Aerin's review
A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1)
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Aerin's review
A Wizard of Earthsea (The Earthsea Cycle, Book 1) by Ursula K. Le Guin
Aerin's review
rating:
bookshelves:
childrens,
fantasy
I don't know. Maybe I'm missing something here. This is supposed to be the first installment of a classic YA fantasy epic, but it read like an early draft of a much longer, more detailed, better work. Very little attention to characterization and most of the scenes seemed vague and sketched in. It's surprising, because I usually love LeGuin. This is one of her earlier books, though, and I do tend to like her more recent stuff better.
The story is a riff on the basic coming-of-age tale -- a young wizard, in a show of arrogance, accidentally unleashes an evil shadow creature, and spends the rest of the book trying to undo this mistake. In the process, he learns Important Life Lessons, like humility and friendship and the responsibility that goes along with power (you know, like Spider-man).
It sounds like it might be pretty good, and while it does have some pretty great scenes with dragons and sorceresses and so forth, there's twice as many b-o-o-ring scenes, where he just sa...more
The story is a riff on the basic coming-of-age tale -- a young wizard, in a show of arrogance, accidentally unleashes an evil shadow creature, and spends the rest of the book trying to undo this mistake. In the process, he learns Important Life Lessons, like humility and friendship and the responsibility that goes along with power (you know, like Spider-man).
It sounds like it might be pretty good, and while it does have some pretty great scenes with dragons and sorceresses and so forth, there's twice as many b-o-o-ring scenes, where he just sa...more
