An overdue return to Earthsea

Having read all save the final novella in Tales from Earthsea, which was written as a dragon-bridge between volumes four and five of the Earthsea Cycle, I have decided to not read it now but instead read it both now and in order. Meaning I have just once again started A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin, the first book of her Earthsea Cycle.

 

Reading the Tales from Earthsea brought all the magic of the Archipelago to me; a spell first cast not long after my father had read The Lord of the Rings to me for the first time, when I was new to the ways of Fantasy. An Archipelago which impacted me in a manner no other land save Middle-earth has. Yet I realized that I had not reread it since early high school if not even late middle school! I realized how many small details I had forgotten. Horrible thought! So now I return to the Isles that Segoy raised from the sea with a word. To revisit properly and fully those storied shores with Ged, who in his day became both dragonlord and Archmage. But this first book is the tale of his schooling and how he named the shadow.

 

'"Only in silence the word,

Only in dark the light,

Only in dying life:

Bright the hawk's flight

On the empty sky.'

— The Creation of Éa"