A Wizard of Earthsea

Earthsea Cycle #1

Paperback

Published Jan. 12, 1991 by Bantam Books.

ISBN:
9789993183709

View on OpenLibrary

4 stars (5 reviews)

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

60 editions

Wonderful story

4 stars

A great story that straddled the line between literary and pop much better than the shoplit I've been listening to lately. I love a yarn about some guy going to some place and having misadventures along the way, I sure do. Better yet the themes of pride and the balance with nature and each other that comes from a devotion to living well. To living with mistakes as well as coming to terms with them as we try to make it right. IDK, I have a cold.

Libby Audiobook, Recorded Books.

I suppose

3 stars

Prose is slim and considered, the imagery vivid without being exhausting, but I did not feel engaged with Ged, personally, philosophically, etc.

I appreciate how concise and capable a novel this is; that it is in its way rubbing against the grain of what, in 1969 especially, are the expectations of a fantasy novel and setting.

But I read it today, in a different cultural milieu. While Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed still felt compelling and relevant, Wizard of Earthsea is something I can only imagine once having a greater potency.

Subjects

  • YA: Grades 7-9
  • Children: Young Adult (Gr. 7-9)