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4.04 AVERAGE
4.04 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
inspiring
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Ursula’s books get better book by book. I read this together with my partner and we both enjoyed this very much.
adventurous
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
adventurous
dark
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
adventurous
dark
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Another Le Guin Earthsea novel, and I’ll be honest my love of these books did not translate as keenly here. This story, which uses a Fisher King narrative starring a prince’s moral-education-by-adventure to follow Ged (now archmage) on another adventure.
Some things work really well. The use of a non-Ged POV helps preserve the necessary mystique around his inner mind as he has now come into his own, but allows us to be in the mind of someone who is newly introduced to him to allow us to freshly establish why he has this in universe mythos. It also lets us move to Ged as an Archmage and in older years without feeling like we the reader have skipped forward past them between books 2 and 3; of course we didn’t see them, Arren only just got here. This is his story, not Ged’s.
Some thematic elements of what worked previously return in regards to Le Guin’s well crafted statements of human principle, cutting without feeling didactic. The place of death within the human experience is the main thread of discussion often returned to, one underlined by an older Ged who is now at an age where his expiry date is more present in his mind, and a young companion who has lived an isolated life and who must confront death to grow. Starting naive and feeble, his growth is very fun to follow.
The exploration of new cultures, though more aimless at times here than previously (I will return to this) is as rich and interesting as it has been previously, and the world has been so colourfully and attentively filled with all the sort of myth and wonder that helps bring this journey some much needed variety.
However, this book runs into a fairly fundamental problem based on how its plot is directed. It sets out characters out into the world in an open ended search for the cause of what seems like magical seepage, one helmed by the mind of Ged. The first book had a similar arc in the pursuit of the shadow, however there we followed Ged’s emotional journey as he became more and more prepared to confront it, such that there was a natural sense of escalation and climax as he bettered himself and triumphed that tracked with his emotional and moral growth. In The Tombs of Atuan, the geography of the journey felt inherent to the format; Tenar must escape this place. There’s no mystery as to where she must go, no treasure map against which we must approximate how near or far we are from the end; we follow her emotional journey up to the point of escape, with that escape feeling like a natural point of climax for the narrative.
Here, though Arren does grow to become a courageous companion to Ged and he does develop as a character at each step, the length of the journey and its direction feels arbitrary, as if its course was, as far as the advancement of the goal of the voyage was concerned, a series of “and then…” diatribes. It didn’t feel like the escalation ever mastered a good sense of pacing to where I felt as if stakes had risen or that the journey was making consistent and measurable progress. That’s not a problem in itself, but where it’s the basis for our characters being together, more attention I feel should have been paid by the writer to keep us consistently in the loop as to how they are determining their path beyond “sail into the horizon until the world ends.” Part of this is owing to the fact that Ged, the character who would be making these calculations, spends most of his time either silent or giving moral lessons. This is important to do given the book’s objectives, but not at the expense of my all-too-often tendency to feel either lost or uncertain as to what stage of the book I was in.
That was a lot of words to make a very specific complaint, and I dedicate that word count to distinguish this book from the previous two in terms of my view of it. I feel fine doing this because, this specific complaint notwithstanding (and perhaps a smidgen more challenging prose) most of the things I like about the previous books still applies to this one, and as such it doesn’t lose much by way of score.
EDIT: Score changed 08/06/25 from 4 to 3.75.
Some things work really well. The use of a non-Ged POV helps preserve the necessary mystique around his inner mind as he has now come into his own, but allows us to be in the mind of someone who is newly introduced to him to allow us to freshly establish why he has this in universe mythos. It also lets us move to Ged as an Archmage and in older years without feeling like we the reader have skipped forward past them between books 2 and 3; of course we didn’t see them, Arren only just got here. This is his story, not Ged’s.
Some thematic elements of what worked previously return in regards to Le Guin’s well crafted statements of human principle, cutting without feeling didactic. The place of death within the human experience is the main thread of discussion often returned to, one underlined by an older Ged who is now at an age where his expiry date is more present in his mind, and a young companion who has lived an isolated life and who must confront death to grow. Starting naive and feeble, his growth is very fun to follow.
The exploration of new cultures, though more aimless at times here than previously (I will return to this) is as rich and interesting as it has been previously, and the world has been so colourfully and attentively filled with all the sort of myth and wonder that helps bring this journey some much needed variety.
However, this book runs into a fairly fundamental problem based on how its plot is directed. It sets out characters out into the world in an open ended search for the cause of what seems like magical seepage, one helmed by the mind of Ged. The first book had a similar arc in the pursuit of the shadow, however there we followed Ged’s emotional journey as he became more and more prepared to confront it, such that there was a natural sense of escalation and climax as he bettered himself and triumphed that tracked with his emotional and moral growth. In The Tombs of Atuan, the geography of the journey felt inherent to the format; Tenar must escape this place. There’s no mystery as to where she must go, no treasure map against which we must approximate how near or far we are from the end; we follow her emotional journey up to the point of escape, with that escape feeling like a natural point of climax for the narrative.
Here, though Arren does grow to become a courageous companion to Ged and he does develop as a character at each step, the length of the journey and its direction feels arbitrary, as if its course was, as far as the advancement of the goal of the voyage was concerned, a series of “and then…” diatribes. It didn’t feel like the escalation ever mastered a good sense of pacing to where I felt as if stakes had risen or that the journey was making consistent and measurable progress. That’s not a problem in itself, but where it’s the basis for our characters being together, more attention I feel should have been paid by the writer to keep us consistently in the loop as to how they are determining their path beyond “sail into the horizon until the world ends.” Part of this is owing to the fact that Ged, the character who would be making these calculations, spends most of his time either silent or giving moral lessons. This is important to do given the book’s objectives, but not at the expense of my all-too-often tendency to feel either lost or uncertain as to what stage of the book I was in.
That was a lot of words to make a very specific complaint, and I dedicate that word count to distinguish this book from the previous two in terms of my view of it. I feel fine doing this because, this specific complaint notwithstanding (and perhaps a smidgen more challenging prose) most of the things I like about the previous books still applies to this one, and as such it doesn’t lose much by way of score.
EDIT: Score changed 08/06/25 from 4 to 3.75.
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
What I loved about this book was the more philosophical analysis of the nature of mankind (are they evil?) and questions regarding other topics that fascinate mankind, such as immortality.
I also realize this is the second book about Ged but with a different point of view. And I like it, it provides a fresh and different perspective, people of different background and knowledge talking about their lives and their interaction with Ged.
It is just a marvelous story that is worth reading if you are a fantasy reader. It is a classic among classics. It is also a great series to introduce the genre for those who do not know anything about fantasy!
I also realize this is the second book about Ged but with a different point of view. And I like it, it provides a fresh and different perspective, people of different background and knowledge talking about their lives and their interaction with Ged.
It is just a marvelous story that is worth reading if you are a fantasy reader. It is a classic among classics. It is also a great series to introduce the genre for those who do not know anything about fantasy!
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No