50-531: The Earthsea Cycle , also known as Earthsea , is a series of high fantasy books written by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin . Beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968), The Tombs of Atuan , (1970) and The Farthest Shore (1972), the series was continued in Tehanu (1990), and Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind (both 2001). In 2018, all the novels and short stories were published in
100-522: A "delightful "time" fantasy". She also praised "The Stars Below" as an "excellent science fiction story", and compared it favorably to the thematically similar "The Masters". Publishers Weekly highlighted the stories "April in Paris", "Nine Lives", and "The Ones Who Walk from Omelas" (sic), while the Salt Late Tribune reserved particular praise for "Winter's King" and "Semley's Necklace". In
150-545: A 2020 retrospective of the collection in Tor , Sean Guynes wrote that the four "germinative" stories that grew into novels were of interest largely because they hinted at Le Guin's later explorations, but considered "Semley's Necklace" "beautifully written" and "The Rule of Names" amusing. In contrast, the Toronto Star had particular praise for "Winter's King". Guynes also praised "April in Paris" and "The Good Trip", finding
200-408: A broad term to include a number of different flavors of the fantasy genre, including epic fantasy , mythic fantasy, dark fantasy , and wuxia . It typically is not considered to include the sword and sorcery genre. High fantasy has often been defined by its themes and messages. " Good versus evil " is a common one in high fantasy, and defining the character of evil is often an important theme in
250-409: A childlike figure, but matures rapidly, experiencing a considerable gain in fighting/problem-solving abilities along the way. The progress of the story leads to the character's learning the nature of the unknown forces against them, that they constitute a force with great power and malevolence. The villains in such stories are usually completely evil and unrelatable. "High fantasy" often serves as
300-495: A common basis for many fantasy books and many other authors continue to contribute to the settings. The Wind%27s Twelve Quarters The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a collection of short stories by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin , named after a line from A. E. Housman 's A Shropshire Lad , and first published by Harper & Row in 1975. A retrospective of Le Guin's short stories, it collects 17 previously published pieces of speculative fiction . Four of these were
350-522: A futuristic setting. Scholar Elizabeth Cummins links "The Day Before the Revolution" and "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" to "The Field of Vision", writing that they "show Le Guin's continued concern with utopia". The collection as a whole, in Bucknall's view, moves from "tender, romantic" pieces to ones that Le Guin describes as concerning "something stronger, harder and more complex", showcasing
400-500: A long story about a prince in search of the Ultimate. He travels south-west from Havnor through the archipelago into the open sea. There he finds a raft-colony and sea-people, whom he joins in the sea. The prince wears out, sinks and finds the Ultimate. This story was never submitted for publication because "it never worked out itself well". However, the theme of a raft-colony and sea-people was later taken up as an important ingredient in
450-559: A new, six-part dramatization of the Earthsea works, encompassing the storylines and motifs of the novels A Wizard of Earthsea , The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore . The first of the six 30 minute-long episodes premiered on April 27 and the last on May 5. The characters of Ged and Tenar were portrayed by three actors at different stages in their lives (Kasper Hilton-Hille, James McArdle and Shaun Dooley as Ged; Nishi Malde, Aysha Kala and Vineeta Rishi as Tenar). The radio drama
500-446: A sequel after considering the loose ends in the first book; The Farthest Shore followed after further consideration. These three books were written in quick succession, from 1968 to 1972, and are sometimes seen as the "original trilogy". Nearly twenty years later, Le Guin wrote a fourth book, Tehanu (1990), and followed it with Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind in 2001. The latter three books are sometimes referred to as
550-460: A shift from "private concerns to public ones". Literary scholar Susan Wood suggested that the collection shared broad themes, including a "concern with the nature of truth" and the "right way to live". The collection also had recurring images and characters, in Wood's view, including motifs of light and darkness, and isolated characters seeking knowledge in a hostile world. The Wind's Twelve Quarters
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#1732775426329600-489: A single volume, The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition , with artwork by Charles Vess . The world of Earthsea is one of sea and islands: a vast archipelago of hundreds of islands surrounded by mostly uncharted ocean. Earthsea contains no large continents. The largest island, Havnor, at approximately 380 miles (610 km) across, is about the size of Great Britain . The cultures of Earthsea are literate non-industrial civilizations and not direct analogues of
650-550: A variety of individual stories. Wood called particular attention to "Nine Lives", "Winter's King", and "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow", writing that in each, scientific extrapolation was used as a "framework for powerful psychological studies". Reid, writing in 1997, also highlighted "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow", calling it a "Le Guin classic", as well as "April in Paris", praising Le Guin's use of her knowledge of medieval French culture. Literary scholar Charlotte Spivack had similar praise for "April in Paris", describing it as
700-660: A work of high fantasy, such as The Lord of the Rings . The importance of the concept of good and evil can be regarded as the distinguishing mark between high fantasy and sword and sorcery. In many works of high fantasy, this conflict marks a deep concern with moral issues; in other works, the conflict is a power struggle, with, for instance, wizards behaving irresponsibly whether they are "good" or "evil". Role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons with campaign settings like Dragonlance by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis and Forgotten Realms by Ed Greenwood are
750-663: Is where most people go after they die, with the exception of the Kargs. It is a realm of shadow and dust, of eternal night where the stars are fixed in the sky, and nothing changes. The souls who reside there have an empty, dreary existence, and even "lovers pass each other in silence". Le Guin has stated that the idea of the Dry Land came from the "Greco-Roman idea of Hades ' realm , from certain images in Dante Alighieri 's work, and from one of Rainer Maria Rilke 's Elegies". In
800-518: The Sydney Morning Herald praised Le Guin's "startlingly original approach to the genre" in the collection. The Wind's Twelve Quarters was first published in 1975 by Harper & Row , and was republished in standalone editions and omnibus volumes several times. It collects 17 previously published stories. Most appear unchanged from their original publication: " Nine Lives " was published as originally written, and " Winter's King "
850-505: The Earthsea radio drama, the thematic month included the airing of a two-part radio adaptation of The Left Hand of Darkness earlier in April, as well as exclusive interviews with Le Guin and some of the writers she inspired. In December 2004, the U.S.-based Sci Fi Channel broadcast a three-hour loose adaptation of A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan for television, entitled Legend of Earthsea (later, simply Earthsea ). It
900-540: The Hainish Cycle , while Bucknall writes that "Nine Lives" could plausibly belong in that loose grouping as well. Three stories — "Winter's King", "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow", and "Semley's Necklace" — touch on the effects of relativistic time dilation . Two others, "April in Paris" and "Darkness Box", also feature time as a prominent theme. Literary scholar Suzanne Reid writes that " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas " shares philosophical underpinnings with
950-641: The Locus Award for best single author collection in 1976. Several stories had won awards upon initial publication. The collection was critically well-received. Several contemporary reviewers wrote that it showcased Le Guin's development as an author, and highlighted Le Guin's introduction to each story as giving insight into her writing. Scholar Suzanne Reid wrote in 1997 that the stories showcased Le Guin's "wide range of talents and ethical concerns" and praising her comfort with widely varied settings. Publishers Weekly described it as "First-rate Le Guin", while
1000-592: The Sydney Morning Herald saying they "[threw] some light on the workings of one of the most original minds in the genre". Reid wrote in 1997 that the stories showcased Le Guin's "wide range of talents and ethical concerns" and praising her comfort with widely varied settings. A review in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch said that the collection "certainly stands on its own", and praised Le Guin's characterization in particular. Commentators favorably highlighted
1050-514: The "real" or "primary" world. This secondary world is usually internally consistent, but its rules differ from those of the primary world. By contrast, low fantasy is characterized by being set on Earth, the primary or real world, or a rational and familiar fictional world with the inclusion of magical elements. The romances of William Morris , such as The Well at the World's End , set in an imaginary medieval world, are sometimes regarded as
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#17327754263291100-621: The "second trilogy". The series as a whole is known as the Earthsea Cycle , and was published in a single volume in 2018 as The Books of Earthsea: The Complete Illustrated Edition , with art by Charles Vess. Le Guin published nine short stories of Earthsea. Seven appear in two collections of her work (and some have been reissued elsewhere). Two early stories were originally published in 1964, and were collected in The Wind's Twelve Quarters ( Harper & Row , 1975). These helped to define
1150-640: The Archipelago, "red-brown" skin is typical; however, the people of the East Reach have darker "black-brown" complexions. The people of Osskil in the north are described as having lighter, sallow complexions, while the Kargs of the Kargad Lands are "white-skinned" and often "yellow-haired". Le Guin has criticized what she described as the general assumption in fantasy that characters should be white and
1200-553: The adaptation, and the celibacy of Earthsea wizards overlooked as Ged and Tenar become sexually involved. Referring to the writers of the show, Le Guin said "I have blasted them for whitewashing Earthsea, and do not forgive them for it." One month before the U.S. broadcast, Le Guin posted on her website "A Reply to Some Statements Made by the Film-Makers" published in the December 2004 issue of Sci Fi Magazine . She opened with
1250-633: The best short-story collections of the 1970s. Two of the stories in the volume won awards when first published. " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas " was nominated for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction and won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1974, while "The Day Before the Revolution" won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story , the Locus Award for best short story, and the Jupiter Award for short stories, all in 1975. It
1300-484: The books"? In May 2018, it was announced that the series had been opted for a film adaptation by producer Jennifer Fox . In 2019, it was decided to produce a TV series instead. Nothing has been heard of this proposed series since. Studio Ghibli 's 2006 film Tales from Earthsea is loosely based in the Earthsea mythology. It was directed by Gorō Miyazaki , the son of Hayao Miyazaki . Le Guin granted Studio Ghibli
1350-403: The collection was a good showcase of Le Guin's "rapid development as a writer" in the period following the publication of her first stories, and that the collection was essential to understanding Le Guin. The Salt Lake Tribune called the book a "collection of excellence only a handful of writers can match". Multiple reviews called attention to the author's notes that preceded each story, with
1400-462: The collection were among Le Guin's most famous, including in particular "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" and "The Day Before the Revolution". Scholar Donna White noted that those two stories, along with "Nine Lives" are among Le Guin's most-anthologized stories. The Wind's Twelve Quarters won the Locus Award for best single author collection in 1976. Science fiction editor and critic David G. Hartwell included it with 23 others on his list of
1450-508: The director to put words in my mouth." Le Guin disavowed some specific interpretations both by Lieberman and by executive director Robert Halmi Sr. , and concluded (quoting Lieberman): I wonder if the people who made the film of The Lord of the Rings had ended it with Frodo putting on the Ring and ruling happily ever after, and then claimed that that was what Tolkien "intended ..."[,] would people think they'd been "very, very honest to
1500-418: The fifth and last novel of the series, The Other Wind , it is revealed that the Dry Land is a part of the dragons' domain that was stolen from them by the earliest mages in an attempt gone awry to obtain immortality. The Dry Land is restored to the dragons at the end of The Other Wind . Le Guin originally intended for A Wizard of Earthsea to be a standalone novel, but she wrote The Tombs of Atuan as
1550-542: The first examples of high fantasy. The works of J. R. R. Tolkien —especially The Lord of the Rings —are regarded as archetypal works of high fantasy . The term "high fantasy" was coined by Lloyd Alexander in a 1971 essay, "High Fantasy and Heroic Romance", which was originally given at the New England Round Table of Children's Librarians in October 1969. Many high fantasy stories are told from
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1600-561: The genre" in the collection. A review in The New Republic found the science fiction stories, and particularly those exploring plausibly scientific possibilities, most effective. A review in Publishers Weekly praised the collection as "First-rate Le Guin", describing it as a "retrospective" of the a decade of Le Guin's writing and a demonstration of her "special talent" for speculative fiction. Susan Wood wrote that
1650-532: The germs of novels she was to write later, and a few others shared connections to Le Guin novels. At least four stories are set in the Hainish Universe , and two others in Earthsea . Many stories share themes and motifs, including time and utopia : certain images and characters also recur, including isolated scholars or explorers seeking knowledge in a hostile world. The Wind's Twelve Quarters won
1700-451: The observation, "I've tried very hard to keep from saying anything at all about this production, being well aware that movies must differ in many ways from the books they're based on, and feeling that I really had no business talking about it, since I was not included in planning it and was given no part in discussions or decisions." (Director Robert Lieberman , too, had stated that she was not involved.) "That makes it particularly galling of
1750-414: The other stories in the first half of the collection average. The rest of the volume, in contrast, received strong praise: Guynes wrote that they were "heady, beautiful, and thought-provoking", written with a "careful, sometimes quiet, power". Guynes concluded that the collection as a whole was "multifaceted, intellectually rich, and artistically transformative". Guynes noted that many individual stories in
1800-530: The plot of The Farthest Shore . Each book in the series has received a literary award: On November 5, 2019, the BBC News listed The Earthsea Trilogy on its list of the 100 most influential novels . There have been a number of audiobook readings by different narrators and publishers. In the early 1990s, Robert Inglis narrated the first three books of the series for Recorded Books . A BBC -produced two-hour radio dramatization of A Wizard of Earthsea
1850-505: The real world. The overall climate of Earthsea is temperate, comparable to the mid-latitudes (over a distance of about 1,800 miles or 2,900 kilometres) of the northern hemisphere of the Earth. There is a yearly transition from warm summers to cold and snowy winters, especially on northern islands like Gont and Osskil. In the southern regions of Earthsea, it can be much warmer. Most of the people of Earthsea are described as having brown skin. In
1900-437: The rights due to her love of Hayao Miyazaki's films. Le Guin called the adaptation "disappointing" and "entirely different" from her creation. High fantasy High fantasy , or epic fantasy , is a subgenre of fantasy defined by the epic nature of its setting or by the epic stature of its characters , themes , or plot . High fantasy is usually set in an alternative, fictional ("secondary") world , rather than
1950-646: The setting of Earthsea. Five much later stories were collected in Tales from Earthsea (Harcourt, 2001), where three were original. In October 2014, a new novella set in Earthsea was published as a stand-alone, "The Daughter of Odren". A final 12-page short story, "Firelight", was published in June 2018, covering the last days of Ged. Tales from Earthsea also includes about 30 pages of fictional reference material titled "A Description of Earthsea" (2001). After "The Rule of Names" and before "A Wizard of Earthsea", Le Guin wrote
2000-478: The short story is described as a prologue to that novel, though it was written later. Like Le Guin's later novel The Word for World Is Forest , " Vaster than Empires and More Slow " has an immense forest as a setting, and examines the relationship between humans and their natural environment. The stories are arranged approximately in order of publication, and although they share little direct connection, several share themes and motifs. Four stories are part of
2050-629: The society should resemble the European Middle Ages . Magic is a central part of life in most of Earthsea; the exception being the Kargish lands, where it is forbidden. There are weather workers on ships, fixers who repair boats and buildings, entertainers, and court sorcerers. Magic is an inborn talent which can be refined with training. The most gifted are sent to the school on Roke, where, if their skill and discipline prove sufficient, they can become staff-carrying wizards. The Dry Land
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2100-541: The utopian experiment depicted in The Dispossessed , while "The Day Before the Revolution" examines the life of Odo, who inspired the society of The Dispossessed . "The Masters" and "The Stars Below" both concern "science as an idea to be cherished" even in the face of authoritarian opposition to it. Literary scholar Charlotte Spivack writes that "The Field of Vision" also contains thematic similarities, in its exploration of science and religion, though it features
2150-415: The viewpoint of one main hero. Often, much of the plot revolves around their heritage or mysterious nature, along with a world-threatening problem. In many novels the hero is an orphan or unusual sibling, and frequently portrayed with an extraordinary talent for magic or combat. They begin the story young, if not as an actual child, or are portrayed as being very weak and/or useless. The hero often begins as
2200-512: Was adapted by Judith Adams, directed by Sasha Yevtushenko and featured original music composed by Jon Nicholls. Following the premiere radio broadcast, each of the episodes were made available for online streaming on BBC Radio 4 Extra for a month, via the BBC iPlayer service. The adaptation was created and aired as part of a thematic month centered on the life and works of Ursula Le Guin, in commemoration of her then-recent 85th birthday. In addition to
2250-564: Was also nominated for the 1975 Hugo Award for Best Short Story . Additionally, "Winter's King" was nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1970, and "Vaster than Empires and More Slow" was nominated for the same award in 1972, and came 14th in a poll for the Locus Award for Best Short Story , while "Nine Lives" was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Short Story in 1970. "Vaster than Empires and More Slow", "The Field of Vision", and "The Stars Below" were all nominees for
2300-624: Was broadcast in two parts on Channel 4 in the UK at Easter 2005. Sci Fi Channel had angered Le Guin and fans of the Earthsea novels with its announcement that Ged and the vast majority of the other characters would be played by Caucasians and with the dramatis personæ posted on an official website. The latter revealed several original characters – such as "The Archmagus" and "King Tygath", "Diana", "Penelope", and "Marion" – and it referred to "Kargide" characters rather than Kargad, Karg, or Kargish. The religious practices of Atuan were portrayed differently in
2350-434: Was considerably rewritten. Literary scholar Barbara Bucknall divides the stories into three approximate categories: early fantasies, "surrealistic" later fantasies described by Le Guin as "psychomyths", and science fiction stories. Le Guin considered four stories to be the germs of novels she was to write later: " The Word of Unbinding " and " The Rule of Names " were Le Guin's first pieces set in Earthsea ; "Semley's Necklace"
2400-568: Was first published as "Dowry of the Angyar" in 1964 and then as the prologue of the novel Rocannon's World in 1966; and "Winter's King" is about the inhabitants of the planet Winter, as is Le Guin's 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness . Several of the other stories are also connected to Le Guin's novels. The protagonist of " The Day Before the Revolution " was an inspiration for the society depicted in The Dispossessed (1974), and
2450-485: Was originally broadcast on Radio 4 on December 26, 1996. This adaptation was narrated by Dame Judi Dench , with Michael Maloney as Ged , and used a wide range of actors with different regional and social accents to emphasize the origins of the Earthsea characters (for instance, Estarriol and others from the East Reach were played by actors with Southern Welsh accents). The adaptation was subsequently released on audio cassette. In April and May 2015, BBC Radio 4 aired
2500-607: Was positively received by critics, though, according to Spivack, reviewers were generally less favorable toward Le Guin's short stories than her novels. A reviewer in the Atlantic Monthly wrote that Le Guin was the "ideal science fiction writer for readers who ordinarily dislike science fiction", which Spivack attributes to Le Guin's exploration of the "ideas and psychological implications" of science rather than its technological aspects. The Sydney Morning Herald similarly praised Le Guin's "startlingly original approach to
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