The Earthsea Trilogy: A Wizard of Earthsea; The Tombs of Atuan; The Farthest Shore

I enjoy fantasy literature quite a bit. Some of my favorite series are Lord of the Rings, Redwall, and Harry Potter. Despite the fact that the SciFi Channels movie depicted Earthsea as being a cheap ripoff of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, nothing could be further from the truth. The series is near and dear to my heart and its very unique. Ursula Le Guin is a very engaging writer and the world she created is imaginative and captivating. So if you saw the movie and thought it was stupid, read the book! The movie WAS stupid and had almost nothing to do with the book!

Ursula LeGuin is as talented a writer as one could hope to find. She has a deft hand at science fiction and fantasy, but she also layers her work with adult themes of self-discovery and personal evolution, relationship to self and to others, isolation vs. connection, and cross-cultural communication and understanding. In the most thoughtful, interesting, and entertaining ways, she plays with race, gender, age, etc. as social constructs, creating critiques of real-world countries and cultures in the process. But none of this comes off as pedantic or condescending - just fascinating, and sometimes heartbreaking and tragic. In these ways, Ms. LeGuin transcends the genres she writes in. If the Chronicles of Narnia are the quintessential children's fantasy series, the Lord of the Rings the quintessential contemporary heroic fantasy series, and Harry Potter the quintessential populist fantasy series, then the Earthsea Trilogy is the quintessential adult fantasy series. For maximum enjoyment, you will have to work a bit as you read - moreso than with LOTR. Enjoy the sparse, concise language, the atmospheres packed with meaning both explicit and ethereal, the things she *doesn't* say. Savor the books slowly. Jump backwards and re-read parts that gain more portent the more you progress. The Earthsea Trilogy isn't beyond the young adult reader, but older readers will appreciate it too - and glean more from it. When you are done with Earthsea, don't stop. Get the fourth book in the series written years later, "Tehanu." Find "The Winds Twelve Quarters" and "The Compass Rose" (short story collections) at a used bookstore/ web site. Read "The Left Hand of Darkness."

I first head of LeGuin after I was introduced to the animated movie being done by Ghibli studios. Being a huge fan, I decided to sit down and read her works before watching the movie (which is a totally different story). The Earthsea Trilogy is easily one of the best fantasy works out there. I've personally never been much of a fantasy fan, but this book intrigues me like no other. I loved the way that LeGuin went through the story and it was not your typical "good guys fight bad guys" theme. It took it some time to pick up really, but at half way through the book I could not stop reading. She really had me thinking throughout the entirety of the book. Overall, I recommend it to anyone who is a fan of fantasy, it's a nice break from the usual stuff.

This is some of the greatest fiction of all time, let alone science fiction or fantasy. These are fun and exciting tales! Full of mystery and things that get you thinking, they grip the imagination. These are also tales that resonate in deep places, quietly. They can be transformative. They are about courage, values, and new ways of viewing. Perhaps to be most experienced, you must bring something of yourself to them as well? This would be true of most things, I suppose.

I can't vouch for the 3-in-1 format of this version, I own the books separately and like them that way, but the content is fabulous. LeGuin creates a compelling, mythic world that is richly layered with wisdom and significance. These are books that you can reread again and again, getting more out of them each time and enjoying them anew. And as if the wonderful storytelling on multiple levels for the first three books wasn't enough, LeGuin comes back to Earthsea and provides an even more intelligent (and a deeper, more feminist & humanist) interpretation of her world in the next three books with only increasing skill as a writer and storyteller.