Choosing to read the Earthsea Quartet was not one of my typical impulse buys from Waterstones but the result of scouring Amazon, using the multiple, 5 star user reviews as a reassured assertion that this would prove to be a good read. Funnily enough it goes to show that judging a book by its cover on that unguided impulse purchase can often be a lot more successful than listening to the opinions of people you don’t know and therefore have no idea as to their fictional tastes. Granted this is a somewhat ironic statement as the purpose of me writing this is to inflict my humble opinions on other potential readers, but given the fact that this is a blog and you can read my two pence worth on a number of other books as well I’m assuming you have a feel for what I find flavoursome. So, hopefully you will forgive me for my cheek.

As you may have gathered by the above, I personally find the Earthsea Quartet highly overrated. To quote one of my trusty Amazon buddies; “an amazing fantasy that combines breath-taking detail” this is not. In fact The Earthsea Quartet is the literary equivalent of golf; relatively pointless with small spurts of action in-between long intervals and ultimately full of holes.

Earthsea is a world made up of an archipelago of uncountable islands where a beings true name, be it person or dragon, is their power. The throne in the capital of Havnor has been empty for hundreds of years and disorder is slowing eating away at society. Wizards and sorcerers hold the only power in the lands but they cannot rule the people of the sprawling islands without a leader at their helm, especially as dark powers seek to overturn the ancient ways and old language for their own personal aims of eternal life.

The first 3 books in the quartet; A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore were written in the 1970’s with the final book Tehanu a follow-on published in 1990. The time gap is noticeable in the sense that Le Guin’s focus as an author seems to have changed in the last novel (not to mention the typeface change that bizarrely is adopted in the printed text). The first 3 explore schismatic themes around intrapersonal conflict between good and evil and faith versus power, whilst still deep rooted in the fantasy genre. The 4th shifts into feminism territory with the mention of a dragon thrown in, on perhaps no more than 4 or 5 pages, to maintain a feeble link.

The quartet feels disparate in many other ways too. Despite the sleeve informing you that all four books follow the story of Ged from boyhood as an apprentice wizard to adulthood as the one of the greatest wizards and Archmage of Earthsea, this should be taken in the loosest possible sense. Ged features strongly in the 1st book and equally shares with another character the 3rd, but the 2nd and 4th books are entirely dominated by Tenar, priestess of the tombs of Atuan. Ged’s character is almost unrecognisable from book to book, from his persona to his manner of speaking. Because the books do not follow on immediately from each other, but more conclude at the end, the gap between each tale is around a 15 year span and does not allow us to see how Ged’s character develops but more we are told that it has. This is generally a classic flaw in Le Guin’s ‘masterpiece’; there is far more ‘tell’ than 'show'. For example, we are told of all the great things that Ged has done to become Archmage but are only shown a hint of them in each book. This leaves the reader wondering what all the fuss is about regarding this supposedly great wizard. In conjunction with this, Le Guin concentrates so hard on Ged’s human flaws and physical weaknesses we forget that he is anything more than a wandering nomad suffering from a personality transplant from novel to novel.

Ged is not the only character to suffer. From book to book we are introduced to characters that are never fully explored or developed by the conclusive chapters of that instalment and then are not brought up again throughout the quartet. Whilst Ged may be the obvious protagonist there is noticeably a lack of antagonists, and those that are wrought are mentioned at such flickering intervals we know barely anything about them, their origins or their motives.

Action in the quartet is few and far between and when it does happen Le Guin glosses over details in such a vague and rushed way that it suggests she simply didn’t know how to write it or couldn’t fully develop the ideas, not that it was purposely done to leave the reader guessing. This seems a little under accomplished seeing as there are no complicated sub plots that need weaving together. The lack of action would be fully acceptable if the focus lay more in character and interpersonal evolvement, but considering this is also weak, the story does not have any concrete underlying themes or foundations to fully support it.

There are many examples where Le Guin, like may other fantasy authors, tries to deliver profound messages but subsequently writes words around those shallow golf holes, ultimately managing to say nothing of substance.

The archipelago itself contains some interesting ideas, notably the Children of the Open Sea, a sea dwelling community that meanders the ocean on a town of rafts, though most notions are not explored enough. The nature of an archipelago also lends itself to one of the most confusing maps ever to grace the fore pages of a fantasy novel. You are constantly referring back to it to find mentioned places and often having to resign yourself to the fact that they simply aren’t marked on the map.

Despite all my criticisms The Earthsea Quartet is still readable. There are definitely areas that grab your attention, though disappoint in the way they don’t follow through. If you have nothing better at hand then give it a go but it certainly won’t be making it onto my favourites list.

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