Tales from Earthsea

Fun exploration of the world! One more to go.

My favourite, but you can't just jump in here; it gets its power from reprise and reprisal.

Contains five short stories about Earthsea, with many crossovers from the previous books.

A little less even because of the jumping around in time to follow all the stories. While some were OK, a couple stood out, like Dragonfly, and made the collection a good and substantive addition. I liked interrogating some of the assumptions and discovering Roke in a different context. Tehanu is a hard thing to follow. I’m not sure anything after it would have been 5 stars. But it is still very good.

This is the fifth installation of The Earthsea Cycle.In this book is a collection of short stories from different eras and locations within Earthsea. There are tons of links to other tales in this series throughout this book, including character crossovers. There's even a whole section on describing Earthsea at the end, giving a real in-depth history of the land and it's cultures. I am getting a little bored with this series, but I think it's just because of how the writing has a rather archaic feel. This writing really does help create the universe, but it's just not my thing. I appreciate how effective it is in creating the world of Earthsea and immersing you in the book, though. My favourite tale in this book is the final one, where a woman is allowed entrance into Roke School. I'm interested in seeing if equality returns to Earthsea - women with power are looked down upon, whereas sorcerers, wizards and especially mages are respected for their power. I will stil finish reading this series, despite not loving it as much as I maybe should. 3 stars.