This is one for the fans.

Normally that would be a dismissive and rather damning judgement of a book, especially the fifth in a series.  But Ursula le Guin’s Earthsea series is a modern classic, begun some 30 years ago and immensely popular and influential.

It is one of the few fantasy stories regularly ranked with Tolkien, both for its breadth of imagination and for its care and consistency of detail.

The Other Wind, the eagerly awaited fifth episode, is one for the fans because you must have read the other four to understand the threads that lead through them to this climax.  And if you have, this is an essential read.

With few exceptions, all the key characters have appeared in the earlier stories.  The important questions raised separately in those earlier books – of life and death, of dragons and people, of magic and power – all come together.

A local wizard, Alder, hears his dead wife calling him from the Dry Land.  She and all the dead call to him and pull at him for help to be free.  He seeks the help of the former Archmage, Ged, who had made that journey and returned (Book 3, The Farthest Shore).  But it is Ged’s adopted daughter Tehanu (Book 4, Tehanu), torn between her dragon and human natures, and his wife Tenar, the former High Priestess (Book 2, The Tombs of Atuan), who must face and solve the desperate dilemma facing the living and the dead.

The Other Wind is also one for the fans because it makes you want to go back to the earlier episodes to hunt for the clues you know are there.  Though the story has been crafted over 30 years, throughout it all le Guin has demonstrated a patient and precise attention to detail.  Even the fantastic elements, like magic and dragons and talking with the dead, follow a consistent and strict order.

And this book is about the disruption of that order and the need to answer some questions left over from the previous adventures.

The Other Wind is not a rip-roaring “Sword’n’sorcery” fantasy.  Like The Tombs of Atuan, it has a quieter and deeper interplay of characters, and this makes it difficult to define in terms of audience.  While The Wizard of Earthsea is often recommended (and enjoyed) as a fantasy adventure for younger readers, the richness of le Guin’s writing and the depth of the ideas that have developed through the series bridge the gaps between younger, teen and adult readers.

Really, it is one for the fans, old or young.  If you have read and enjoyed the others, The Other Wind is a must.  If you have not, then it is time to become a fan.

Other books by this author:
Tales from Earthsea (Orion, 2002)

Review by David Beagley

© 2004 David Beagley