I recently read A Wizard of Earthsea for the first time and I LOVED it. I had to draw Ged, The lightless cities of the dead, and Ged's confrontation with the dragon of Pendor. I also wrote some of my feelings on the book:






Mais il n'y a rien là pour la Science. Editor, New York Review of Wasps.
I recently read A Wizard of Earthsea for the first time and I LOVED it. I had to draw Ged, The lightless cities of the dead, and Ged's confrontation with the dragon of Pendor. I also wrote some of my feelings on the book:





making me want to reread it with the older perspective I've gotten in the maybe 5 years since I first read it.
LeGuin is one of the best writers ever. If you get a chance you should read her short story collections, particularly "The Compass Rose," which I think are even stronger than Earthsea and her other longer novels.
I have tremendous affection and respect for Le Guin's work in a heap of cases; her sci-fi is wonderful and exactly what I want out of science fiction, which is to say a lot less 'fun adventures with laser swords or sandworms' and much more 'looking at humanity through a variety of fascinating lenses'.
One of her stories in particular really got me; I can't remember which, but I think it was somewhere in the Hainish Cycle. There's a concept of a whole family unit that's sort of split into night and day duties, and they all share some time (generally a big meal and some surrounding period) to stay cohesive despite the fact that you'd have significant duty/role overlap between the night and day side. I wish I could remember the title.
I also have some special affection for Paradises Lost. We love a generation-ship in this house, and idealizing the journey as a group of people only ever destined to -be- on a journey is a turn I otherwise wouldn't have considered in that milieu.
Anyway, yeah. Imperative: read a lot of Le Guin. Her work is intense and beautiful and this scintillating view of humanity that feels impossible to replace or replicate.
/excellent drawings/, great thoughts, really looking forward to seeing how you feel about the Tombs of Atuan.