I loved this book when I was younger. I think that these books are for 6-8 year old kids, because as the years went by, I kept reading them, but they were for kids younger than I. I bought catwings when I was going on a road trip through the hills, and for the remainder of the trip I kept watching for flying cats. Finaly, I should say that I still enjoy this book, but I wish a series was made for older kids.

It was brave how Harriet and James decided to go back to their mom on their own. They asked the others but they said no. I like the part where they find the kitten in the wrecked building and find out it is their sister. The author is really good at describing stuff. She makes it seem real.

For someone who is a cat lover and a lover of fantasy fiction this is a great book. It is a simple story (it was written for young children) but one that will be enjoyed by children and adults a like. The story (winged cats returning to visit their mother) is unique and touching. I would highly recommend this book to cat lovers of any age.

In this book, Jane flies away from Harriet, James, Thelma and Roger and finds a man named Poppa. It is a quick five chapter book. I really liked it. I read it for my second grade reading class.

This is a charming story. S. D. Schindler's illustrations are fabulous - the cats live and move - and Ursula LeGuin's characterisations are spot on too. Jane, one of the Catwings, gets bored with her quiet life on the farm and decides to have "adventures." Unfortunately she falls in with a guy who, while seeming to love her, keeps her locked up and performing tricks for television cameras.

This story is a wonderful fantasy for cat lovers of all ages. The moral (if you need a little medicine in your sugar) is that if you really love someone, you'll give them their freedom.

Jane On her Own, by Ursula K. Le Guin, is a marvelous and imaginative story about a cat with wings named Jane. Jane lives on a farm with other winged cats. The elder cats caution her about the danger of being a winged cat and traveling away from the farm. "Being different is difficult." Just the same, Jane is young and wants to have adventures so she flies off to the city anyway. Upon arriving in the city Jane meets a nice man who nonetheless wants to profit off of her uniqueness. The man keeps Jane against her will, making her a television sensation. Later, after Jane escapes the man, she finds her mother and takes up permanent residence with a kindly old woman. In the end Jane learns the value of freedom and being unique. Le Guin's writing is simple and beautifully understated. The illustrations by S.D. Schindler are wonderful and evocative. I loved Jane
On her Own and look forward to reading the rest of the books in the series.

Preston McClear

In this book, Hugh is the main character. He is a 20 year old man who lives with his mom. His mom verbally abuses him. One day he gets mad and runs out and tumbles going through a gate. It transports him into another dimension. In the dimension, he learns what love is all about. He also finds a girl who is just like him. The girls world is in darkness and they need to kill a beast to help them. Will he survive or die trying? Read and find out.
I did like this book because it relates to other realms. I love fantasy and this book contains a lot. It's a very good book although I would only recommend this book to 9th graders and up, because it does contain some sexual contents.

I received this book as a gift in 1991, when I was in middle school. Now that I am a sophomore in college, I am returning to this book to do a 10-page paper for my American Literature class. I was curious ... did anyone else see Irene and the people of Tembreabrezi as Native American-type characters? They are often mentioned to have "dark faces" (p. 61, the Master's face was "dark as the embers of the fire") and "dark eyes", with "swarthy" skin (p. 51). Did anyone else see this? Hugh's white skin is repeatedly mentioned, and he IS an intruder on the private stream. Any feedback would help me with my paper. All in all, I love the book and will continue to reread it!

When I read this as an adolescent, I felt like someone else knew how I felt. Adolescents hardly ever feel this way. This is a great book for anyone who just wants to get away from his life. The end surprises you by showing you the only way to really escape.

Here are the early glimmerings of a future mastery. Le Guin will come into her own with the Earthsea trilogy and earn pre-eminence with The Left Hand of Darkness. But here, in her first efforts, we can see the developing touch--the sure hand and the restrained voice already at work.

The City of Illusions is the last of a loose trilogy of works that the author calls the "Three Hainish Novels". Set in the same Hainish universe as two earlier works, this novel shares little with its predecessors, except for a hazy reference to a collective history and the common device of telepathy.

Still, it is pure Le Guin. The author likes large themes - in this case, truth, falsehood, and the crisis of identity. The protagonist is on a journey, both figuratively and literally, to find his true being - not just his being, but his true being - a subtle but important difference. When we are introduced to him, he is a blank with no identity and no past. He must painfully build a new identity from nothing; burdened with the belief that a previous lifetime has been erased. In searching for that past, he is forced to face the fear of a false self; a life based on a lie.

Such a psychological drama could have sunken into contrivance but for the skill of the author. Le Guin navigates this hazard by making the anguish of the protagonist real and immediate, and she avoids manipulation by revealing rather than directing.

Yet, for all the written skill, this novel does not fulfill its potential. It is unsatisfying - not severely, but enough to diminish the reading experience. For one thing, the plot is incomplete: it needs an epilogue to sate our curiosity. It is also incomplete in a more vital and thematic sense: a large need is filled in a small way. When the human race is enslaved to aliens, what significance can we attach to the fleeting freedom of one man? The weight is all off kilter. The final passage ends on a note of hope, but is insufficient to redress the imbalance.

Though better than most science fiction, this book remains uneven. The austerity of the writing is cool and bracing; but the ideas lack expansiveness and the story lacks a resolution. While reading it, we set aside the immediate for the promise of things to come; but when that promise goes begging, we are so flustered by its unexpected absence that we lose sight of the vibrancy in the present. This book appeals more to stylists; less to seekers after an organic whole.

A man crawls out of the woods, naked, hungry, without knowledge, without spirit. The people who take care of him call him Falk. He is being educated, he gains knowlegde and spirit. He becomes a man of honour and truth. But who is he? After 5 years with his new family, he starts on a quest to find his true identity.

He is on Earth, in a far future. Earth that has conolized many planets, is now a barbaric world. The people of Earth are no more what they used to be. No more explorers, inventors, politicians, scientists. They became tribes, nomads and slaves.

He leanrs that he actually is a man from another world. And he IS human. He tries to find a way to win this 'battle' he is in.

This book tells of the value of truth and honour and of the importance to know yourself.

It tells a good sf story about the human race that is conquered by an alien race that used the lie as their main weapon. And this is not an sf story in which technology and space battles are the main ingredients, but everyday life, a long journey, weird lines of thought, psychological struggle and conversations that don't seem to make any sense.

I have read The Left Hand of Darkness as well, another wonderful book by Ursule LeGuin. They are on the same line of history in a far future. In both books, an individual will change the future of a whole world. In both books, honesty, honour, integrity, intelligence and courage turn out to be the way to conquer problems.

In this line of history, LeGuin has written two more books: Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile, and I can't wait to start reading them.

In City of Illusions, Ursula K. LeGuin shares an interesting insight about truth. In a war where lies are used as weapons, she says that the most powerful counteragent is truth. The liar will not recognize truth as such, or trust it, and will thus be suspicious of everything. To use a lie against a liar is to fight on the enemy's domainÐa great tactical advantage for the liar. Similarly, to use truth against falsehood will confuse the enemy. In either case, the side or sides using lies will inevitably become so mired in falsity that no real victory can be declared indefinitely. If the side of the liar appears to win, it will only be undermined eventually by lies from within. It is a tenuous victory at best, and very hollow and unfulfilling to keep power solely by subtle word-twisting.

How tempting it is, though, in real life, to attempt to use a lie to gain a tactical advantage. Le Guin shows the validity of maintaining integrity and refusing to lie. One slip of the tongue may not destroy an empire, but a slip of the tongue can be the stumble that can send one down the slippery slope from which there is no ascencion. City of Illusions is just thatÐa city set not on a hill, but in a gorge, attempting to hide from the light that may reveal it to be what it is, a foundation of falsity that can crumble when struck by anything unwilling to immerse itself in the lie. Is integrity a realistic idea in the real world? I believe it is the only thing that will endure. Anything less is simply attempting to build a society, or a city, or a life on a foundation of illusion.

I had never read a word of Ursula K. Le Guin until I recently picked up "Dancing at the Edge of the World," a chronologically arranged collection of essays, talks and book reviews written by Le Guin during the period 1976 through 1988. It is a collection that is intended, in the author's words, "[to] provide a sort of mental biography, a record of responses to ethical and political climates, of the transforming effect of certain literary ideas, and of the changes of a mind."

Each of the essays listed in the table of contents is denoted with a glyph that categorizes the essay as dealing with feminism, social responsibility, literature, or travel. This categorization gives the reader a good idea of the range of the collection and of Le Guin's interests, which extend far beyond the science fiction genre for which she is most well known.

The quality of the essays is uneven. Some of the travel pieces are soporific ("Places Names," "Along the Platte" and "Over the Hills and a Great Way Off"), although they might be more interesting to readers who have been to the places Le Guin describes. Other pieces seem to suffer from the loss caused by transforming what were originally spoken presentations into writing. The feminist writings in some cases are the victim of changing times. What is useful, however, even in these weaker pieces, are Le Guin's introductions, which provide a useful contextual background that helps the reader understand the import of the essay.

While some of the essays are unremarkable, there also are several exceptional writings that are worth the price of admission. I refer, in particular, to the 1988 essay, "The Fisherman's Daughter," which provides a provocative and interesting discussion of women and writing, a text that follows in the line from Virginia Woolf's "A Room of One's Own" through Tillie Olsen's "Silences," drawing heavily on both authors for another view of this much discussed literary/feminist theme. I also refer to the essays from 1986, a very good year for Le Guin insofar as the six essays included here from that year all provide interesting and worthwhile glimpses at why her writing is so well regarded. In particular, I enjoyed "Bryn Mawr Commencement Address" and "Text, Silence, Performance," two essays that illuminate the ways in which spoken and written language, and the privileging of certain communicative forms over others, affects the world.

Despite the shortcomings of some of its essays, "Dancing at the Edge of the World" provides a fascinating picture of Le Guin's worldview, successfully painting the "mental biography" of one of America's more interesting and accomplished writers during one decade of her life.

A most fascinating collection of essays. I'm glad I picked it up! It has encouraged me to read Ursula's other works.

This book presents a body of one woman's opinions. This might not sound like much but, given that these are Ursula Le Guin's opinions, it is well worth reading. She writes entertainingly and even though she wants to make you think it does not hurt one bit. Given the dearth of decent criticism of Science Fiction available at student level prices this is an excellent introduction to the genre for them. It is probably the first time most of them will have discovered serious thought behind SF. She also addresses other issues, often concerning her own experiences and the problems of being a woman writer, which would make this a useful text for anyone interested in gender studies. To sum up, buy it; it is very good; you will read these essays more than once, guaranteed.

Robert Silverberg's idea to collect short stories and novellas from some of this era's most notable and talented Fantasy authors is pure cream-filled joy for fans of the Genre. Despite having read the pertinent series by Stephen King, Robert Jordan, Tad Williams, Terry Goodkind, and Orson Scott Card, this book opened up new worlds to explore and new chapters in some of my favorite series.

My favorites were the ones by King, Williams, Silverberg, Feist, and McCaffrey. I have lost all interest in Terry Goodkind mostly because I find his characters to be wooden and uninteresting, and this story was no more compelling than the last book of his that I read. Goodkind also has a penchant for the "gotcha" ending, something that is frustrating to any reader who struggles to find logical connections between events and character motivation.

The best of this book, however, is The Hedge Knight by George R. R. Martin. I had never heard of Martin when I picked up Legends, and the first thing I did after finishing The Hedge Knight was to go pick up his novel "A Game of Thrones." Thanks to this book, I am now a fan of what may be the best epic fantasy series ever written, and yes, that includes Tolkien, Goodkind, and Jordan. The Hedge Knight is a simple tale of a young man recently knighted trying to make a name for himself in a tournament. The plain and honest style of Martin's prose hooks you in, and suddenly you care very deeply about this hedge knight, Dunk, and what is to become of him as he runs afoul of a vain and dangerous prince. Set approximately 100 years prior to the events that begin in "A Game of Thrones," this tale is a wonderful introduction to Martin's Westeros and the rich mythology and history he has built into it.

I was also intrigued by Feist's The Wood Boy, a tale that, for all it's positioning and setting as a chapter in a tale of strange alien invaders, is about nothing more complex than human nature and the compulsions that make us what we are as a species. Silverberg's Majipoor is also a very intriguing world, and I will be investigating it in the future.

Terry Pratchett's entry is also a key one, showing that not all fantasy need to be deadly serious or take itself very seriously at all. Pratchett almost recalls Douglas Adams' contributions to Science Fiction.

I think most Fantasy fans will be very happy with this book, largely becuase it is not a one-trick pony. There's something in here for every fan of the genre. Are you into fantastic worlds of extremes and mythology? Try Majipoor. Do you like to read tales that chill you and freeze your blood? The little sisters of Eluria are your ticket. Curious about an America that might have been? Orson Scott Card is yor man. Into knights and jousting, intrigue and politics? Martin and Jordan are for you. You can hardly go wrong buying this book, because if even one of the stories catches your interest, there's a new author for you to love. Thank you, Robert Silverberg.

LEGENDS: SHORT NOVELS BY THE MASTERS OF MODERN FANTASY, edited and introduced by Robert Silverberg, presents "eleven rich, robust new stories by the best-known and most accomplished modern creators of fantasy fiction, each one set in the special universe of the imagination that made that writer famous throughout the word." Thus we have, for instance, a Wheel of Time story by Robert Jordan, an Earthsea story by Ursula K. Le Guin and, of course, a Discworld story by Terry Pratchett.

THE LITTLE SISTERS OF ELURIA is Stephen King's contribution, set in the world(s) of The Dark Tower. It describes how the last gunslinger, Roland of Gilead, encounters first a band of mutant humans and then the not-so-benevolent sisterhood of the title.

THE SEA AND LITTLE FISHES features Pratchett's Granny Weatherwax and Nanny Ogg, set at the time of an annual competition to see who's the best at witching. Granny's inevitable victory shakes up the whole kingdom as she shows how she's bad at being nice but good at being right.

DEBT OF BONES is a story by Terry Goodkind, set prior to the events of his Sword of Truth books. Abigail come to plead with the First Wizard to save her family from an early invasion of the D'Harans, but her mission does not go quite as she intends...

GRINNING MAN presents Davy Crockett as he never was, in Orson Scott Card's alternate America of the Tales of Alvin Maker. Crockett causes trouble for Alvin who, thanks to the young Arthur Stuart, learns an important lesson in distinguishing truly good acts from the disguises taken by evil acts like revenge.

THE SEVENTH SHRINE describes an event on Silverberg's own Majipoor, late in the reign of Valentine as Pontifex, the senior ruler of the giant planet. A strangely ritualistic murder during an archeological dig of an ancient alien city prompts Valentine to investigate.

DRAGONFLY revisits the wizards (and witches) of Earthsea in Le Guin's contribution. A local witch has detected some unidentified power in the girl Dragonfly but refuses to teach her any magic. Years later, the grown woman concocts a scheme with a visiting wizard to pass herself off as a man and study on Roke.

THE BURNING MAN is a story from Tad Williams' lands of Osten Ard, the setting of his Memory, Sorrow and Thorn books. It is told by Breda, orphaned by one king and then adopted by another, and concerns first love, an occult rite and a difficult choice, all of which will burn in her mind forever.

THE HEDGE KNIGHT is an entertaining tale from the Seven Kingdoms of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire. Squire Dunk finds himself with a knighthood when his master dies, and decides to enter a local tourney to prove himself a champion.

THE RUNNER OF PERN is set, of course, on Anne McCaffrey's world. Tenna is the daughter of a long line of runners, message carriers for those who cannot use dragons to send their letters, and her story provides insights into yet another way of life on Pern.

THE WOOD BOY is a short tale from Raymond E. Feist's Riftwar Saga and concerns Dirk, two dead bodies and a Lord's gold. Dirk's life is changed forever when his Lord's estate is occupied by the invading Tsurani, and changed again by treason, murder and revenge.

NEW SPRING describes how Lan met Moiraine as a prelude to Jordan's books of The Wheel of Time, answering the question of how he came to throw her into the freezing waters of a lake, and then become her Warder and join her twenty year quest to find the Dragon Reborn.

Before reading the collection, I had read books set in five of the eleven worlds presented, and I'm looking forward to further exploration of the other six. While writing good short fiction is difficult, writing good short fiction in a setting that's previously been described in the course of a number of novels must be even more difficult. Such a short story can't be treated merely as a chapter extracted from a novel, where storylines can be set up in earlier chapters and then concluded in later chapters, but I think that all of the authors met the challenge very well. Of course, many of them make their task a little easier by moving to a time before the events of any of their books, or to a setting that has not already been used, but the stories are still entertaining nonetheless. Possibly the only author to fall into the trap of providing too much background was Silverberg himself, though I'm still looking forward to reading the Majipoor books. Even those authors noted for writing huge individual works --- such as Robert Jordan, whose seven Wheel of Time books total over 4500 pages, constituting a single, continuous story --- managed complete pieces in eighty pages or less.

Coming at this from the point of view of a Pratchett fan, I can also recommend AFTER THE KING: STORIES IN HONOR OF J. R. R. TOLKIEN (Tor) and THE WIZARDS OF ODD (Ace).

If you're at all a fan of Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time saga (and how could you not be!) then this book is worth the buy for that story alone. It details how Lan and Moiraine first met...awesome. The story is incredibly detailed and the plot doesn't stop twisting until the final sentence is read. Jordan is truly a modern master.
I haven't even read any of the other stories yet but it's got Terry Goodkind, Anne McCaffrey and Stephen King as well as about NINE others. After finishing the Robert Jordan story I immediately hoped on Amazon and bought the other two editions and can't wait to read those!

After reading the enitre Earth-Sea series over a period of time, I have to say this is the best of the series. The other two in the original trilogy were OK (and the fourth, in my opinion, was a real letdown), but his stands out from them. Its the only book in the series that I felt was written well by Ursula K Leguin. In the first she squandered her promising beginning in a meandering tale; in the third she mired her good underlying idea in tedium. This book isn't as ambitious as the other two; maybe thats why it succeeds in its aims better.

Some have said that the beginning is slow, but I felt these scenes are some of her best in the trilogy; they're interesting, and you can actually feel for the character. Arha is a splendid creation, an uncertain preistess of the dark. Furthermore, this book really expands the EarthSea universe for me. The first book was cramped and kind of uninvolved; long, boring boat rides come to mind. Here there is a sense of a corner of time, left behind for a while where the dark forces still rule. On the horizon is frightful change as the Godking tries to usurp the power of the Dark Ones Arha serves. The tension between Arha and Kossil is gripping, especially near the end. Her change of mind towards Ged, over time, clearly displays her insecurities as preistess. And all through the book, there is the tension arising from the Dark Ones in the background. Here, finally, is the conflict the series needed; there is a continual battle between the forces of man and modernity versus the Old powers of the world of EarthSea.

Not to say the book is without problems, but this is mostly because the story isn't really a trilogy (or a 'quatrology') but 3 or 4 separate books practically self contained. Thus it tales some time for LeGuin to build up momentum in each book; sometimes she succeeds, other times she doesnt really. Thankfully this book can be looked at as a success.

When I was in the seventh grade our teacher put us in a contest to see how many books we could read. My best friend and I had our own little bet on who was the fastest reader. I told my teacher of the situation and she suggested that I start reading sequels. To help me out she handed me "The Wizard of Earthsea". After reading the book I was hooked on reading the rest of the story that was written in "The Tombs of Atuan". I've read many sequels before but this one was somehow remarkably different. The story was set in the same world but a totally different story with new characters were portrayed before old characters from the first Earthsea book were re-introduced. This helped explained a broken patch in the protagonist's advetures from "The Wizard of Earthsea". Now I'm looking for "The Farthest Shore", which is the last book in the trilogy. I suggest that this book should be read by fantasy lovers every where. Many thanks to the author who wrote such a wonderful piece of literature

Of course I liked The Tombs of Atuan. It is well-constructed and beautifully styled fantasy, comparable to the works of Susan Cooper and Patricia McKillip. (No, Tolkien is in a class by himself.)

Le Guin's Earthsea books are all excellent, but some people feel that The Tombs of Atuan is slow to start, and less eventful than the other three. My opinion, for what it's worth, is quite the opposite. The introspective beginning of Tombs is not unlike the beginning of Wizard, focussing closely on a single character, that character's uniqueness, and the way that character is shaped by life. The reader approaches the threshold of adventure with the protagonist; the reader, too, is drawn into the struggle, shares bewilderment, doubt, and uncertainty; and the reader, too, has made a passage by the end of the book.

Too much of modern fantasy is all long journeys, heated battles, unquestionably terrible villains -- and swordplay, of course. Le Guin recognizes that moral ambiguity creates the greatest obstacle a character can confront...and that if the question is worthwhile, the answer is neither easy nor painless.

Tenar is a strong heroine and I would especially recommend this book for teenage girls, whose plight is sometimes not unlike that of the Eaten One; however, as all the best books are, this is a story which is based on human character and thus speaks to both sexes and all ages.

It's very good! It manages to be true to both the original trilogy and Tehanu, plus the short story that appeared in the Legends anthology (you don't need to have read it but it deepens your understanding of one of the newer characters.) Le Guin even manages to make it feel like she planned this book back when she wrote the original trilogy, even though that's highly unlikely. So, a big thumbs up from me.

I think anyone who hasn't read Tehanu will be disconcerted by some new elements that weren't in the original trilogy, but taken with Tehanu the 5 books feel almost seamless. And that's coming from someone who was somewhat disappointed with Tehanu.

Would I have liked The Other Wind back when I read the original 3? I think so, but it helps that Earthsea was static for many years before Le Guin revisited it; time has passed both in my world and hers, which I think added poignancy to each character's struggle to find their own peace.

(I respectfully disagree with some of the other reviews posted, citing sedate pacing, "empty travel", and so on. For me, the Earthsea stories were never paced like other fantasy books; action was often described more sparingly than what goes on in between.)

Le Guin's latest addition to the Earthsea Cycle is truly a triumph. In the third book in this series, The Farthest Shore, Ged the Archmage sets out on a quest that ends in the restoration of the balance between life and death, the living and the dead... or so it seems. In the Other Wind, Le Guin portrays an unrestful land, where the dead start reaching over the wall that seperates them from the living. We are able to meet the characters from the other Earthsea books again, who have all matured and changed. In fact, Ged and Tenar are leading restful, almost ordinary lives at home. Some readers may find it unsettling to find their hero's lives so changed, and the land of Earthsea quivering on its foundations, but the conclusion of the novel brings together everything good about the books. With this final novel, Earthsea seems to be bound together again, unshakingly, although not without a few seperations... The song of the woman of Kemay presides, hauntingly, over the plotline of the book.

Farther west than west,
Beyond the land,
My people are dancing
On the other wind.

Upon reading "Tales From Earthsea", I was, like many others, confused and distraught that Le Guin was changing the very heart of the world of Earthsea that we had loved for the last couple decades. But did that stop me from going to hear the author at a reading in Pasadena, CA, and eagerly purchasing the new book? Of course not! -- and well it didn't, for Le Guin has saved the best for last, and skillfully proven that "Tales" was a necessary addition to the Earthsea mythology.

First off, please, read the first four books before "The Other Wind". It will save much confusion. Next, as Le Guin said herself, the book doesn't have very many natural breaking points, so set aside a weekend to plow through the entire book, letting the tension in the book hit you deeply and quickly.

Le Guin's writing here seems effortless. The words are beautiful to read, silently or out loud. Her characters, from Ged (who is not the only central character), to Lebannen (a surprisingly honest look at a king), to Tenar (you can feel this woman's pain!), and all the rest are believable characters, though each would have been better served by a novel twice this long. But that's just the thing: Le Guin expertly chooses what to tell and what not to tell: the story moves along even with a relatively large cast of characters. And the story is wonderful, fulfilling the hopes of every ready who has spent countless hours in Earthsea.

This book is highly recommended, for anyone who loves mythology, who loves epic literature, or who simply wants a good read for a weekend. Enjoy!

Way back in the dark ages before the Harry Potter books were published, Ursula K Leguin's Earthsea trilogy was widely agreed to be one of the best fantasy series ever written. Like many others from my generation, I read "A Wizard of Earthsea" at least ten times. After recently picking up my old copy, I was pleased to find that the book stands up remarkably well from an adult perspective. LeGuin's writing is, as always, top notch. She uses a simple vocabulary and short, straightforward descriptions, and doesn't include very many big slabs of dialogue. Consequently, the book remains short (183 pages) and moves quickly from one event to the next. The ending is quite suspenseful. Actually, the entire book is quite suspenseful, and the brief conflict scenes draw you in and make you feel like you're in the middle of the action.

The characters are another of the novel's biggest strengths. The protagonist, Ged, is a young wizard in training. During an attempt to show off his skills, he accidentally unleashes a shadow from the world of the dead and realizes that he must fix his mistake by tracking the shadow down and destroying it. LeGuin doesn't take the sledgehammer approach to characterization; instead, she lets us see Ged's personality and changes through his behavior. Unlike many other fantasy authors, LeGuin doesn't neglect her minor characters, and she develops the relationships between people with great care.

The plot of "A Wizard of Earthsea" is very tight and well organized, with every major confrontation contributing to the overall meaning. A less talented author could easily have taken twice as many pages and not said nearly as much. The system of magic in LeGuin's world is more imaginative than in many other series, and she includes many episodes where Ged employs his magic powers in clever ways. Overall, LeGuin has the one thing that many fantasy authors lack: the ability to have fun. She makes "A Wizard of Earthsea" enjoyably for both children and adults.

Let's put Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter aside and look at the Earthsea series; it is a superb read without a second doubt of the intense story plotline. Every chapter of the story captures my eye, it makes my reading time all too much shorter.
The story tells of a legendary wizard called Sparrowhawk (real named Ged) in the world of Earthsea. At young age, Sparrowhawk discovers his talent in magic and wizardry, after one victory of protecting his village from the enemy. He was taken away by a wizard to learn the art of magic. However, due to his pride and ambition, a curse was brought to him by his pride. He goes on an adventure of travelling throughout the Earthsea; to search for the cure or answer to his curse.
The writing style is descriptive, and Le Guin really catches the character's personality. After this first book you'll want to read the rest of the series. I strongly recommand it to anyone at any age, even though you are never a fantasy fan. This book may open your eyes to a whole new different view!

I first read this book when I was eleven or twelve--shortly after reading the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. I found the tone to be distant, yet pleasing, and I wanted to meet Sparrowhawk. I wanted to be a wizard and have a true name. The bad things that happened in the plot were not so high on my wish list of experiences to have, though, as anyone might imagine.

Those were my feelings at the time.

I recommend this book and the other two in this trilogy to readers both young and old. However, do NOT read the fourth book. (I'll go over why in that review!) This novel can provide readers with a basis for their imaginative wanderings in the fantasy genre. I liked the characters, I loved the setting, and I enjoyed the magic system that the author revealed as she wrote. I didn't find the novel quite as colorfully vivid as any of the Narnia ones, but the change in descriptive palettes was still GOOD and enjoyable.

Genly Ai, the envoy from a confederation of worlds from all over the galaxy, tries to convince the governments of a cold and rather barbarous planet to join their ranks. The first half of this book is all palace intrigue, which drags at times, but it's the second half, featuring a tedious trek across a glacier that really tries the reader's patience. Still, there's no denying LeGuin's achievement in creating a whole new world, with its own language, weather, food, societies, religion, even its own unique ... Not since Herbert's Dune has such a complete, functioning world been created for us. Too bad LeGuin didn't know what to do with her world once she'd created it. There's no action, little enough real character development, maybe a certain sense of adventure, but after all Jack London covered treks through bitter cold weather very satisfactorily many years ago. Most entertaining is the scene where Genry visits a cloistered sect that practices divination; here LeGuin uses suspense and elegant prose to create a very powerful effect. Apart from that chapter though, there's not much to get excited about. Students of the sci-fi genre should be intrigued by the subtle way LeGuin builds her new setting, but action/adventure fans will likely find this book a chore to read simply because so little actually happens. A bit more plot would have perhaps deflected attention from the love story that LeGuin seems so anxious to tell, but the end result would have been much more enjoyable reading for the mass audience.

This book won the 1969 Nebula Award and the 1970 Hugo Award for best science fiction novel of the year. I recall first reading this book when it first appeared and being stunned at the originality and the beauty. I have read every Hugo and Nebula winner (and most of the nominees) and this is still near the top. In this classic novel, all of the action takes place on the planet known as Gethen or Winter, a frozen world set in Le Guin's Hainish universe. All of the humanoid inhabitants of Winter are exactly the same as the humans of Earth except in the means of reproduction. They are all of a single sex and can assume either sex when in "heat." If one person of a couple becomes female, the other automatically becomes male. The culture and society of this world is shaped not only by the harsh environment but by this sexual structure. A main portion of the novel is concerned with the trek of a human ambassador and ethnologist, Genly Ai, across Winter's surface with a Getthenian. The man from Earth and the manwoman from Winter grow to know and understand each other. The novel not only raises issues about our perceptions of sex but the problems associated with cultural chauvinism. It is a book that all serious students of science fiction literature should read. For those earlier reviewers who awarded this book a low rating because it wasn't "classic" science fiction, you have to recall that psychology, sociology, and anthropology are all sciences (remember that the author's father, T. Kroeber, was the first Chairman of the Anthropology Department at U.C. Berkeley), just like physics, chemistry, or, in my case, biochemistry. And to the reviewer from Washington, D.C., (of March 3, 1999) who complained that Genly Ai was too uninteresting as the main character. Perhaps that was the point. Have you forgotten your Heisenberg?

Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness has never been out of print since its publication. And it won major science fiction awards. With good reason...this is one book that should be making you click madly on the "buy this book" button if you haven't read it yet.

The story is innovative: Genly Ai, an envoy from The Ekumen, is assigned the task of getting the planet Gethen to join with this consortium of planets. The purpose isn't trade--distances are so great that only the transmission of ideas is possible. Messages can travel great than light speed by virtue of the Ansible, a device that simultaneously transfers information.

The Gethenians are unique among the sentient beings of the known planets; they are monosexual, undergoing a kind of estrus or heat once a month where they morph into female or male, completely by chance. Gethen is called Winter because it is perennially cold. The cold, and the ambiguous sexuality of the Gethenians makes for a hostile, foreign yet alluring environment.

Genly Ai has allied himself with Estraven, an advisor to the King of Karhide, one of the nations on the planet of Gethen. But Estraven falls out of favor with the unstable king, and Ai is dragged into the snare of court intrigue. What started out as a peaceful mission of communication is now deadly dangerous.

Ai finds himself inextricably entwined with Estraven, and the resulting adventure reads like the best science-fiction saga mixed with something like Earth's polar exploration adventures.

I am not sure if the sexual device of a mostly-neuter people worked well here--supposedly Gethenians have both male and female attributes, but they seemed primarily male in the book. Nonetheless, this is one of science fiction's greatest adventures and tales of friendship and if you haven't read it, you are in for a huge treat.