Tehanu

While I love to pick up a fantasy novel and be transported to another place, I don't always enjoy the jolt when I come back to the mundane world--and that's assuming the book isn't so cliched that I never go on a journey to begin with. Tehanu is unique in many ways and is one of my favorite fantasy novels because some of its characters have been jolted into the mundane world themselves and find that their most powerful weapon... Read Full Review

This book continues right from the end of The Furthest Shore. The story is slower then the other three, yet it is also much deeper. The primary themes again are being: who are we? Especially who are we after loss? For Tenar/Ghoa it is the loss of husband; for Ged the loss of power, ceasing to be a mage. Also it is man's struggle to conquer death. We also learn in this book that in earthsea, man and dragons were once one race... Read Full Review

I had the pleasure of reading the entire cycle from A Wizard of Earthsea through to The Other Wind in a two month period. Apparently for some people, having to wait several years between the end of The Farthest Shore and Tehanu gave them time to build up rather unrealistic expectations of what Ursula K Le Guin should have written. The first three books were not exclusively about Ged. Indeed, he was the central character but... Read Full Review

I heartily and respectfully disagree with those who think that Tehanu is a longwinded and boring piece of sentimental crap. From my reading of the first three books, Ged always had complex feelings and fears that were evident to the reader. I don't see how Tehanu is very different, except that Tenar's complexities are thrown into the mix. It is true that Tehanu is a more emotional book than the other three, and maybe that's... Read Full Review

For two decades, Ursula Le Guin's landmark EARTHSEA cycle was considered a trilogy. The surprise publication of a fourth novel in 1990, TEHANU, generated expansive critical acclaim and represents Le Guin's courageous and brilliant feminist deconstruction of her own fantasy masterwork.Tenar of the Ring, priestess-heroine of THE TOMBS OF ATUAN, has become a middle-aged farmer's widow, who abandoned both wordly fame and the promise... Read Full Review