A nice novel with a striking tone, a sort of sparse historical narrative. It frames itself as a new / untold early adventure of a legendary wizard, which opens up the possibility of a reveal of narrator or lost memoir down the road.
It would be disappointing as a modern story, but as a precursor it still packs enough narrative surprises and plot twists to remain an interesting read.
Worth noting that it would fail the Bechdel test by a wide margin. ( )

Series Info/Source: This is the 1st book in the Earthsea Cycle. I borrowed this on audiobook from Audible.com.

Thoughts: This is a classic fantasy I had been wanting to read for some time. I saw it was available for free on Audible and decided to pick it up. I wasn't a huge fan of this one. I understand why some love the adventure and the deeper message here. However, I felt like the writing style was stiff and dated, didn't engage with the characters well, and found it predictable and boring. I have also read "The Left Hand of Darkness" by LeGuin which I enjoyed a lot more than this book.

Ged aka Sparrowhawk is expected to be the next great wizard, until he does something rather stupid and accidentally summons a shapeless mass of darkness. He then spends many years trying to track this darkness down, and his travels take him on many adventures.

I didn't really enjoy much about this book, and some of that may have been on me. I was listening to this while I did other menial activities (cleaning, folding laundry, etc) and I kept feeling like I was missing things. I would suddenly be wondering, "Wait where is Ged now?" and have to relisten to parts of this to figure out what had happened. I am not sure why that was happening with this book since I listen to audiobooks while doing mindless tasks a lot but don't normally have that issue. I think this was just a bit boring and repetitive, and my mind kept wandering.

Ged kind of goes from place to place to place, making a name for himself along the way while hunting down this darkness. There is a twist about what the darkness is, which was incredibly predictable. Now, I know this is a classic (originally published in the late 1960's) so this may have been the original place for this idea behind a shadow like this. However, I felt like it was a theme I've seen so many other places.

I also felt like this hasn't aged well over time. There are no intriguing female characters in here; this is very much a book for young males. The language is very stilted and stiff. The book is very serious and just not that entertaining. I am honestly a bit puzzled why this book is so beloved by people. I wonder if later books in the series are more intriguing and entertaining.

As mentioned above, I listened to this on audiobook and the narration was well done. I didn't have any issues with the audiobook aside from struggling to stay engaged in the story.

My Summary (3/5): Overall I guess I am glad I read this because I have always wanted to read it but I didn't really enjoy it. It was a rather simple and predictable fantasy read aimed at young men. I found it repetitive, and the language and themes felt dated to me. I definitely preferred "The Left Hand of Darkness" over this book, and I do realize those are two very different types of books. I don't plan on reading the rest of The Earthsea Cycle at this point. I just don't find it charming or intriguing, and doesn't seem to be a good fit for me ( )

It didn't get any better. Some writing just isn't for me, and this falls easily into that category. Here's a few things that got under my skin and pretty much ruined the experience:

1) I don't like it when books tell me about the character's future before I've met them for the first time. Telling me that your main character is some epic hero in the future who has done this and that and is amazing and well known serves no purpose. All it does is take away the tiniest bit of possibility that something bad may happen. This was also a huge issue in The Name of the Wind and the Mordant's Need books. If your character is going to be the coolest person in the world one day, fine! Just let me discover that as the story progresses.

2) Show me the action, don't just tell me about it. There are very few moments in this story when the action focused in enough to warrant actual dialogue. The author was too busy saying things like, "And then Ged went to such-and-such and did lots of cool things before heading north to some other place." If he did such cool things, how about you take a step back and show me. What was that journey like? Was he suffering? How about the people he met, were they friends? What were their conversations like. No no, don't tell me, let me read their dialogue!

3) Stop making up rules on the spot. "No one can look into the eyes of a dragon." Really? Since when? I know the main character did a lot of reading about dragons, but, well, that's all you told me. Not once did we get a sense of that learning, of his studies and conversations. All that was said was, "he studied everything he could find." I'm sorry, but that's not enough. If you're going to introduce new rules for your magic system, or bring up some major point in the world's history, I need you to set it up along the way so I don't feel like you're just making things up on the spot. Sure, the author probably spent a lot of time figuring out all this stuff ahead of time, but the way you present it is equally important. This was one of my biggest complaints with Brandon Sanderson's first novel, Elantris. I'm happy to say he learned from that and his later books are much better about world creation.

4) Characters need real depth. Our main character had a tiny spark of internal conflict in the beginning when his pride and envy got the better of him, but after that one episode, he was back to boring again. "Ged feared no man, but he feared where one might lead him." Lines like this make me roll my eyes and want to close the book for good.

Ok, enough complaining. I suspect this series, much like the Shannara series, suffers from "crappy first book" syndrome. I'm sure if I could get past it and into the later stories things would get much better. Unfortunately, there's too much out there to read to waste my time finding out.

On to the next series, please! ( )

This book has a good reputation, but it disappointed me. To me it reads like an exercise in fantasy writing: an exercise thoroughly completed, but lacking some vital spark. It’s not a bad book, but I didn’t find it convincing, and I’m not motivated to read the sequels.

It strikes me that Terry Pratchett’s early Discworld books might have turned out quite like this—if his
sense of humour had been surgically removed in infancy. It’s all rather solemn.

On finishing it, I found that I didn’t care deeply about Ged, and I didn’t understand why Escarriol/Vetch befriended him; he didn’t seem a very appealing character. ( )

although Fantasy/scifi is not typically the type of book I enjoy to read, this one didn't have unrealistic 1/2 creatures, strange languages, different planets or long confusing unpronounceable words or any other annoying traits I typically assume these types of books would have.
So, because of the complete lack of the above things, I was actually able to coherently read this book - and enjoy the storyline.
Unfortunately, it still wasn't a story I really cared too much about. It read very "and then this happened and then this happened. Oh, and then this....".

still not my cup of tea I guess but I didn't dread picking it up and reading it and for that I was grateful! ( )