2013 read #100: The Other Wind: A New Earthsea Novel by Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Other Wind: A New Earthsea Novel by Ursula K. Le Guin
246 pages
Published 2001
Read from July 30 to August 1
Rating: ★★★ out of 5

One hundred books! When I first contemplated this project late last year, I expected that even fifty books in one year would be a tremendous undertaking. I hadn't read more than a couple dozen books each year since 2007 or so, and before then I had rarely managed to read as many as fifty titles in one year after 1996, when I managed to squeeze 186 reads into eleven months (most of them repeated reads of the same handful of easy sci-fi novels). During my initial flush of accomplishment in early January, after completing Memory by Linda Nagata in a mere three days, I went so far as to allow myself to imagine a full hundred books this year. And here we are already, just a day after seven months into the year.

Some general spoilers ahead.

I intended to finish this yesterday; I'm a big proponent of neat milestones that match up with neat dates. Unfortunately, I just haven't been feelin' the readin' this past month. First there was a vacation, then I was sick half of July, then there were computer troubles, then I got bored with what I was reading and decided to blow the dust off some video games I hadn't touched in over a year. The Other Wind contributed to this feeling of anhedonia. It isn't a bad read, but it's the fifth installment in a series that doesn't seem to have been planned much at all in advance. When fantasy series keep puttering along like that, there seem to be only two directions to go: outward, finding bigger and badder baddies our heroes must vanquish, or inward, into the underlying workings of the fantasy cosmos. Earthsea has been all about the latter strategy. Sometimes it's hard to care about the inner workings of a make-believe universe, you know? The Tombs of Atuan and Tehanu were better because I cared about the characters, but The Farthest Shore was just dull. In places, The Other Wind felt like a retread of Shore, which did nothing to earn my approbation (or my undivided attention). Oh hey, it's that weird apathetic afterlife these guys have, and once again it's having an effect on the world of the living, now where have I read that before? Making "the dry land" into a nasty, unplanned penalty for the hubris of sorcery didn't help much, because again, sorcerers overreaching and hoping to live forever was a central part of Shore. It did have the awkward effect of turning the magic of the fun, lighthearted young reader fantasy A Wizard of Earthsea into a terrible, cold, desolate limbo of souls unable to properly die, which would be heavy stuff if I were the type of person to really get invested in fantasy cosmology. We get it. Wanting power for the sake of power and desiring immortality are Bad Things. There's no need to write this whole book just to recapitulate the lesson of Shore.

Does Wind offer anything, beyond mere thematics, that justifies its existence? I guess. It's an all right book, really. The ending was rather unexpectedly moving. But I think I need a break from this series. Which is good timing; there's only the short story compilation left to read.