You thought, as a boy, that a mage is one who can do anything. So I thought, once. So did we all. And the truth is that as a man’s real power grows and his knowledge widens, ever the way he can follow grows narrower: until at last he chooses nothing, but does only and wholly what he must do…

A Wizard of Earthsea is a relatively simple coming of age story about Ged. He starts out as a young boy, full of ideas and power, making a name for himself young. Then he takes one step too far, summons a dark being from outside of the world… and then he spends the rest of the book dealing with that.

It is very hard for evil to take hold of the unconsenting soul.

Oh, and along the way, finding friendship, dragons, love, and the people of all the other islands on this world of Earthsea.

It’s a fun story. It’s fascinating to read fantasy stories from so (relatively) long ago (1968). There is just a lot less baggage to the genre-this comes only a decade after the Lord of the Rings. It–along with Le Guin’s talent as a writer, don’t get me wrong–really let the story have a sense of a magical, fantastical world. You’re never quite sure what you’ll find around the corner.

And when the book takes a darker turn than you’d ever expect from Lord of the Rings, brushing up at least in the direction of more of a horror book?

Well, that’s wonderful too.

It’s a very good book. I’m really curious to see what happens next!

Onward!