The tales in Le Guin's new book explore or extend the world-renowned realm of fantasy established by her first four Earthsea novels. The tales included in this book ("The Finder," "The Bones of the Earth," "Darkrose and Diamond," "On the High Marsh," and "Drangonfly") concern themselves with wizards, courtship, earthquakes, and a woman's determination to break the glass ceiling of male magedom. Ursula K. Le Guin's writings have earned her multiple Hugo and Nebula awards and the National Book Award.
Winner of five Nebula and five Hugo Awards, the National Book Award, the Newbery, and many other awards, Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the finest authors ever to write science fiction and fantasy. Her greatest creation may be the powerful, beautifully written, and deeply imagined Earthsea Cycle, which inhabits the rarified air at the pinnacle of modern fantasy with J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy and Jane Yolen's Chronicles of Great Alta. The books of the Earthsea Cycle are A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1971), The Farthest Shore (1972), the Nebula-winning Tehanu (1990), and now, Tales of Earthsea (2001).
If you have never read an Earthsea book, this collection isn't the place to start, as the author points out in her thoughtful foreword; begin with A Wizard of Earthsea. If you insist on starting with Tales of Earthsea, read the foreword and the appended "Description of Earthsea" before proceeding to the five stories (three of which are original to this book).
The opening story, "The Finder," occupies a third of the volume and has the strength and insight of a novel. This novella describes the youth of Otter, a powerful but half-trained sorcerer, and reveals how Otter came to an isle that cannot be found, and played a role in the founding of the great Roke School. "Darkrose and Diamond" tells of two lovers who would turn their backs on magic. In "The Bones of the Earth," an aging wizard and his distant pupil must somehow join forces to oppose an earthquake. Ged, the Archmage of Earthsea, appears in "On the High Marsh" to find the mad and dangerous mage he had driven from Roke Island. And in "Dragonfly," the closing story, a mysterious woman comes to the Roke School to challenge the rule that only men may be mages. "Dragonfly" takes place a few years after Tehanu and is the bridge between that novel and the next novel, The Other Wind (fall 2001). --Cynthia Ward
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
perfect:
This book arrived well before the expected date and was a great buy. I will be buying from them again.
Not Free SF Reader:
"AT THE END OF THE fourth book of Earthsea, Tehanu, the story had arrived at what I felt to be now. And, just as in the now of the so-called real world, I didn't know what would happen next. I could guess, foretell, fear, hope, but I didn't know. Unable to continue Tehanu's story (because it hadn't happened yet) and foolishly assuming that the story of Ged and Tenar had reached its happily-ever-after, I gave the book a subtitle: "The Last Book of Earthsea." O foolish writer. Now moves. Even in storytime,... more info
Excellent short story/novella collection:
"Tales from Earthsea" verifies why Ursula K. LeGuin is one of the best writers around -- of fantasy, science fiction, or any genre. Simply put, it has wonderful stories that ring true, yet have mythical elements -- the people are fully real, with faults, and make mistakes, yet do remarkable, visionary things in various ways -- from the quotidian to the sublime. This book has three new stories and two reprints; the reprints ("Darkrose and Diamond" and "Dragonfly") are very good stories, and I... more info
A wonderful collection:
A lovely collection of stories from around the archipelago. While not quite as good as the best Earthsea stories, you'll definitely want this to complete your collection.
Privacy policy: we don't collect information
about visitors except for the standard technical server logs. We don't send unsolicited emails. We don't
sell the information that we don't collect about you to anyone. When you follow
links to other sites, their privacy policies apply. Thanks for visiting!
