Mild fail. Like the previous two books, this is a Bildungsroman, but where they make a neat pair--boy and girl, myth and psychological thriller, golden boy wizard and hurt, magicless child--this one brings in a prince called Arren about whom we get little background and into whom little insight, except that he is strong and brave and worships Sparrowhawk and is destined to be the returned King. And okay, if you wanted a king you'd choose a guy like that, but this book covers entirely too much of the same ground already looked at by A Wizard of Earthsea--except at least in that Ged wrestles with some real internal evils. Arren just helps out, gets pissy, inherits the throne.

It's also the book where Le Guin gets around to trying standard fantasy forms, but she gets them rather muddled. This is the world outof joint book, but there's no rhyme or reason: magic disappearing; archvillain messing with the world of the dead; dragons perishing and afraid--there's nothing to tie these catastrophes together. Why are they together? Just to show how bad it all is?

This is also the "world tour" book, but we still have not seen most of the centre of Earthsea--Le Guin seems to think mentioning places is enough--and we just putz around the edges. the place for this was in one of the first two books. I could imagine a quite satisfactory combo of The Farthest Shore and Tombs of Atuan, but that wasn't the way Le Guin chose to go. The tour, and the final sail to the ends of the earth, does give us the opportunity to meet the raft people--amazing--and get some Moebiusy 2d black mountains and such in the land of the dead.

And there are other things with pacing, suspense, secrets and revelations, that Le Guin seems to completely not get or ignore because she's so preoccupied with her parable (which, again, is less interesting than in either of the first two books, the ultimate message here seemingly that we should not fear death but should treat it with respect and live, but also that we need our social betters, in this case mages and kings, to take care of us). There is a complete failure to do the most basic of awesome genre conventions, when instead of bringing back any of the undeveloped characters from the original--Jasper, Vetch--or giving us a cameo by Tenar or Ogion, Le Guin makes the villain this laughable head case called--of all things--Cob, who is scared of death and gets into things he can't master and lets loose mere anarchy until he is taken care of--not by our heroes, who stand by while the dragon Orm Embar shows up to do the hard work, then pursue Cob into the land of the dead where sparrowhawk finishes the job with some ill-defined plot MacGuffin which results in him losing his powers (third-rate Chris Claremont, this). Le Guin doesn't pursue the most obvious, cheap--nay, free--way of giving him piquancy as a villain, which is to make him Jasper, Ged's arrogant bete noire from the first book. Vetch does not show up, do something heartbreakingly loyal, and sacrifice his life for the cause. again, the feeling is, we are not meant to care about the characters; they are only a didactic vehicle for the message. And in this case the message--see above--is one about which I both have mixed feelings and find fairly uninteresting. ( )

The first is still my favorite of the three, but this one comes close. Le Guin's writing flows through this story very beautifully, though probably at a different pace than the modern reader is used to. Still, I do not regret a moment, in any book, that I spent upon the open sea with Ged, and it is time I cherish.

I am anxious to start this series again, but I rather like to let these stories wash over me a while before heading to another. ( )

Better than the first, not as good as the second... ( )

A classic and a great series. While all three are good, I personally enjoyed the first two the most. ( )

The third installment of the Earthsea trilogy.

Something terrible is spreading throughout Earthsea - the magic of the world, and the wizards who wield it, is fading. Old songs are suddenly forgotten. People and animals become ill or slowly go mad. The magnificent and fearsome dragons, ancient, wise, intelligent, are rendered dumb and feral.
Accompanied by Arren, the young Prince of Enlad, our hero Ged (also known as Sparrowhawk) sets out to find the cause. Their journey is filled with countless dangers and takes many a wrong turn, until finally it leads them to the source, beyond the Reaches, on the Last Island, in the Land of the Dead.

This is the best of the original trilogy, filled with things that are poignant and touching, yet also gripping and horrifying. Le Guin's descriptions of the world are so rich that you can't help but picture yourself there. I can almost feel the ocean breeze, taste the saltiness of the water, feel the scorching sun on my back.

This book is filled with philosophical discussions on life and death, especially on the importance of accepting the latter as a simple fact of life. Everything that lives, eventually dies. Only when one can accept that fact can he truly live.
I think it will take several readings and much reflection to comprehend all of it.

One thing that really earned this book a few bonus points with me was the larger role the dragons played towards the end. The dragons of Earthsea seem more real than any other dragons I've read; they have so much history and character and societal structure. The greatest and most ancient, Kalessin, who barely appears and hardly says a thing, is already one of my favorite characters of fantasy fiction (right up there with The Luggage of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series).

I loved this book. The more I think about it, the more I love it. It's brilliantly and superbly done. Ursula K. Le Guin at her best. ( )