Rating: 
Summary: Sublime
Review: I first read the Earthsea Trilogy at the age of 9. I re-read it at secondary school at 17, during a moody teenager phase. Now I read it to children to whom I teach English. I am struck every time by how many different layers of meaning dwell in le Guin's text. I think the technical word is polysemic. It appeals to children, teenagers and adults by offering something to each, though ultimately offering the same to all: drama, adventure, and a fearless assault on the big issues that confront every one of us. Birth, life, death. And always in original, often startling or beautiful ways. Le Guin's use of language is sublime too; she has an absolute mastery of how long a sentence should be, what the words in it should sound like and what 'rhythm' a sentence should have. Moving explorations of life's great questions, investigated with originality and sophistication, harnessed to a dramatic adventure story, conjuring up grand vistas of new and thrilling worlds, created through a command of language and imagery as fine as any I have ever come across and made alive through characters that a child can warm to and an adult love. What a book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, better series
Review: I first read the original Earthsea trilogy over 20 years ago, and it has stood the test of time. If you like your fantasy with action, this will not be your cup of tea…but LeGuin is a master and a unique voice. The best part is that the books keep getting better and more moving. If you read and enjoyed Wizard of Earthsea and Toms of Atuan, you need to read this one to continue Ged’s story. Read this so that you can get to Tehanu, which I think is one of the best books ever written about the nature and meaning of love. (Looking back, there are themes here that remind me of Herman Hesse. These are important books that due not get the due they deserve.)
Rating:
Summary: a journey to the farthest shore
Review: I first read this book of the Trilogy (pure chance) and I fell in love with it. After reading the first two books, A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan, I re-read it and enjoyed even more. The book is about the adventures of the archmage, Ged, and a young prince, Arren, in a boat, Lookfar, throughout the islands of Earthsea, trying to find the magical drain. It is not only the non-ending fight between of good and evil what Leguin is telling, nor Ged's story of saving the world (once again). The book is about dragons, magic, and adventure, as well as people and their love and fear. It is about a boy who matures in a magical boat with a stranger on a strange sea. A strong bond forms between Ged and Arren, despite Arren's suspicions and distrust with his companion. Ged's knowledge and sight and Arren's inexperience, faith and fear leads them to the end of their journey, and at the end, it is Arren who saves Ged's life, and brings him back from death. The story flows with the dialogs (even sometimes one might think Ged is talking too much). I recommend all of my friends this book as a "must be read."
Rating: 
Summary: disappointing, not as good as the first book
Review: i found this book disappointing. actually, A Wizard of Earthsea was a great book, but all of the sequels were slow moving and meandering. they take place in a setting with much potential, but they do not live up to it.
Rating:
Summary: My Favorite of the First Three Earthsea Books
Review: I read the first three books of the Earthsea series, and, although the rest of the reviewers don't seem to share my sentiments, prefer it to the others. In plot it is very similar to the first book. It's a little repitious, in fact--Ged travelling to remote islands, Ged journeying through the land of the dead, Ged saving the world. But the dialogue and feel for Earthsea are much better presented in this book. Some of the conversations with Arren are fantastic and insightful (though some are admittedly hard to understadn), and the book emerges as one with a philosophy and idea far more than the first two. Also,Ged's heroism and depth as a character is most developed in this book. Hard to put down.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read!
Review: I've read all the Earthsea books and this is my second favorite (A Wizard of Earthsea is the first). All I can say, is that it was a great book. If you're thinking about buying it buy it! In my opinion, the Earthsea series should've ended with this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Refreshing and succinct
Review: In a genre dominated by 800+ page tomes, this book was a refreshing and delightful read. Ursula Le Guin is a master of flowing, lyrical prose. The book is relatively brief, but chock full of all the elements that are required for a great fantasy story. She accomplishes this feat by keeping things simple and uncluttered. She doesn't need an appendix to list all the characters and their relation to one another. Her world is well-realized, her characters well-fleshed out, and the story captures you from the first pages. Take a break from the massive tales of Jordan and Martin et al. (not that there's anything wrong with them) and read an author whose writing is as magical as her story.
Rating:
Summary: The Book of Wonders
Review: In the farthest shore, all the wizardry of earthsea is running dry somewhere on the end of the world. Ged, and a young Prince from Enlad named Arren, venture out to find this hole. Adventure after adventure Ged and Arren gain love and respect for another and move closer and closer to the secret meaning of the unbalance in Earthsea. In one of these adventures, Ged saves Arren from a slaveship taking Arren to be sold into slavery. Arren then realized how much of a friend Ged actually was. Arren has a great will inside himself that pushes him to eventually walk from life back into death. I would recommend this book for people who like to read, and who don't mind paying a little extra attention while reading. This book is a little confusing but if you concentrate a little harder it will be fine. It is confusing because alot of the dialog gets rather hard to follow, and it talks in sort of an old speech which is sometimes hard to figure out what the book is saying. I think that it was a pretty good book.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy-duty, serious fantasy. Not for the light-hearted.
Review: In the third entry to the Earthsea series, Ged is now Arch-Mage, and is faced with a new crisis: Magic around the world is failing. Together with Arren, a young prince from Enlad, he journeys to the end of the world to battle and defeat the source of this threat to the world. His quest is to rescue Earthsea from the death of magic. It's an exciting adventure, perhaps even more so than the second volume of the series. It was the National Book Award winner for Children's Books in 1973.But of particular interst is the fact that through the eyes of Arren, the reader gains a true appreciation for the enduring qualities of a LeGuine type fantasy. Arren is perplexed why Ged doesn't perform more magic, to the point where he even questions whether he is a true wizard. "Even in small matters magery was not worth counting on. Sparrowhawk was always miserly about employing his arts; they went by the world's wind whenever they might, they fished for food, and they spared their water, like any sailors ... There, thought Arren, lay the very heart of wizardry: to hint at mighty meanings while saying nothing at all, and to make doing nothing at all seem the very crown of wisdom." Over time Arren - and the reader - come to understand what magic in this world is really all about. Eventually Arren learns that true wizards don't do magic all the time: "The first lesson on Roke, and the last is: Do what is needful. And no more!" This is the essence of magic in LeGuin's novels - one will not find here the trite magic used to make boys fly on brooms or make girls invisible, as one finds in books like Harry Potter. LeGuin's magic and fantasy is never trite, but always serious and credible. In many respects it represents an early form of new age philosophy. "On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium - But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must *learn* to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance." Much of it appears to have roots in Eastern philosophy such as the Taoist yin-yang. "There are two, Arren, two that make one: the world and the shadow, the light and the dark. The two poles of the Balance. Life rises out of death, death rises out of life; in being opposite they yearn to each other, they give birth to each other and are forever reborn." The climax of the plot is taken straight from Jungian psychology: wholeness is obtained by embracing the darkest shadow of death. Weighty dialogue about such philosophy fills the novel - this is not for the light-hearted. Even if one disagrees with this philosophy, there has to be appreciation for LeGuin's seriousness and depth. Ged and Arren's quest never has overtones of a fantasy fun adventure as one might find with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, but it has a constant shadow of deep seriousness, perhaps even more so than J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles. This deeper and more serious spin on fantasy in itself makes this series worth reading. The fantasy world and storyline are not as captivating or fun as one might expect from Tolkien, Lewis, or even Rowling and Robert Jordan, and so fans of these novels might well find the taste of LeGuin somewhat disappointing. Reviews of the fourth book of the series, Tenahu, suggest that this is a strongly feminist tale and a departure from the beauty of the first three novels, and is better left untouched. I think I'll close the pages on LeGuin for now, with The Farthest Shore being the most distant shore of her work for me. -GODLY GADFLY
Rating:
Summary: Heavy-duty, serious fantasy. Not for the light-hearted.
Review: In the third entry to the Earthsea series, Ged is now Arch-Mage, and is faced with a new crisis: Magic around the world is failing. Together with Arren, a young prince from Enlad, he journeys to the end of the world to battle and defeat the source of this threat to the world. His quest is to rescue Earthsea from the death of magic. It's an exciting adventure, perhaps even more so than the second volume of the series. It was the National Book Award winner for Children's Books in 1973. But of particular interst is the fact that through the eyes of Arren, the reader gains a true appreciation for the enduring qualities of a LeGuine type fantasy. Arren is perplexed why Ged doesn't perform more magic, to the point where he even questions whether he is a true wizard. "Even in small matters magery was not worth counting on. Sparrowhawk was always miserly about employing his arts; they went by the world's wind whenever they might, they fished for food, and they spared their water, like any sailors ... There, thought Arren, lay the very heart of wizardry: to hint at mighty meanings while saying nothing at all, and to make doing nothing at all seem the very crown of wisdom." Over time Arren - and the reader - come to understand what magic in this world is really all about. Eventually Arren learns that true wizards don't do magic all the time: "The first lesson on Roke, and the last is: Do what is needful. And no more!" This is the essence of magic in LeGuin's novels - one will not find here the trite magic used to make boys fly on brooms or make girls invisible, as one finds in books like Harry Potter. LeGuin's magic and fantasy is never trite, but always serious and credible. In many respects it represents an early form of new age philosophy. "On every act the balance of the whole depends. The winds and seas, the powers of water and earth and light, all that these do, and all that the beasts and green things do, is well done, and rightly done. All these act within the Equilibrium - But we, insofar as we have power over the world and over one another, we must *learn* to do what the leaf and the whale and the wind do of their own nature. We must learn to keep the balance." Much of it appears to have roots in Eastern philosophy such as the Taoist yin-yang. "There are two, Arren, two that make one: the world and the shadow, the light and the dark. The two poles of the Balance. Life rises out of death, death rises out of life; in being opposite they yearn to each other, they give birth to each other and are forever reborn." The climax of the plot is taken straight from Jungian psychology: wholeness is obtained by embracing the darkest shadow of death. Weighty dialogue about such philosophy fills the novel - this is not for the light-hearted. Even if one disagrees with this philosophy, there has to be appreciation for LeGuin's seriousness and depth. Ged and Arren's quest never has overtones of a fantasy fun adventure as one might find with J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter, but it has a constant shadow of deep seriousness, perhaps even more so than J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicles. This deeper and more serious spin on fantasy in itself makes this series worth reading. The fantasy world and storyline are not as captivating or fun as one might expect from Tolkien, Lewis, or even Rowling and Robert Jordan, and so fans of these novels might well find the taste of LeGuin somewhat disappointing. Reviews of the fourth book of the series, Tenahu, suggest that this is a strongly feminist tale and a departure from the beauty of the first three novels, and is better left untouched. I think I'll close the pages on LeGuin for now, with The Farthest Shore being the most distant shore of her work for me. -GODLY GADFLY
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