celtic, and Indian mythology, Deitz tells the story of an ordinary young Georgia teen who, through a freak accident, is given "sight" into the realm of the Sidhe, faerie creatures who live in a world which lay parallel to our own. Soon enough, David is forced to enter the realm to save the life of his brother, who has been marked by a Sidhe assassin. If you are tired of endless Tolkien clones and are looking for an original tale of modern fantasy, read this book and the rest in the David Sullivan series

Rating:
Summary: One of the most overlooked fantasy writers ever!
Review: This is one of the best series ever written. His character development is one of his best writing traits. I really enjoy the way he weaves the characters and settings in this world into that of another. A great many readers will have denied themselves a very special world if they choose to pass up this author. I'm a very picky reader and he has never let me down. Check it out. You won't be sorry...

Rating:
Summary: One of the most overlooked fantasy writers ever!
Review: This is one of the best series ever written. His character development is one of his best writing traits. I really enjoy the way he weaves the characters and settings in this world into that of another. A great many readers will have denied themselves a very special world if they choose to pass up this author. I'm a very picky reader and he has never let me down. Check it out. You won't be sorry...

Rating:
Summary: One of the best fantasies I've read.
Review: Tom Deitz became one of my favorite fantasy writers when I read this book, and he has only amplified that standing with each of his successive novels. Since then I've never failed to buy his new books as they come out, and I've read six of the novels in this series, which I'll call the Sullivan's Cove novels. In this one, his very first book, Deitz introduces us to the high schooler David Sullivan and his friends, as stalwart a band of adventurers as there ever was. David, a fantasy and medievalist fan, stumbles across a rare book called The Secret Commonwealth. He buys it, and when he takes it home, he accidentally casts a spell he finds inside. The resulting ability he receives is to see the Golden Roads of Faerie that crisscross the Blue Ridge Mountains. This leads him to Tir-Nan-Og, the land of the ancient faerie gods of Ireland. A frustrating geas of secrecy placed upon him by these warriors creates dramatic tension in a tale where his little brother is swapped for a Changeling, and in which he adventures both within the borders of our world, and beyond.

Rating:
Summary: An under-appreciated gold mine of an author...
Review: Tom Deitz's David Sullivan series, beginning with Windmaster's Bane is one of the best reads that I've had in quite some time. Not only do I personally enjoy his style, characterizations and story, but I teach them in my Talented and Gifted classes. Most of my students have gone on to buy all of the titles that are available. I wish that Deitz would receive the "kudos" that he deserves and would extend the incredible tapestry that exists in these volumes into a longer series.

Rating:
Summary: Extremely pleasant and promising start.
Review: _Windmaster's Bane_ has all the elements that you'd expect from the first volume of a fantasy series. Magic, wish fulfillment for the reader (a normal guy turns out to be a hero), mythology and fairies. David Sullivan is a likable ordinary hero, and Deitz does a brilliant job of weaving together local Tenessee color and Irish mythology.

I unfortunately found that the series went downhill from here- somehow it got sidetracked into something for the real D&D crowd, but I really enjoyed this first book both on reading and re-reading.