School & Library Binding
English language
Published Sept. 11, 2001 by Tandem Library.
Darkness threatens to overtake Earthsea: the world and its wizards are losing their magic. Despite being wearied with age, Ged Sparrowhawk - Archmage, wizard, and dragonlord - embarks on a daring, treacherous journey, accompanied by Enlad's young Prince Arren, to discover the reasons behind this devastating pattern of loss. Together they will sail to the farthest reaches of their world - even beyond the realm of death - as they seek to restore magic to a land desperately thirsty for it.
This book has a strong message about the necessity of death, imagining what happens when immortality is possible.
Content warning mild spoilers inside
A lovely third instalment of the Earthsea series, and a good handoff from it being all Ged's story to broadening out. A few off notes though:
I gather that the later books were in part a deliberate effort by an older Le Guin to fix some of the deficiencies of the first 3, especially around gender (even in Tombs of Atuan, I found Tenar more a captive who has things happen to her than a full actor). As much as I did enjoy this one, it's made me look forward to those even more.
