Pure enjoyment!

I am revisiting a fabulous story of the struggle between good and evil and the great power of kindness. Masterfully crafted by one of the best!

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Second in a Series, But First in my Heart

I adore The Tombs of Atuan. You can honestly read this as a stand-alone without having read the first series. The main character grows up from a normal small child, is taken into a temple, and grows up as the High Priestess. If you read the book, it comes with a map of her domain: the Dark Labyrinth. I love the details of this story and her mind's evolution as the story progresses. Definitely give it a listen. #Audible1

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1 person found this helpful

succeeds as a sequel and a story

a really good sequel, I love how emersive these books are. Very good as a sequel because it expands on the world in a satisfying way.

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Surprisingly Mature

Ursula K. LeGuin's 'Earthsea' novels are often compared to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis - and the comparisons are apt - but the themes in this installment are much darker than a journey with singing dwarves or adventures with talking animals. LeGuin works her plot around a young girl "kidnapped" from her family to serve as Priestess for 'The Nameless Ones' - a cult of the Kargish. Sparrowhawk/Ged is eventually introduced.. captured and threatened with a gruesome death.. on a mission to the pitch-black Tombs in search of a magical artifact. The Priestess Arha realizes she needs to resist her fate, resumes her identity as the peasant Tenar, and helps Ged to escape the Labyrinth - fighting evil demons on the way out. The mood is notably dark, the writing is consequently subdued, and the imagery is sombre and occultish.
That isn't to say this novel isn't suitable for children.. in the end, good triumphs (and LeGuin expounds on life-lesson moral messages suitable for little ones).. but I was pleasantly surprised by the author's courageous decision to trust her audience to handle a more weighty Fantasy tale.
The biggest drawbacks to the book are that the pacing is off (too much time is spent on background development - yielding a plodding first third of the novel), there is very little actual action, and the book is too short (the climax is revealed too quickly and resolved with little satisfaction).

Rob Inglis is a brilliant narrator, but makes a couple of uncharacteristic errors in this recording: his voice-acting for Ged is too grave, and his reading rate is too slow (I had to set the playback speed at 1.15X). Still, he turns in an above-average performance.

Due to small mistakes in the writing and slightly subpar delivery from a legendary narrator, this book is inferior to the first in the series. I have never read these books before - so there is no nostalgia factor in my rating - but as an adult fan of epic Fantasy, I can say I was impressed with this entry. It easily warrants 7.5 stars out of 10.

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Not bad

An interesting female perspective in an extremely male-dominated culture, but I felt like this could have been a little more in depth.

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