Why You Should Read the Earthsea Series (A Spoiler Free Review)

[@ARTEEX-ci9oc]

Just started reading them! A WIZARD OF EARTHSEA today 👍

[@amusicalbookworm]

Brandon Ciantar I hope you enjoy! I love the first book in the series so much.

[@carljordan6864]

Just finished the first four books. Picked up the quartet edition randomly in a book shop as I'd run out of books to read whilst visiting family. Can't wait to read the next two and really enjoyed your video.

[@amusicalbookworm]

I so love the last two books of the series! Hopefully you can get to them soon! Thanks so much for watching!

[@AlexBlackReads]

Ooh this whole series sounds so good! I think I've heard of it, but nothing specific apart from your reads. It's interesting that it goes from YA to adult. I kind of like when series do that. I've never read any Le Guin, but I've always wanted to. Maybe I'll start here!

[@amusicalbookworm]

Alex Black I think this is a really solid starting place with her!

[@Deathtroit.]

I read these books at the age of 13. I love them and they are my favorite. Harry potter Ripped it off. Harry = Ged Hagrid = Ogion Dumbeldor = The Arch Mage Ron Weasly = Vetch Draco = Jasper Voldemort = The Shadow Hogwarts = Roke The similarities are to spot on its almost embarrassing. Wizard of EarthSea is truly the superior series.

[@TheGallantDrake]

Dunno about that, I think it might be easier to argue that both series are drawing on the same archetypes. That being said, Harry Potter definitely doesn’t deserve the praise it’s gotten for any sort of “innovation”. HP is hardly original.

[@mrblackbird1254]

Lol Hagrid = Ogion and Ron = Vetch???

[@Percabeth204]

I just got the first one I’m so exited!

[@SpiffierShindigs]

I think loving Tombs more than Wizard is actually a really common take. Tombs is my favorite book of all time: it's so unique and thoughtful and terrifying. I definitely agree with you about how Farthest Shore kind of drags. But the latter half of the series, my goodness. Tehanu is revolutionary, even if it's not my favorite. But Tales and Wind? WOW. Tales has SO much amazing stuff in it: the origin of Roke, Ogion's backstory, everything in On the High Marsh, and Irian as a character are all phenomenal building blocks in the world. The Other Wind really solidifies everything the series has been about to this point, and puts a great bow on it. Getting to see Ged, Tenar and even Lebannen one last time was great, but getting to meet Alder and Seserakh really pushed it over the top for me. Alder may be the most supremely tragic character I've ever encountered, while Seserakh is exceptionally inspiring. But the way it addresses the afterlife is great - I didn't even realize that there was a legitimate plothole about the afterlife until I read Wind and now I can't see how I didn't realize that there's no way the Dry Land is a natural occurance. Glad to see some love for Wind out there; I think it's the most discounted of the novels, but it absolutely does the most for the series. Thanks for having a review of the whole series up. So many either leave it at the first three or four (or god forbid, just the first), and that's so frustrating as someone who really loves Tales and Wind. Loved hearing your take!

[@amusicalbookworm]

Yess!!! I totally agree with you! Books 5 and 6 are probably my top two favorites. Thanks for watching!

[@cmw12]

Ok fine, I’ll read the rest. No promises about Tehanu. I may just read a synopsis.

[@Deathtroit.]

Thank you for this video!!

[@TheCodeXCantina]

Thanks for this! I’ve been doing some research on this author and am trying to see what I could possible start with

[@s.g3894]

I really want to read in now but the book will be delivered in a week😭. I can't wait

[@RaineyDayReads]

I read the original trilogy in college as well. I remember liking the Tombs of Atuan the most.

[@amusicalbookworm]

Rainey Day Reads it still might be my favorite!

[@lewys9204]

I bought the set from the folio society for my kids birthday but they didn't like the series, I pick3d it up instead and readma few pages and just liked it, inside give them th4 money considering I th4n took th4 books and I got them discord instead. They're still reading them to this day. Discwo5ld has 41 books and this version has I think 6, not sure. I got 6 though.

[@Flowerz__]

I remember the first book got home into reading as a kid. I own a good amount of books and like collecting them but I can never really get into reading them like I did when I was a kid. I might try to pick this up again and give it a shot to see if it can get me into reading again.

[@gracetaylor7351]

This series sounds interesting !! 🙂

[@amusicalbookworm]

Grace Taylor it’s good!!!

[@angst_]

I hate how one of my books is larger than the other 5. Except mine is #1 that's big!

[@thedreamweaver6514]

I bought a book from the thrift store that had the first four books in one book. EarthSea Quartet After watching, I'm definitely reading it.

[@LuminousLibro]

I have been reading through this series little by little for about a decade, and I only have a couple of books left. Love it so much! I recommend it to everyone. The world building is amazing. Tehanu is my least favorite in the series so far too. It's still good, but the other's are just so much better.

[@amusicalbookworm]

Books for MKs glad you agree!! I hope you enjoy the last two books. I really did!

[@ArgyleDinosaur]

Oooh. I have a book written by her! I can't remember what it is though, which makes me feel bad because Chrissy from The Return Cart sent it to me. I'm really excited to have it because it sounds awesome, but yeah.

[@amusicalbookworm]

Argyle Dinosaur I wonder what it is! She has sooooo much literature. Hopefully someday I will get to all of her books.

[@ArgyleDinosaur]

@@amusicalbookworm I had to get home to check it, but it's called The Left Hand of Darkness. I'm really excited to read it!

[@cmw12]

Nevermind my kvetching below, someone just answer me this: Do I need to read Tehanu before Tales and The Other wind? Would a synopsis suffice? ---- Earthsea was LeGuin’s debut, and it shows. The magic system is both too vague and too powerful, and LeGuin’s worldbuilding is inconsistent and nonsensical. It’s not that Ged can’t do, well, anything, it’s that he conveniently chooses not to… mostly. Wizards in this world cast spells based on the true names of stuff, and they are stupidly overpowered. When every village has a sorcerer capable of pretty much anything, why is there still subsistence farming? Why isn’t everything done by magic? “The Balance” you say, but what exactly is that? What is this naming power LeGuin coquettishly refuses to explain? Roke is boring. Nothing happens there. The students are actually safe, which is unusual for a book of this genre. Professors are competent and entirely well-intentioned. Yawn. In Atuan, Ged’s Mary-Sue-ness reaches absurd heights. Not only is he now fighting a whole army of the same Nameless demons he faced in the first book, but he’s doing it casually in the background to the point where they basically pose no threat and you don’t need to think about them. Stupid. Same complaint with Farthest Shore. Magic is being drained from the world and wizards are losing their power. You’ll never guess who gets to keep his powers though… Why? Why is Ged seemingly untouched? What the f***, Ursula? Nothing makes any sense. Oh, and at the end Ged’s companion becomes King… for reasons. The other nations all just accept this apparently. It’s not that monarchy is bad - Earthsea supposedly really needs a King (why?!). No - you need a King and this special rune… for reasons. It’s not clear why things suck without a ruler, and it’s not clear how one would improve the situation. Just so much unexplained crap and cheat-code plot points. Arghhhh Yes, LeGuin’s prose is beautiful. Yes, the first book has a satisfying resolution. Yes, the series is special for its focus on inner demons. But come on… there’s so much left unsaid, so much contradictory worldbuilding, such overpowered protagonists… When stuff needs to happen, it just happens… because. And all the other stuff that would definitely be going on in any world with this premise isn’t. But if you like wizards, and boats, and wizards in boats, go nuts. I haven’t read Tehanu or any of the others yet. Of them all, I’m most curious about The Other Wind. The thought that LeGuin might actually have tried to make this all make sense is exciting. But yeah - as fantasy series go, this feels like a sophomoric effort at best. The odd thing is I have fond childhood memories of Tombs of Atuan in particular. I don’t know why. What did I see in it?! Tenar is an interesting character, but it’s all soooo predictable, and there’s almost no real danger as soon as Tenar meets Ged… The threat of Kissel never materializes, the demons don’t do shit… Why did I think this worked?

[@cybersketcher1130]

So I wasn't crazy about the first book (mostly because I've seen Ged's character arc in other cartoons before), and I'm not attached to most characters. Should I continue reading it, cause I've just seen these tropes pop up so much I'm kinda tired of seeing and that might be the only reason I didn't get super invested.

[@amusicalbookworm]

I think if you're not crazy about the first book, you might not really care for the rest of the series! Maybe try the second book and see? I personally really liked Tombs of Atuan, but if you read that one and don't care for it, then I would just stop there!

[@lego7naveltube]

Would you say that the first book could be read as a stand-alone?

[@amusicalbookworm]

I think the first book holds up really well as a standalone! I know a lot of people read it as such. In fact, the second book is sort of disconnected from the first.

[@Rajathon]

I don't know why I haven't This series yet

[@amusicalbookworm]

Rajathon I think you would like it Ramsey!

[@roybodin7301]

Why you shouldn't buy paperback.

[@davidmorris2219]

The Farthest Shore is not the easiest read. I actually ordered the book after reading the first two when I was twelve and to be honest I was a little disappointed at first. It was only with further reads and greater maturity than I realised it was by far the best of the original trilogy. I have to say that I hated the later books. By this point LeGuin had become an ardent feminist and she was so guilt ridden over not making the original trilogy feminist enough that she lost sight of her Taoist principle of balance and overcompensated. She threw the baby out with the bathwater, not just deconstructing the original Earthsea but wrecking it's philosophical foundations.

[@Keiji555]

I hated it. A waste of paper and ink. You can have all the important characterisations of the first 120 pages out of 170 pages in 10 pages. It's not introspective, and nothing happens. After the point it starts... Nothing but sidequests. And the gebbeth is not relevant to the story. The little bit of symbolism is not as present. I'm a fantasy nut, and this was a waste of time. Ged is of Pacific Islander racially? That should have been stated from the first paragraph that he arrives in the story. What about the festival he liked when he was at the academy? What can you tell me about it? That he liked it. That's it. I enjoyed the movie. People say it butchered the plot... It would have needed a plot in the first place in order to be butchered. (Plus Danny Glover did an amazing job) Try Dragonlance. That is fantasy worth reading. Plus it has comprehensive symbolism and a plot.

[@amusicalbookworm]

I will definitely look into Dragonlance :) thanks for the recommendation! Sorry to hear you didn’t like Earthsea. I can definitely see the criticisms.

[@Keiji555]

@@amusicalbookworm thanks. Start with "Dragons of Autumn Twilight", then "Dragons of Winter Night" followed by "Dragons of Spring Dawning". That's the primary trilogy. Actually based off a Dungeons and dragons campaign by the writers. I preferred the Earthsea miniseries. I found it covered all the bases of the book, and those intended. I know people complained about Shawn Ashmore. However, I didn't know Ged was meant to be brown. IMO, it should have been in the first paragraph that we meet him in the novel. Else it would be interpreted as either the reader inserting themselves into the character, or the homeland of the writer. I thought Earthsea was based on the Pics predating Scotland. The archipelago, the invading blond Vikings, getting educated in another place (rivalry with the south of the islands, and France being a bastion of knowledge and culture) going west to start anew, after traveling to several islands... (Iceland, Greenland and then North America) I do admit that I'm very critical as a writer and a reader. Oh, and Dragonlance has an entire book series based off of the various characters, even historical ones, explaining the end of an ancient civilization...

[@Vinicide]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who didn't like this. I'm about 80% through it and I'm just not seeing what the hype is about. I like the world building but the characters are so dull and lifeless. I have no emotional connection to any of them, least of all the protagonist. When he found his familiar after the tower, I felt nothing. If the character wasn't so flat I would have been very emotional, but nope. Nothing. I'm going to finish it because I made it this far but I doubt I'll continue the series.

[@Keiji555]

@@Vinicide I had to read it for a university course. I was just waiting for the story to start. I am a heavy reader, and this book left me unable to read much afterwards. There are plenty of people who dislike the book, and I wasn't able to get into the world building either. In fact, there was nothing there. Remember the entire description of the wizard festival? "Ged liked it." That's it. A lot of the important details to be developed were incomplete. I wouldn't blame you if you decided to put it down. The entire "battle between Ged and the Gebbeth is two sentences. That's it. As much as there is a lot of good ideas, it's an incomplete novel. There haven't been as much seafaring fantasy novels of this sort... However it's not really well done. I'd recommend the movie duology. It has Danny Glover as the wise mentor, and Shawn Ashmore as Sparrowhawk. (The latter had LeGuin throw a fit about his race, about how Ged's Polynesian, and how dare he cast a white man as Sparrowhawk. She says he was described as Polynesian in book two, however, that's not a good point to show a description of a main character in the first book.) It has a portion of the story that's radically different, such as a bigger presence of the group that tried to invade the island in the beginning. It touches on aspects of the first and second books. I actually enjoyed it.

[@glendaal67]

This must be some kind of trolling or you did not understand at all what the books are about.