Earthsea: The First Four Books

The First Four Books

Paperback, 691 pages

English language

Published May 21, 2012 by Penguin.

ISBN:
978-0-241-95687-8
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4 stars (3 reviews)

A boy grows to manhood while attempting to subdue the evil he unleashed on the world as an apprentice to the Master Wizard.

33 editions

Very enjoyable but of its time

4 stars

I did really enjoy reading this, and will almost certainly go on to read the other Earthsea books.

I came to Earthsea after reading several of Le Guin's Hainish cycle books and short stories, including some of the earliest ones like Rocannon's World. I can see similarities with the earliest Hainish cycle works, from around the same time - an emphasis on male characters, for example - which I am sure would have been handled differently by the same author had she written them later on. But there are still a lot of great ideas here, and it is far more open-minded than most fantasy literature of its era.