The Other Wind

This is one of those novels that you have to see through to the very end before the total shape becomes clear and casts the entire series in a new light. Unfortunately, the buildup to get there is kinda middling for me. Don't get me wrong, the dragons are great and the whole introduction of new char......more

This is the conclusion of Ursula LeGuin's six volume Earthsea cycle or, as she puts it, the Earthsea trilogies; because the first three books have a young adult focus, while the last three are adult oriented. It's a very satisfying conclusion, not only wrapping up the stories of the main characters i......more

Oh, my word, the second three are different books from a crone's viewpoint. Of course, UKL's words are glorious no matter where or when one comes to them, but oh, how these words burn. Meditations on life and death, on women and men, on dragonkind and humankind, on mage and commoner. Masterfully don......more

My first Ursula K. Le Guin book was The Left Hand of Darkness: a cold strangeness of passive powers and mutating gender. After that, I was somewhat lost in this exceptional author's catalog and reluctant to read such a traditional fantasy as A Wizard of Earthsea. But eventually, starved for female a......more

And now I’ve read all the books in the Earthsea Cycle which is pretty cool. This started as a reread of the first four novels, with me reading books 5 and 6 for the first time this year. I thought that this was solid, but I was not as invested with a lot of these newer characters as I was with Ged a......more