Ah.Women and dragons, dragons women. And sorcerers given their place. All explained, or explained away - I'm not sure if Tehanu becomes a better book, or worse, in retrospect. Somehow less ambitious. ( )

As a novel alone, I doubt The Other Wind would work very well. It's too bound up in what came before, the past stories, both told, and told within those that were told. But reading it as the last of the Earthsea novels is a little strange, also. The last one I read was Tehanu, which is itself different from the three that came before: it is well-known as Le Guin's feminist critique of her own world of Earthsea, and the influences of the patriarchy evident in the previous three novels. Which is a good and laudable aim, but unfortunately, it doesn't quite work: a critique is all very well, but Tehanu doesn't work as a novel, only as a polemic, and more, while it shows us how women have been oppressed, it doesn't show us how they can work to end their oppression.

So I was looking forward to this novel: I wanted it to put right both failings in the previous novel, and while it tells a good story, it doesn't, I feel, address the threads that were left hanging. It's an excellent story. Its protagonist, a village sorceror named Alder, is a quiet and gentle hero, worthy of Sparrowhawk, and his love story forms a lovely basis to the rest of the plot. (Which reminds me, mostly, of The Amber Spyglass - the same themes, the same swipes at the Christian fetishisation of the afterlife, are there, and it's interesting to note that this very specific plot point should have been replicated over two novels published at a very similar time.)

Tenar, as always, is a good character. But Tehanu, who ought to be the heroine of this book, shrinks into the background for the vast majority of it, and Orm Irian, the woman-as-dragon who also ought to be a heroine, serves no clearly-defined purpose.And without the mythic, resonant style of the previous novels, there is very little of the epic feel to the stories that they do have.

In conclusion - Le Guin is always worth reading, and so is a novel of Earthsea. But I was disappointed. ( )

I enjoy her style of writing and this was a very easy book to read. I'm a little conscious, while reading that this was in some ways an answer to feminist criticism as well as a story about the consequences of trying to outwit death. I can't help but see that as a massive metaphor for male arrogance as well.

I love Ursula le Guin's writing so freaking much. So spare and so lovely. All her characters are so beautifully rounded and human.

It's not the most spectacular novel of hers, but I really enjoyed reading this. ( )

Do not read if you have not read the Earthsea Trilogy. Actually, do not read at all.