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Title:
The Farthest Shore
Series: Earthsea Cycle
#3
Author: Ursula LeGuin
Rating: 4 of
5 Stars
Genre: Fantasy / Middle Grade
Pages:
135
Words: 66K
Publish: 1972
This
just didn’t grip me the same way as the previous two books did. It
is still a rousing tale, but in this, LeGuin preaches up a storm and
while it doesn’t overshadow the story, it is still in the sky, like
a harpy, scree’ing at the reader.
But man, can LeGuin spin a tale. Magic is draining from the world and things are getting worse, even though the Ring of Erreth Akbe has been restored (the story told in The Tombs of Atuan). And it is all springing from a time when Sparrowhawk, Ged the Highmage now, dealt with a necromancer in an arrogant and high handed way. LeGuin is trying to make the point that we should all hold hands and sing kum-by-ya together. The lesson “I” learned was to never leave an enemy alive behind you. Cobb, the aforementioned necromancer (and how awesome is it that a guy who is cheating death and destroying the world itself is just called Cobb? LeGuin’s wit is rapier sharp!) was playing with dark powers and Ged tried to “rehabilitate” him (by scaring the living daylights out of him), only for Cobb to return 10x worse. If Get had put his staff through Cobb’s head at their first meeting, none of this would have happened. And yet that leads into even more goodness. Because not only does Ged have to face Cobb again, now much older, wiser and gentler, but he picks up the prince Arren and in the process fulfills a prophecy about the final king of the Archipelago, who of course through their journey, turns out to be Arren. The story is just fantastic.
I’m going to end the review with that.
★★★★☆
From Wikipedia
An ominous, inexplicable malaise is spreading throughout Earthsea. Magic is losing its power; songs are being forgotten; people and animals are sickening or going mad. Accompanied by Arren, the young Prince of Enlad, the Archmage Ged leaves Roke Island to find the cause. On his boat Lookfar, they sail south to Hort Town, where they encounter a drug-addled wizard called Hare. They realize that Hare and many others are under the dream-spell of a powerful wizard who promises them life after death at the cost of their magic, their identity, and all names, that is, all reality. Ged and Arren continue southwest to the island of Lorbanery, once famous for its dyed silk, but the magic of dyeing has been lost and the local people are listless and hostile.
Fleeing the stifling despair, Ged and Arren keep on southwest to the furthest islands of the Reaches. Arren is drawn under the influence of the dark wizard, and when Ged is injured by hostile islanders, Arren cannot rouse himself to help. As Ged's life ebbs, and they drift into the open ocean, they are saved by the Raft People, nomads who live on great rafts beyond any land. The spreading evil has not yet reached them, and they nurse Ged and Arren back to health. At the midsummer festival, the sickness arrives, and the singers are struck dumb, unable to remember the songs.
The dragon Orm Embar arrives on the wind, and begs Ged to sail to Selidor, the westernmost of all islands, where the dark wizard is destroying the dragons, beings who embody magic. Ged and Arren voyage past the Dragons' Run south of Selidor, encountering dragons flying about and devouring each other in a state of madness. On Selidor, Orm Embar is waiting for them, but he too has lost the power of speech. After a search, they find the wizard in a house of dragon bones at the western tip of Selidor – the end of the world.
Ged recognises the wizard as Cob, a dark mage whom he defeated many years before. After his defeat, Cob became expert in the dark arts of necromancy, desperate to escape death and live forever. In doing so, he has opened a breach between worlds which is sucking away all life. As Cob paralyzes Ged with the staff of a long-dead mage, Orm Embar impales himself on it, crushing Cob in a final effort. But the undead Cob cannot be killed, and he crawls back to the Dry Land of the dead, pursued by Ged and Arren. In the Dry Land, Ged manages to defeat Cob and closes the breach in the world, but it requires the sacrifice of all his magic power.
They travel even further, crawling over the Mountains of Pain back to the living world, where the eldest dragon Kalessin is waiting. He flies them to Roke, leaving Ged on his childhood home of Gont Island. Arren has fulfilled the centuries-old prediction of the last King of Earthsea: "He shall inherit my throne who has crossed the dark land living and come to the far shores of the day." Arren will reunite the fractious islands as the future King Lebannen (his true name).
