A Visit to Earthsea, Part VI: The Other Wind

Mass market paperback, 211 pages
Published 2003 (originally 2001)
Acquired December 2008
Read October 2012

The Other Wind
by Ursula K. Le Guin

My memories of the final Earthsea novel are the vaguest of all six (I'm writing this review up ten months late, which contradicts the whole point of writing these reviews).  I remember liking some parts (the visiting Kargad princess). I don't remember much else. Jo Walton's perspective fits with what I remember not liking. If there's anything to not like about these last three Earthsea novels, it's that they're somewhat joyless for Le Guin stories.

A Visit to Earthsea, Part V: Tales from Earthsea

Trade paperback, 314 pages
Published 2002 (contents: 1997-2001)
Acquired December 2007
Read October 2012

Tales from Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin

It's odd that this book should leave me cold. Short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin! Come on! I should love them all. Instead, I just kinda like "On the High Marsh," and I don't care for the rest at all. Certainly the most skippable of the Earthsea books.

A Visit to Earthsea, Part IV: Tehanu

Mass market paperback, 281 pages
Published 2001 (originally 1990)
Acquired August 2008
Read September 2012

Tehanu
by Ursula K. Le Guin

It's depressing, to find out what happened to Tenar after The Tombs of Atuan. One wishes she would have had great adventures, but Tehanu shows that wasn't the case at all. This is a feminist rewriting of the original three Earthsea books-- but it's done by the original author, like if Charlotte Brontë wrote both Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea herself. Which I like: it means that when the world of Earthsea changes, that the actual world of Earthsea changes, not some kind of ersatz version of it.

This is the moment that stuck out to me the most, where Tenar reflects on what it's like to be a woman of a different race than everyone else around you: "I wonder what a white woman's like, white all over? their eyes said, looking at her, until she got older and they no longer saw her."

A Visit to Earthsea, Part III: The Farthest Shore

Mass market paperback, 197 pages
Published 1980 (originally 1972)
Acquired August 2008
Read September 2012

The Farthest Shore
by Ursula K. Le Guin

I liked Arren, the young protagonist of this Earthsea book, a lot, as he learns to mature, and the Raft People are completely awesome. Still, this seems the weakest of the first three Earthsea books, a pale retread of A Wizard of Earthsea in some ways. In fact, one wonders why this book's antagonist  isn't a callback to the first one, given the echoes. As with the first book, the dark climax is the best part.

A Visit to Earthsea, Part II: The Tombs of Atuan

Mass market paperback, 146 pages
Published 1975 (originally 1971)
Acquired July 2008
Read September 2012

The Tombs of Atuan
by Ursula K. Le Guin

This Earthsea novel doesn't focus on Ged, but Tenar, a young girl who is supposedly the reincarnation of an ancient priestess. It's darker and more confined than the first book, or indeed, any Le Guin book I can remember, but I liked it for that. Some aspects seemed a little underdramatized, but it was pretty much on par with the first book on the whole. Good, but lacking a spark of greatness.

A Visit to Earthsea, Part I: A Wizard of Earthsea

Mass market paperback, 198 pages
Published 2004 (originally 1968)
Acquired November 2007
Read September 2012

A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin

Considering my love of Le Guin's sf, which I first encountered back in 2003 or so, it baffles understanding that it took me nine years to get around to reading her fantasy. But here it is. It is simpler than her sf is, very much a bildungsroman of a very uncomplicated sort, I think. That doesn't stop it from being good, but one ends up suspecting that the Le Guin who gave us The Left Hand of Darkness could have given us something a little more striking than this. We don't get into Ged's head the extent to which we do other Le Guin protagonists.

All that said, Earthsea is of course an awesome and well-delineated environment, and the dark climax of the novel is fantastic.