I'm back to this. Just hate leaving books unfinished. So I have the hardcopy and the audiobook. It's pretty good so far. A little bratty for my taste tho. Ged needed more beatings as a child from what I can tell. 

by Ursula K. Leguin

 

The first of the classic Earthsea series by Ursula LeGuin. I probably should have read it long ago.

 

It's a magical Fantasy about wizards and how they are trained in a land called Gont. Ged, the main character, distinguishes himself at a young age and comes to the attention of a mysterious wizard who starts his proper training.

 

Ged is a flawed character with too much pride and probably not enough maturity to keep up with his abilities, but he does develop after making some epic mistakes.

 

The pace of the story is generally relaxed and more poetic than exciting. I can see why it stood out in its time, though I'm undecided whether I want to continue the series or not. The action goes through what could have been high adventure, but isn't gripping. There is more of insight than of engagement.

 

I felt the end was rather predictable and flat. Not the most engaging story I've read in the genre but I'm glad I've read at least the first book of the series now so I know.

I was going to take this with me on vacation tomorrow. But eh. I have other much more interesting books at hand.

Another from NPR's Backseat Bookshelf.

 

The rating is solely because I don't like high fantasy (I do like low fantasy). I'm pretty sure this A Wizard of Earthsea is good since most people who do like high fantasy like Le Guin and the Earthsea series. If I wanted long descriptions of fantasy worlds and life at wizard school and battles with a mysterious shadow being, I would have loved it.

With all the hoo-ha regarding LeGuin's recent passing, I figured I should read one of her books to find out why she was so beloved. I think one of my kids might have read some LeGuin back during his adolescence.

So, it seems this is to be the tale of a person born Duny, who is later named as Ged on his “naming day”, i.e. upon turning 13, who later sometimes became known as SparrowHawk. He had magical gifts, was tutored briefly by an aunt who was a witch, and later on by a great wizard. Something like that. Will I persist past the first chapter? We’ll see.

Well, I did manage to finish this. I didn't much like it. The problem is I'm not into dragons and wizards and so forth. I do confess to having rather liked The Hobbit, and was ok with The Lord of the Rings, but this didn't do much for me. Probably part of the problem was that the main character was kind of an asshole throughout much of the book. Yes, he sort of came out of it toward the end, but by that time, I kept wishing his shadow self would just kill him off so I could stop reading and take up something more edifying.

The best part of this book was LeGuin's afterword in which she described some of her thoughts about the genre and why mindless killing was stupid and why having non-lily-white characters was a good idea.