A Catwings Tale, Book 1 Ursula K. Le Guin, illustrations by S. D. Schindler Scholastic Fiction, CH Fantasy/Picture Book Themes: Anthropomorphism, Avians, Country Tales, Felines ****
Description
When her kittens Thelma, Roger, James, and Harriet were born with wings, Mrs. Jane Tabby didn't know what to make of them - until she realizes that they
have a chance to escape the dangerous alleys and streets where she lives. They fly away at last to the countryside, hoping to find somewhere safe, but the
world is a large and perilous place for four little kittens.
Review
I've been doing some tidying and realized I never got around to reviewing this one. It's a fairly simple tale, if with shades of peril around the edges
and some nice turns of phrase. The kittens are fun, though they face some problems in finding a home, especially when a local Owl decides that winged cats
are too dangerous to have around. The illustrations add a nice, if mild, sense of wonder to the concept of flying kittens. Catwings should be
enjoyable for the target audience: young children, and parents reading along with them.
Earthsea is a world of ocean and island, sea and shore, where names and words have great power, dragons lurk at the fringes of civilization, and mages
study ancient magicks in the old runes. Born into a poor village of goatherds, the boy known as Sparrowhawk is destined to be perhaps the greatest sorcerer
known to man or dragon. Before he can learn control of his powers, his youthful pride leads him to unwittingly unleash a nameless shadow upon the world. If
it ever catches him, this shadow may destroy all of Earthsea, for shadows such as this suck a wizard's life out and wear their skin like a shell, inflicting
untold evil with their usurped powers. To catch the beast will be Sparrowhawk's greatest test... or his utter doom.
Review
I actually had this on the line with an Okay rating strictly due to LeGuin's near-maddening writing style. Countless names of countless lands, islands,
villages, inlets, seas, people, places, and things are heaped upon the reader amid a wash of prose that feels written to make itself seem grander than it is.
LeGuin also states at the outset, and repeatedly throughout the book, that Sparrowhawk does indeed go on to bigger and bolder adventures, as though she felt
the need to reassure audiences that however dark the story got it would, somehow, have a good ending. Once I adapted to that, the story itself isn't too bad.
Sparrowhawk's tale is in some ways a typical coming-of-age fantasy story, but not a complete rehash of other works, and while I found Earthsea numbingly
overwhelming, I could appreciate it as a relatively original creation and not just another quasi-European medieval-style world. I was intrigued enough to
consider pursuing the series at least through the original trilogy.
When Tenar was but a girl, the dark priestesses from the Tombs of Atuan, servants of the Nameless Ones, the Twin Gods, and the Godking who rules the lands,
took her away. Born on the eve of the death of the High Priestess, she must be the reincarnation of that one woman who has served the Nameless Ones for eons,
with blood sacrifices in the room of the Empty Throne and the dark labyrinth that lies beneath. Now known as Arha, the Eaten One, she never thought to question
her lonely life or her gods until the arrival of a stranger. A dark-skinned man from far across Earthsea, bearer of the evil, trickster forces called sorcer, he
seeks the missing half of a long-lost artefact in the unmapped maze of death and danger beneath the Tombs. Duty orders his death, but freedom demands sparing his
life. Which will she choose?
Review
I don't consider it a good sign when I have to stop reading every five minutes for not being able to take the writing. Not only is Le Guin's style as
inpenetrably full of grandiose puffery as the first volume in the series, but she jumps to a completely new character in a completely new corner of Earthsea, and
only halfway through does any hint of a connection to the first book begin to be established (other than passing mention of the Tombs and the artefact which I
recalled from A Wizard of Earthsea.) We experience the entire story through Tenar/Arha's largely-brainwashed and somewhat selfish eyes; while I wish I
could say I found the experience fascinating, I must instead confess that I found it rather dull. I had hoped to follow this series through at least the original
trilogy, but after this I don't know if I can bring myself to slog through any more. Le Guin's universe may be original and reasonably well crafted, but her style
just isn't my cup of cocoa, and if I haven't acquired a taste for it after two books I doubt I ever will.
The Hainish Cycle, Book 1 Ursula K. Le Guin Blackstone Audio Fiction, Sci-Fi Themes: Aliens, Classics, Mind Powers ****
Description
Among the numerous planets of the League of All Worlds, most only have one intelligent species. The League contacts these people, raising their civilization
and collecting tax or tribute, in preparation for a coming intergalactic war, but mostly leaves them to their own devices. On one world, though, multiple species
reached self-awareness. It is a world too small and otherwise unremarkable to have been officially named beyond its system designation Fomalhaut II, let alone
thoroughly explored, and only one of the species, the Gdemiar or so-called Clay People of the nights and underground tunnels, was granted League secrets. But it
was not a Clay Person who traveled to the offworld museum one fortuitous day in search of an old family heirloom, traded to the star travelers for their gifts
many years past: it was one of the dark-skinned and golden-haired Angyar, ruling race of the Liuar species of humanoids. Interworld ethnologist Rocannon was
captivated by her beauty and the many unexplored secrets of her world... enough that he undertook a mission to fill in the countless gaps in League knowledge
about the place, for all that, due to the speed of bureaucracy and the time dilation effects of space travel, it would be decades before he set foot on the
planet.
That is why he was on the world, in the company of the woman's grandson and current prince of their lands, when his ship and all his League companions were
destroyed by offworld rebels. The League of All Worlds is under attack, and the attackers have chosen to set up their base of operations on the backwater
Fomalhaut II... and, with the ansible device that allows instantaneous communication across space destroyed, there is no way for Rocannon to let his colleagues
know where the rebels are, let alone summon help for a planet whose populace is largely in the Bronze Age. As he cannot, in good conscience, stand back and let
the people whom he has come to admire and love be destroyed, he undertakes a quest halfway across the world to find their base and do whatever he can to protect
the planet - even if it costs him his own life.
Review
Part of the classic Hainish series by noted genre author Ursula K. Le Guin, Rocannon's World plays into the seemingly-popular "planetary romance"
trend of its time (or, at least, I've read more than one other example from roughly the same era, so it appears to have been a trend) of projecting a
near-fantasy epic adventure onto an alien world. (It also uses the then-popular, now-cringeworthy notion of tall, thin, blonde masters and "swarthy" dark-haired
servants or slaves; even the clearly intelligent underground Clay People are portrayed as brutish and nasty beyond the less technically advanced Liuar race in no
small part due to their appearance; even though the skin of the Liuar is dark and the servant/squat races are pale, it's a bit hard to edge around the
implications of blonde-haired master/black-haired slave.) The planet itself is a world of many wonders; a slightly less than Earth-normal gravity gave rise to
many species developing wings, albeit without any insect life to speak of. The Angyar tame and ride "windsteeds" of griffinlike appearance, and there have been
rumors since the world's discovery and in myths of winged humanoids on the unexplored land mass Rocannon and his companions must visit. There's a certain air of
mysticism to the cultures, with limited telepathy and talk of omens and destinies. Rocannon comes to the world as a wide-eyed outsider utterly enamored with the
people (or at least the comely Angyars) and the planet; when his ship is destroyed, he hardly needs prompting to step up to protect them. There's an unavoidable
shade of "white savior" to his actions, especially as he comes to be viewed as something akin to a wizard in his travels, for all that many on the world are
casually familiar with the concept of aliens and the League of All Worlds even if they haven't met offworlders themselves. Setting that aside, though, this is a
decently-told adventure story in a world of wonders and dangers, perhaps more akin to a classic fantasy story than science fiction as one would read it today.
