Rating: 
Summary: The Queen of Fantasy
Review: Fabulous collection of stories by LeGuin. I can't get enough of her! The stories stand on their own merit, despite thei links to the trilogy. THE DRAGONFLY story at the end is goose-bump producing. Such a gift this woman has ... long before and probably lomg after all the Harry Potterdom Mania! BRAVA, Ursula!
Rating: 
Summary: Dullsea
Review: Exquisite writing, but it's the same old sermon. I'd rather go back to her good stuff of the seventies.
Rating: 
Summary: Not up to the level of her earlier work
Review: I wanted so much to like this collection of short stories! I have read the Earthsea novels many times, and I've greatly enjoyed LeGuin's other works. I grabbed this book right off the bookstore shelf the first time I saw it and ran home to devour it. None of the stories held my interest at all; at first, I thought I was just tired, and tried again a few days later, but the stories were, just...long, tedious, and dull. I was particularly disappointed in the "Description of Earthsea" section. I had very much enjoyed the technical descriptions of the alien culture in "The Left Hand of Darkness", and having read LeGuin's complete creation of a society in "Always Coming Home", I was eager to read her background notes on Earthsea. There weren't any revelations; even this section was just uninteresting. I guess I was hoping for a sort of mini version of "The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern" for Earthsea, with attendant technical details on flora and fauna, magic, government structures, maybe some genealogical charts and maps. No such luck. The few paragraphs on True Names, for example, are vague and provide no real insights on how a person's True Name is revealed to the witch or wizard who bestows it upon him or her. We are told merely, "The knowledge can be evoked and the gift received only under certain conditions, at the right time (usually early adolescence) and in the right place (a spring, pool, or running stream). Well, we KNOW all that, having read "A Wizard of Earthsea", and having noted how the boy Duny receives his True Name of Ged from the witch, but WHY is this so? In short, I wish I had waited for the paperback.
Rating:
Summary: Dreadfully disappointing
Review: I loved the _Earthsea_ trilogy. I read the series as a child, and wore my first copies to death. I don't think there's a finer fantasy series - one more mythic in nature; one more exacting in its prose. The series was complete in three volumes. It was written by a younger author, and Ursula K Le Guin should not have revisited it. There were objectionable elements, but they were part of Earthsea itself. In _Tehanu_ and more recently in this volume, Ursula has revisted her world for what seem frankly political reasons. We learn that magic (denied to women in the original volumes) was only restricted because of mysogyny. In fact, it turns out that the best magic users are women. And lesbians too - I have no idea why Ursula needed to tell us this. The Old Powers were the source of evil in the first books; in the current ones they are the helpful and healing source of women's magic. _Tehanu_ concluded with a deus ex machina. It destroyed the integrity of the first volumes without resolving any of the issues it had raised. There's another story here which reprises that ending - I felt cheated. This book should not have been written. It's a terrible thing, to destroy something as beautiful as _Earthsea_ was. I have the impression that the admitted mysogyny of the first books weighed so heavily on the author that she was determined to pull it down. To cite only one more example: the original trilogy was sparsely sketched in; things were casually mentioned which were part of the background but never used. In this volume Ursula felt it necessary to supply a lumbering appendix giving the sort of tedious minutiae which you might find in a guidebook - history, biology, etymology and so forth. I wish I hadn't read this book, or _Tehanu_. If you haven't read either you will probably be happier leaving the latter ones unread. The original books were flawed but uniquely beautiful. These ones are just your standard fantasy stories, written by an accomplished author.
Rating:
Summary: A Response to an Earlier Review
Review: Le Guin's recent work in Earthsea, as I've mentioned now in two other reviews, is about revisioning the hero's tale, as first identified by Joseph Campbell. The hero's tale, in its most typical and base form, is about individuals, almost always men or man-like women, who rise to power and dominate in their fields of expertise. Usually it's a magnanimous and benevolent domination, but domination nonetheless. According to Jungian psychology, these tales symbolize a process of individual maturation, and whether that's true or not, I don't know, but ultimately they reflect the very real way that our patriarchal societies operate. Most fantasy tales, therefore, support the status quo of the dominant, predominantly white, male discourse which props up the patriarchies in charge of most of the world (Le Guin's first three Earthsea books certainly did this, and it is these core beliefs that Le Guin is trying to overthrow, quietly, and in her own way, with her most recent works). These discourses operate by making possible certain ways of "knowing," where anything that seeks to circumvent, side-step or replace the status quo of the dominant discourse is made to seem lacking in value. Therefore, when an earlier reviewer indicated Le Guin's most recent work "offers little that a persistent reader will find worth knowing," that reviewer is indicating exactly that he, like most of the rest of the world, is enslaved by the belief system of the dominant discourse. Moreover, he seeks to perpetuate it. This is, of course, what is to be expected in such radical endeavors. However, as long as people such as Le Guin (not to mention the likes of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.) keep pushing us in these directions we stand a chance of actually getting there.
Rating:
Summary: Le Guin's Best Work To Date . . . ?
Review: Le Guin's Tehanu was an important work for it sought to rewrite and revision the core of the hero's tale, a group of archetypes that dominates civiliztion throughout most of the world. While Tehanu is important for this reason, it's a difficult book to read, for it avoids the hero's tale with which we are so utterly at ease, and as a result is forced to find its own route, with limited success. Tales From Earthsea is a contiuation of Le Guin's attempts to revision her world of Earthsea, and in doing so, our own. These tales are much more successful at this than Tehanu as they are entirely readable, enjoyable and yet still able to get the necessary poststructuralist revamping done. All that aside, these are some of the best writings Le Guin has produced since the first three novels of the Earthsea Cycle were written. Yet, because of their social message these works are important not just to the genre of fantasy/sciencefiction, but to humanity at large. In a way they remind me of the writings of many of the Russian greats as well as the Chinese author, Lu Xun, though his works were primarily allegorical. Without a doubt, these are some of Le Guin's best and most mature writings to date.
Rating: 
Summary: Not of the quality of the Earthsea novels
Review: I give this 4 stars because it's enjoyable and certainly has its moments, but none of these stories is quite on a par with what's come before. The first, about a finder named Medra who suffers at the hands of an evil wizard and goes on to found the school on Roke, is certainly the weakest of the bunch; it's too long, and the first and second halves of the story are only loosely connected. Once you get that one out of the way, the others are good, but not brilliant. Ursula has gotten long-winded over the course of her career, and several of these stories drag a bit. I agree strongly with Shadowfire's review and intelligent criticisms. Having said all this, Ursula would have had to do much worse for me to fail to recommend Tales to those who enjoyed the other Earthsea books. I'd mention my favorite moments, but I think maybe you ought to discover them yourself.
Rating:
Summary: A glimpse at a writers' desk
Review: A word of warning: this book makes little - if any - sense to someone who never read Le Guin's Earthsea Tetralogy comprising A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan (1971), The Farthest Shore (1972), Tehanu (1990). Never heard of these? Well, I envy You! Apart from The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, I really haven't read anything comparable to these... serious! Tales of Earthsea are varied in size glimpses into the world of the tetralogy. If it left You wondering about origins of Roke school, craving for a deeper look into Earthsea's history... here it is. The best news of all, another Earthsea novel is coming, and the Tales are a good way to pass time and to get a glimpse of things to come. After all these years, it's good to see Le Guin coming back to take us for another visit to Earthsea. If you liked the previous one, this one will thrill you too!
Rating:
Summary: Wonderful prose, but...
Review: Whenever I sit down with a Le Guin book, be it for the first time or the twenty-first time, I prepare myself to be transported to "another world" -- one in which new and extraordinary things happen. A world, not so much unlike our own, that opens a window into the nature of relationships, power, loss, and so much more. In other words, I am going to read a wonderful myth, akin to Tolkien, George MacDonald, even the Bible. Real truths come out of literature like this. The "Tales from Earthsea" collection does not disappoint. There are insights to human interaction, emotion, etc, in these pages. But, many times, I was wondering if the author would have been able to work these plot lines into the earlier books at the time the original chapters of the trilogy were published. The difficulty in writing new material for a universe created decades ago is that the universe's mythology, as described now rather than 20 years ago, "feels" completely different. My preconceptions and imaginations of the world of Earthsea have been rudely turned on their heads by one new book! Obviously, this process was begun in "Tehanu", but now Le Guin has gone back in time and done "revisionist history" on us by adding to the history that we thought we had. The new stories are engaging, mind you, but a bit discongruous with the old. Nevertheless, after reading the final story in this collection, I look forward with great anticipation to the next chapter in the Earthsea series. Highly recommended reading for young adults and adults alike. Do make sure to read the first four books before embarking on this set, though.
Rating:
Summary: Uncommodified Fantasy
Review: In the 1970's, Ursula K. LeGuin took the fantasy and science fiction world by storm, bringing a genuinely literate voice and a deep knowledge of sociology and psychology to what was largely a man's genre. Her finest fantasy was "The Earthsea Trilogy," comprised of "A Wizard of Earthsea," "The Tombs of Atuan" and "The Farthest Shore." They are marvelous stories, and they hint at other, older stories and myths. In many ways, the world of Earthsea is as deeply conceived as any in fantasy. In "Tehanu," a later book of Earthsea, she told us of some of the events that followed the events of "The Farthest Shore," and delved deeper into the mystery of dragons and the relationship between dragons and men. From the simple creatures fought by Sparrowhawk in "Wizard of Earthsea," they are revealed as increasingly complex and more interesting creatures by the end of "Tehanu." In "Tales from Earthsea," LeGuin develops other themes and characters from the past and present of Earthsea. The tales are evocative, resonant and at once mythological and personal in tone. The reader will have an image of a LeGuin, with a larger volume in her lap, telling you the stories that catch her eye. You will sense there are many, many more stories to be told. Readers new to Earthsea might do best by reading the books in order. While it's not required, you won't thoroughly understand the references to the Ring of Erreth-Akbe unless you have read the earlier books. The last short story, "Dragonfly," may bewilder you unless you have read "Tehanu." At the end of the stories, there is a summary of the peoples, languages and history of Earthsea, modelled loosely on the famous Appendices to "The Lord of the Rings." I suppose the history consists of the stories that will never be told as novels or short stories, which is really too bad. The dry narrative of Erreth-Akbe, the greatest of Earthsea's heros, would have made a wonderful tale. I was struck by LeGuin's subtle touches. The small cabin that was the summer home of Otter in the first tale, when the school of wizardry at Roke was founded, becomes the temporary home of Irian in the last story, which is set immediately following "The Farthest Shore." Roke Knoll, which always reveals things to be what they truly are, plays a role in the first and last tales, too. In her delightful foreword, LeGuin warns us, "Authors and wizards are not always to be trusted: nobody can explain a dragon." Perhaps, but you can always trust LeGuin to entertain and enrich a thoughtful reader. And if anyone can satisfactorily explain a dragon, it will be LeGuin.
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