Book Review: Tales From Earthsea

The beautiful fifth instalment in Ursula K. Le Guin’s masterful Earthsea Cycle.

Earthsea is one of my favourite series. As I’ve spent the years gradually going through all the books, each one has been utterly remarkable and special. Nobody writes like Ursula K. Le Guin. Tales From Earthsea is no different. It’s a bit of an oddity amongst the rest of the books, being a collection of shorter tales rather than one long narrative, but it’s no less impactful. Le Guin’s preface and afterword in this collected edition of the books of Earthsea give a fascinating insight into her thought processes while writing in this world and are just as worthwhile reading as the wonderful books themselves.

Blurb

These five superlative, evocative and enchanting stories range from a few hundred years before A Wizard of Earthsea to just before The Other Wind, and feature some of Le Guin's most popular characters, including the Wizard Ged himself.

Review

I’ll admit, I prejudged Tales From Earthsea as side content. As though it were guaranteed to be of lesser quality than the main novels, and therefore something I didn’t need to read. Which is perhaps why I’ve put off returning to Earthsea for so long after finishing Tehanu.

I was wrong. So utterly, totally, bewilderingly wrong. Tales From Earthsea is a masterpiece.

I think I had reached the second act of the first tale, The Finder, when I began to realise what I had gotten myself in for. That tale alone is hauntingly beautiful, bittersweet, and heart-wrenching. The story of the founding of the school on Roke Island. I loved it so much. The next tale, Darkrose and Diamond could perhaps be called the low-point of the book for me. But that’s not to say it wasn’t great, it was still thoroughly beautiful, and showcases Le Guin’s mastery of genre. It just didn’t quite have the same impact as the previous tale. It’s a very short love story that doesn’t necessarily tie into the main narrative of the series—it’s completely standalone, and Le Guin herself said it could have taken place at any point in the history of Earthsea, as love stories are for all times and all places. I think that one being second was a good palette cleanser, because the third tale, The Bones of the Earth hit like a truck, and this kept going through On the High Marsh, and Dragonfly.

The characters and islands and towns of Earthsea always feel so vibrant and living and full of depth. We can thank Le Guin’s mastery of prose for this, and here she proves once again that she is second to none in this regard. Each of the tales carries different themes, and is paced differently, so it’s difficult to judge the book as a whole in these terms. But Le Guin delivers on her themes with sensitivity and poignancy.

Overall, as I said above, Tales From Earthsea is a true masterwork and her short stories and novellas are worthy of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with her novels.