Ursula K. LeGuin and Earthsea

Fantasy authors create imaginative worlds to tell their stories. Many of these worlds soon fade away from memory. Some authors spend a lot of time in developing their worlds, so that they become permanent parts of a reader's memory. The island world of Earthsea is the memorable creation of Ursula K. LeGuin. Her writing and world have become a lasting part of the Fantasy genre to stand beside Tolkien's Middle Earth or Peake's Gormenghast.

Ursula K. LeGuin is the daughter of an anthropologist and a writer. She started out writing many classic Science Fiction books, but added Fantasy with the Earthsea series. Her works have excellent characters and universal themes that appeal to every reader. Earthsea is a world of islands in a great sea. Separate islands vary in size and have their own histories and cultures. Intelligent dragons roam the far west. There is a vast sea trade that links the islands. Magic works by knowing the true names of things. The mages must know this secret language to manipulate things by magic. All of these elements combined with Ms. LeGuin's exceptional talent create powerful stories.

A Wizard of Earthsea is the first book in the series. It tells the story of Ged, a young boy with strong magical ability. He is trained by a wizard on his island home of Gont, but eventually travels to the magic school on Roke. Impatient with his training, he attempts a spell that unleashes a terrible shadow. Ged slowly grows in this coming-of-age story through LeGuin's master story telling.

The second book is a young woman's coming-of-age story. The Tombs of Atuan introduces the character of Tenar. She is a young priestess of a dark mother goddess, doomed to spend her life in a dark underground labyrinth. When she encounters Ged in her dark home, her perceptions of the world change.

Aging and death are the themes of the third book The Farthest Shore. Ged must travel with the young boy Lebannen to stop a terrible fate from destroying the world. They must travel into the land of the dead to fulfill their quest. This is a story of a young man coming-of-age and an older man putting power aside as life brings changes to them both.

Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea was published many years after the first trilogy. This book introduces a new character in Tehanu, an abused chld that can speak the language of dragons. Ged meets up with Tenar again after many years. They discover many new things about each other. Ms. LeGuin gives readers a tale about feminist ideas and finding love not matter what the age.

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