Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) was the celebrated author of twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen children's books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. Her acclaimed books received the Hugo, Nebula, Endeavor, Locus, Tiptree, Sturgeon, PEN-Malamud, and National Book Awards, a Newbery Honor, and the Pushcart and Janet Heidinger Kafka Prizes, among others. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America. Le Guin was also the recipient of the Association for Library Service to Children's May Hill Arbuthnot Honor Lecture Award and the Margaret Edwards Award. She received lifetime achievement awards from World Fantasy Awards, Los Angeles Times, Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association, and Willamette Writers, as well as the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Grand Master Award and the Library of Congress Living Legends Award. Her website is UrsulaKLeGuin.com.
"New and longtime Earthsea fans will be drawn to these impressive new editions."
Gr 9 Up-- Tenar, once priestess of Atuan and now the middle-aged widow of a Gontish farmer, lives quietly, caring for her foster daughter Therru, a child who has been abused and badly burned by her own parents. Soon there is another who needs Tenar's care; Ged, no longer Archmage of Earthsea, returns to his homeland borne half-conscious on a dragon's back, all his power spent in closing the door between the worlds of Life and Death (as detailed in the climactic scenes of The Farthest Shore Atheneum, 1972). The Kingship has been restored, but there is still evil in the world, and, even as Ged slowly returns to health, Tenar and Therru are threatened. In the end, it is Therru with her unexpected kinship to dragons who turns aside this evil--and raises new questions for readers as to whether Therru is a child, a dragon, or a new type of being entirely. LeGuin's effortless mastery of language will be familiar to readers of the Earthsea Trilogy, but the sweeping otherworldliness of those books has been replaced by a more human focus. The pace is slower, the tone more meditative. The ``power'' of the earlier books was purely an abstract force wielded by wizards--here it also resides in human relationships. In losing his wizard's power, Ged gains the power to return Tenar's love. Newcomers to LeGuin's imagined world may find the story slow going at first; those familiar with Earthsea, however, will rejoice as they enter it once again. --Ruth S. Vose, San Francisco Public Library
"New and longtime Earthsea fans will be drawn to these impressive new editions."
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