| Re: Earthsea
Fried Egg -- The fourth and fifth ones, and some of the short stories, essentially rip the first three to pieces. There are things about Tehanu that I admire very much, but I didn't find it altogether satisfying, and The Other Wind struck me as a very weak effort for an author of LeGuin's calibre.
She obviously felt that she had important things to say and she was able to communicate them with some power in Tehanu but even there I wished she had chosen a new series and a new setting in which to say them and left Earthsea alone. And from that point on the axe-grinding seems to repeatedly get in the way of the storytelling.
For whatever flaws there are in the first trilogy, they strike me as books arising directly from the artistic impulse and the joy of creation, the others keep whispering the dread word agenda in my ear. I don't lack sympathy for that agenda, but ... as I said, I wish she had chosen some other place than Earthsea to advance it.
Wanderer -- I've learned to appreciate The Farthest Shore more with subsequent readings, but it's a toss-up between Wizard and Atuan which one I love the best. The prose in all three books really sings, and I feel that LeGuin has the ability to say more in fewer words than practically any author writing today.
JD -- The short story collection is Tales from Earthsea. It has some new stories and some old ones. |