Science Fiction & Fantasy
![Ursula K. Le Guin - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_ursula_k_le_guin.jpg)
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.
Readers Top Reviews
Jordan Speakesouth w
VERY engaging book, beautifully descriptive writing style both visually and emotionally. Le Guin creates an awesome world with a really good feeling magic system, as well as a very nice plethora of people, making the world feel so big and diverse even in such a small book. Recommend. The quality of the print is good as well, good text size and font face (even if on the larger side), cover was nice and came undamaged. Although I can't find any other sellers of the later books in the series of this publication, so if you're looking for a set, try a different one.
James HockleyJames H
Well, this was another classic. This is a beautiful children’s tale, a lesson to us all, painted against a stunning backdrop. It certainly feels its age, but that is no bad thing – it remains fresh but in a classic style. This is another series I will be picking up in the future. We follow Ged as he seeks to become a wizard. He has the talent for it, but does he have the maturity? Well, that is the focus of this story. It is an endearing one. This was an incredibly inventive and, in my reading experience, a unique world. Earthsea (as you might gather) is a bit of an archipelago – a whole collection of islands that are varied in nature, and are also inhabited by a range of different peoples. And it’s extremely well thought out. The climate and the geography just feels natural, and that is no simple thing to do in such a unique setting. This was also a joy to read, and is a beautifully written novel. We have to bear in mind that it was written back in the ‘60s, but even so, it is gorgeous. Very much in the classic fantasy voice, the descriptions of the world are expansive and enjoyable, and this is balanced with character development and action. The pace is not rapid by modern standards, but it is certainly no slouch. That should be obvious just from the scope of the story arc! Then there is the other key fantasy pillar – magic. This is another area in which this book excels. The systems behind magic are fundamental, and the systems of Earthsea are very well done indeed. There is always a cost balanced against the gain, and this is cleverly borne out, particularly in one scene where our protagonist has to “patch” his boat rather more substantially than he would like. Suffice to say that he doesn’t get much sleep! Finally, we have the story arc itself – the most important part you might say. And I thought that this was very enjoyable. We follow Ged, who is gifted in the ways of magic and is encouraged to pursue those skills. As a young wizard, eager to show his talents, he ends up making an immature mistake, one that shadows him for his life. So we follows Ged’s arc as he comes to term with what he’s done, attempts to learn the balance and responsibility of wizardry, and indeed, comes face to face with the very shadow that follows him. It is a classic lesson in rashness and maturity – something we could all learn from. So, was there anything that I didn’t like so much? Perhaps only a couple of things. The style of the story, perfectly placed as a children’s narrative, was not for my taste. I suspect that part of this this is an audience point, and part of it is the age of the book, so it is not a failing in any sense, but not quite to my taste. And in fact, this is an interesting view on how different the style of writing can make a book feel. Definitely not a reason to steer c...
JP
I love this book. The penguin paperback is really well-designed. I highly recommend for all ages. I'm actually using this for a class I'm teaching. LeGuin is in a class of her own.
b
Great book, buy it from the British seller to get the cooler cover.
Short Excerpt Teaser
WARRIORS IN THE MIST
The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. From the towns in its high valleys and the ports on its dark narrow bays many a Gontishman has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in their cities as wizard or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander working magic from isle to isle of all Earthsea. Of these some say the greatest, and surely the greatest voyager, was the man called Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. His life is told of in the Deed of Ged and in many songs, but this is a tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made.
He was born in a lonely village called Ten Alders, high on the mountain at the head of the Northward Vale. Below the village the pastures and plow lands of the Vale slope downward level below level towards the sea, and other towns lie on the bends of the River Ar; above the village only forest rises ridge behind ridge to the stone and snow of the heights.
The name he bore as a child, Duny, was given him by his mother, and that and his life were all she could give him, for she died before he was a year old. His father, the bronze-smith of the village, was a grim unspeaking man, and since Duny's six brothers were older than he by many years and went one by one from home to farm the land or sail the sea or work as smith in other towns of the Northward Vale, there was no one to bring the child up in tenderness. He grew wild, a thriving weed, a tall, quick boy, loud and proud and full of temper. With the few other children of the village he herded goats on the steep meadows above the river-springs; and when he was strong enough to push and pull the long bellows-sleeves, his father made him work as smith's boy, at a high cost in blows and whippings. There was not much work to be got out of Duny. He was always off and away; roaming deep in the forest, swimming in the pools of the River Ar that like all Gontish rivers runs very quick and cold, or climbing by cliff and scarp to the heights above the forest, from which he could see the sea, that broad northern ocean where, past Perregal, no islands are.
A sister of his dead mother lived in the village. She had done what was needful for him as a baby, but she had business of her own and once he could look after himself at all she paid no more heed to him. But one day when the boy was seven years old, untaught and knowing nothing of the arts and powers that are in the world, he heard his aunt crying out words to a goat which had jumped up onto the thatch of a hut and would not come down: but it came jumping when she cried a certain rhyme to it. Next day herding the longhaired goats on the meadows of High Fall, Duny shouted to them the words he had heard, not knowing their use or meaning or what kind of words they were:
Noth hierth malk man
hiolk han merth han!
He yelled the rhyme aloud, and the goats came to him. They came very quickly, all of them together, not making any sound. They looked at him out of the dark slot in their yellow eyes.
Duny laughed and shouted it out again, the rhyme that gave him power over the goats. They came closer, crowding and pushing round him. All at once he felt afraid of their thick, ridged horns and their strange eyes and their strange silence. He tried to get free of them and to run away. The goats ran with him keeping in a knot around him, and so they came charging down into the village at last, all the goats going huddled together as if a rope were pulled tight round them, and the boy in the midst of them weeping and bellowing. Villagers ran from their houses to swear at the goats and laugh at the boy. Among them came the boy's aunt, who did not laugh. She said a word to the goats, and the beasts began to bleat and browse and wander, freed from the spell.
"Come with me," she said to Duny.
She took him into her hut where she lived alone. She let no child enter there usually, and the children feared the place. It was low and dusky, windowless, fragrant with herbs that hung drying from the crosspole of the roof, mint and moly and thyme, yarrow and rushwash and paramal, kingsfoil, clovenfoot, tansy and bay. There his aunt sat crosslegged by the firepit, and looking sidelong at the boy through the tangles of her black hair she asked him what he had said to the goats, and if he knew what the rhyme was. When she found that he knew nothing, and yet had spellbound the goats to come to him and follow him, then she saw that he must have in him the makings of power.
As her sister's son he had been nothing to her, but now she looked at him with a new eye. She praised him, and told him she might teach him rhy...
The island of Gont, a single mountain that lifts its peak a mile above the storm-racked Northeast Sea, is a land famous for wizards. From the towns in its high valleys and the ports on its dark narrow bays many a Gontishman has gone forth to serve the Lords of the Archipelago in their cities as wizard or mage, or, looking for adventure, to wander working magic from isle to isle of all Earthsea. Of these some say the greatest, and surely the greatest voyager, was the man called Sparrowhawk, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. His life is told of in the Deed of Ged and in many songs, but this is a tale of the time before his fame, before the songs were made.
He was born in a lonely village called Ten Alders, high on the mountain at the head of the Northward Vale. Below the village the pastures and plow lands of the Vale slope downward level below level towards the sea, and other towns lie on the bends of the River Ar; above the village only forest rises ridge behind ridge to the stone and snow of the heights.
The name he bore as a child, Duny, was given him by his mother, and that and his life were all she could give him, for she died before he was a year old. His father, the bronze-smith of the village, was a grim unspeaking man, and since Duny's six brothers were older than he by many years and went one by one from home to farm the land or sail the sea or work as smith in other towns of the Northward Vale, there was no one to bring the child up in tenderness. He grew wild, a thriving weed, a tall, quick boy, loud and proud and full of temper. With the few other children of the village he herded goats on the steep meadows above the river-springs; and when he was strong enough to push and pull the long bellows-sleeves, his father made him work as smith's boy, at a high cost in blows and whippings. There was not much work to be got out of Duny. He was always off and away; roaming deep in the forest, swimming in the pools of the River Ar that like all Gontish rivers runs very quick and cold, or climbing by cliff and scarp to the heights above the forest, from which he could see the sea, that broad northern ocean where, past Perregal, no islands are.
A sister of his dead mother lived in the village. She had done what was needful for him as a baby, but she had business of her own and once he could look after himself at all she paid no more heed to him. But one day when the boy was seven years old, untaught and knowing nothing of the arts and powers that are in the world, he heard his aunt crying out words to a goat which had jumped up onto the thatch of a hut and would not come down: but it came jumping when she cried a certain rhyme to it. Next day herding the longhaired goats on the meadows of High Fall, Duny shouted to them the words he had heard, not knowing their use or meaning or what kind of words they were:
Noth hierth malk man
hiolk han merth han!
He yelled the rhyme aloud, and the goats came to him. They came very quickly, all of them together, not making any sound. They looked at him out of the dark slot in their yellow eyes.
Duny laughed and shouted it out again, the rhyme that gave him power over the goats. They came closer, crowding and pushing round him. All at once he felt afraid of their thick, ridged horns and their strange eyes and their strange silence. He tried to get free of them and to run away. The goats ran with him keeping in a knot around him, and so they came charging down into the village at last, all the goats going huddled together as if a rope were pulled tight round them, and the boy in the midst of them weeping and bellowing. Villagers ran from their houses to swear at the goats and laugh at the boy. Among them came the boy's aunt, who did not laugh. She said a word to the goats, and the beasts began to bleat and browse and wander, freed from the spell.
"Come with me," she said to Duny.
She took him into her hut where she lived alone. She let no child enter there usually, and the children feared the place. It was low and dusky, windowless, fragrant with herbs that hung drying from the crosspole of the roof, mint and moly and thyme, yarrow and rushwash and paramal, kingsfoil, clovenfoot, tansy and bay. There his aunt sat crosslegged by the firepit, and looking sidelong at the boy through the tangles of her black hair she asked him what he had said to the goats, and if he knew what the rhyme was. When she found that he knew nothing, and yet had spellbound the goats to come to him and follow him, then she saw that he must have in him the makings of power.
As her sister's son he had been nothing to her, but now she looked at him with a new eye. She praised him, and told him she might teach him rhy...
