FanFare

The sorcerer Alder fears sleep. The dead are pulling him to them at night. Through him they may free themselves and invade Earthsea. Alder seeks advice from Ged, once Archmage. Ged tells him to go to Tenar, Tehanu, and the young king at Havnor. They are joined by amber-eyed Irian, a fierce dragon able to assume the shape of a woman. The threat can be confronted only in the Immanent Grove on Roke, the holiest place in the world, and there the king, hero, sage, wizard, and dragon make a last stand. (Book 6 of the Earthsea cycle) [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on May 7, 2021 - 2 comments

The tales of this book explore and extend the world established by the Earthsea novels—yet each stands on its own. It contains the novella “The Finder”, and the short stories “The Bones of the Earth”, “Darkrose and Diamond”, “On the High Marsh”, and “Dragonfly”. (Book 5 of the Earthsea cycle) [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Apr 2, 2021 - 5 comments

Years before, they had escaped together from the sinister Tombs of Atuan—Tenar, an isolated young priestess, and Ged, a powerful wizard. Now she is a farmer's widow, having chosen for herself the simple pleasures of an ordinary life. And he is a broken old man, mourning the powers lost to him not by choice. A lifetime ago, they helped each other at a time of darkness and danger. Now they must join forces again, to help another—the physically and emotionally scarred child whose own destiny remains to be revealed. (Book 4 of the Earthsea cycle) [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Mar 5, 2021 - 15 comments

Darkness threatens to overtake Earthsea. As the world and its wizards are losing their magic, Ged—powerful Archmage, wizard, and dragonlord—embarks on a sailing journey with the highborn young prince, Arren. They travel far beyond the realm of death to discover the cause of these evil disturbances and to restore magic to a land desperately thirsty for it. (Book 3 of the Earthsea cycle) [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Feb 5, 2021 - 6 comments

Tenar is chosen as high priestess to the ancient and nameless Powers of the Earth, and everything is taken from her—home, family, possessions, even her name. She is now known only as Arha, the Eaten One, and guards the shadowy, labyrinthine Tombs of Atuan. Then a wizard, Ged, comes to steal the Tombs’ greatest hidden treasure, the Ring of Erreth-Akbe. Tenar’s duty is to protect the Ring, but Ged possesses the light of magic and tales of a world that Tenar has never known. Will Tenar risk everything to escape from the darkness that has become her domain? (Book 2 of the Earthsea cycle) [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Jan 3, 2021 - 14 comments

I'm thinking monthly for the remaining five books, but I'm open to other ideas. [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Dec 7, 2020 - 6 comments

Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tumultuous tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance. (Book 1 of the Earthsea cycle) [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Dec 4, 2020 - 23 comments

Would anyone be interested in a reread of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea cycle? [more inside]
posted by Cash4Lead on Oct 7, 2020 - 15 comments

In his four-volume series Return to Nevèrÿon, Hugo and Nebula award-winner Samuel R. Delany appropriated the conceits of sword-and-sorcery fantasy to explore his characteristic themes of language, power, gender, and the nature of civilization. Wesleyan University Press has reissued the long-unavailable Nevèrÿon volumes in trade paperback. The eleven stories, novellas, and novels in Return to Nevèrÿon's four volumes chronicle a long-ago land on civilization's brink, perhaps in Asia or Africa... [more inside]
posted by mwhybark on Sep 22, 2019 - 15 comments