On Monday, November 25, 2002, at 11:35 AM, Tucker wrote: > >> >>* Ursula K Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy (the first three books only) >> >I dunno... they're a little dry and slow-moving. Good, but maybe not >> great >> >as an introduction to fantasy. >> Umm... mileage definitely does vary. *boggle* > > It's the density of the prose, I think. I didn't find them to be an > easy read at all. (I enjoyed the first two immensely, the third less > so, but they all took effort.) I'd be personally a little wary of > using them as a first intro to fantasy, although definitely throw them > at him later. > >> Tehanu destroys everything the initial trilogy worked so hard to >> build. The recent stuff is somewhere in between. > > Maybe I'm projecting bad memories of Tehanu onto the original three. > (Haven't read anything past Tehanu yet; not entirely sure if I'm going > to.) > > I found the second book, the Tombs of Ataun, the most boring to read. I had a lot more patience in High School so I slogged through it but Earthsea is dense reading, to be sure.