The Other Wind by Ursula K Le Guin

Over time, Ursula K Le Guin wrote her Earthsea stories. She later took apart some of what she built early on—she changed her mind, and changed her Earthsea world. I’m not at all upset or in disagreement with her over this. I am actually more into this than an author who ignores or is embarrassed by their earlier works. I’m happy people change their minds, it gives me hope. The question here is this: now that she has deconstructed parts of her world, what does Le Guin do with it? The answer is quite simply that she continues to deconstruct it, taking apart the afterlife on Earthsea. That’s the theme of the book: death.

But there’s a problem with death here. You’ll need to remember The Farthest Shore to understand. The problem with death is that dead human souls go to the Dry Lands, where they have a listless, colorless existence, an eternal life of boredom. Well, turns out, the Dry Lands once belonged to the Dragons, humans stole it so long ago only the black wizards of Paln remember that, and Dragons want to claim it back. Some forgotten spell set up the Dry Lands, and apparently messed a bunch else up too in Earthsea. So the heroes research and talk and decide to bring in more voices to their discussion. Finally, by deconstructing the containing wall of their afterlife, the immortal human souls are then able to rejoin the cycle of life, death, and rebirth instead of being trapped in a black and white world, a fake immortality. This also means the humans are able to live up to their end of their ancient treaty with the Dragons, reconciling the two cultures—that’s the main plot—and in the meantime a subplot reconciles the Kargish lands with the rest of Earthsea, and another subplot also reconciles the black magicians of Paln with the Roke Wizards.

This plot relies on what her earlier books contained. The referential nature of this book clearly means that this is not a book to read unless you’ve read some other Earthsea first. Even then, it’s a fairly strange plot on the surface. But though Le Guin seems to be just talking about this made up world’s death and afterlife, this outlandish fantasy plot is actually doing something applicable. She’s talking about looking around, questioning what is, realizing that some of reality is the result of ancient, forgotten errors, and then doing what needs done to fix it despite the fact that those old mistakes are not ours. Taking responsibility for fixing problems that weren’t ours to begin with, reparations, the strength of humility, overcoming biases and fears to allow change for the better, sacrifice, the importance of wisdom and power. It’s a strong theme that really came home for me as a contemporary analogy to post-colonialist country borders.

But that’s not all the book does. Le Guin weaves in the tales of her characters: Alder, Idrian, Tenar, Tehanu, Lebannen, Ged, Seserakh, the master wizards of Roke. The story focuses on their day to day, on trying to get along with each other, on the conflict inherent in trying to come to grips with their discovery of what’s wrong with death. In other words, the heroes do heroic things, but they’re just people. In the midst of all this crazy, metaphysical, mythological repatriation, Seserakh’s sea-sickness is a major plot point. Tehanu’s shyness proves important throughout. Alder trying to deal with dreaming about his recently-dead wife sets this whole book off. And there are a hundred other examples of how Le Guin keeps these heroes people and not archetypes. It’s a strong tactic that made this book memorable for me. It adds complexity to the narrative and contextualizes the heroes’ quest in the same way Gawain and the Green Knight did so well—though much more completely than that text.

And that should be enough said. This is a great book, but it utterly relies on the reader having read the three preceding books in the series, at least. Le Guin balances the overarching, fantasy plot with relatable, human subplots perfectly. She relates her fantasy plot to current ideas about redrawing the map of the world, things like letting Tibet and Kurdistan exist, redressing mistakes made during the colonial era, getting cultures to work together, doing the courageous to fix the mistakes of the past, and taking responsibility for actions not that were done by you, but which are perpetuated by you. It’s a great book that doesn’t get bogged down by these high themes, nor does it lose itself in the details of the characters’ lives, but it shows just enough of both to allow the book to work well as a closing novel in this series of six books. Because it was more complex, I was more into this one than the other books in the series, and the first five were so good that I didn’t regret having to read them to fully appreciate this masterpiece at all.

Tales from Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin

This wonderful author wrote two beloved series that both prominently feature collections of short stories. This is the fifth book of Earthsea, and it’s a collection of short stories. That’s an unusual tactic. But I think that the short story, novella, novel, poem, play, and essay all have their own strengths. I also really enjoy short stories—China Mieville, Isaac Asimov, Raymond Carver, Franz Kafka, Sherman Alexie, Ray Bradbury. Two questions guide these notes: why use short stories, and should this book stand alone?

1. Why short stories? What does Le Guin use this form to do? Pessimistically, short stories aren’t strong enough to stand on their own, they become a sort of fan service collection of lesser quality work, thrown away ideas. Optimistically, the concise form allows the author to focus on a single theme more, or, in this case where the short stories are part of a larger world, they can deal with characters that are not essential to the main stories of the world.

Here, Le Guin writes five stories, along with an introduction and the pseudo encyclopedic “Description of Earthsea”. These tales tie into the stories of the novels sometimes, and sometimes start their own stories. They run the gamut from historical context to origin story to small love story. And it is that variety that I love the most about this book. Rather than writing “Five Adventures of Ged”, she has taken the opportunity to flesh out her world significantly. Before this book, I thought of a small Earthsea. After this book I thought of a larger Earthsea, and I think that’s useful to the point of the book.

The five stories are:
“The Finder”: The original founding of Roke was done by women and men together, rather than the men-only tale that the school lies about now.
“Darkrose & Diamond”: A wizard of great potential gives it up for the love of a woman.
“The Bones of the Earth”: Ogion learns his greatest spell from a woman, and learns to despise Roke’s male-dominated nature—explaining why he isn’t archmage and why he looks with measured disdain on Roke.
“On the High Marsh”: A man seeking power was thrown into exile, this describes the exile and shows how he is redeemed by love.
“Dragonfly”: And the fifth tale is the epilogue to Tehanu, the novel that precedes this book, and the introduction to The Other Wind, the novel that succeeds this book. In this story, a woman who is part dragon gains access to the male-only college of wizards on Roke.

The first one fills in some gaps in Earthsea lore. By showing the importance of women to the early school on Roke, Le Guin changes the way I think about the characters in the novels. Gone is some of the awe for the wizards, as their petty superstitions about women get in the way of the true balance they are constantly paying lip service to.

The second story is one that wouldn’t fit into a novel easily—its length means that it wouldn’t work as an aside, and its content relies upon that length for power. Yet it’s just a small love story in some ways, and not complex enough to justify centering a new novel around it. So, this story perfectly works as a short story exploring an alternate Ged, one who fell in love with a girl and regrets giving it up for the power of magic.

The third story chronicles one of the legendary deeds attributed to Ogion in the novels—stopping the earthquake on Gont. Yet, by looking at it in detail, we see the network of friends who were essential to Ogion’s deed, especially the woman who sacrificed herself, selflessly knowing she would get no credit. This story probably could have fit into the first novel, or the third, or the fourth. But the short story form allows the writer to focus on the themes and characters more, and spend less time drawing it together with the novels, in a way that makes this a powerful stand-alone tale of Earthsea. Though it helps explain Ogion better, it is also simply an exciting tale to read.

The fourth story is probably the best one. It takes an antagonist from the novels, after he has been defeated and exiled, and shows his exile and redemption. He loved power, was defeated, realizes his mistakes, and now experiences the power of love as a path to redemption. Ged, the man who beat him, shows up simply to show forgiveness. It’s a tale of self-forgiveness, dealing with mistakes, and love that simply stands alone better than the rest of the stories in this book.

The fifth story sets up the central questions of the coming novel. Yet, like the first story, it relies heavily on the surrounding context of Earthsea as laid out in the novels to work at all. These characters of the Masters of Roke are sketchy here, and their reactions are better understood when having read the other novels. Yet, for a short story, this would be a distracting aside in any of the novels except the forthcoming one. This could have been the opening chapter of the next novel pretty easily, but the narrative structure is so self-contained that it may have been quite awkward.

In using the short story form, Le Guin is able to focus on different aspects of these characters and her Earthsea world. In general, Le Guin uses these short stories to flesh out the world of Earthsea. Some of these tales insert women into places of power and importance in Earthsea. This is a sort of retconning—and to me this term does not have a negative connotation at all. Who am I to enforce that an author never change their mind? Here, we have an author who decided to put women into stories that were generally thought to be male dominated in the past.

2. The second question then is whether these stories stand on their own enough, or if Earthsea knowledge is necessary for them to work. My impression is that the answer is a mixed bag. “On the High Marsh” stood out to me, for sure, as a great short story in its own right. And its my favorite because it seems to exist as a story Le Guin wanted badly to tell, without reference to the novels—though that reference is there for people who read the novels.

The other two middle stories mostly stand alone. But they are so enhanced by prior Earthsea experience, that I hesitate to call them great on their own right. They’re good stories, but I think that knowledge of the context helpfully points out some of the contradictions that make these stories enjoyable.

However, the opening and closing tales are so dependent on prior Earthsea knowledge that they disappoint as stand-alone short stories.

I’m always struggling to review sequels, books in series. I mean, on the one hand they don’t often stand on their own, and I really want them to. On the other hand, they are written for a specific audience, usually one who has read the prior book or books. I will just say that this book works as intended. As a reader of Earthsea, this book worked for me. But it wasn’t perfectly satisfying either, as I wanted more stand alone stories, and less tie-ins.

Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett

1. Brilliant, if a bit lacking in critical direction. Let me explain: Moving Pictures squarely aimed at Hollywood, discussing very little outside of that; Mort meditated on Death and Employment; Jingo hit on the various themes of the Cold War, but all of its various themes were tied into the Cold War itself. Here, Pratchett’s themes are legion, but they only coalesce in a plot, and the plot doesn’t really carry them all because it’s jangled.
—Kung Fu Films: The plot loosely follows the tropes of kung fu films—save the world through superior fighting, get the girl, and discover a philosophy that guides your life. There are critiques of these tropes throughout—you don’t need kung fu to save the world, just your brain and the right opportunity; getting the girl might not be realistic and the girl might be different than you imagine; and the philosophy that guides your life might be based on simply paying attention to your surroundings.
—Chaos Theory: Much is made of chaos theory, especially how it relates to time and Pratchett’s consistent view that time's speed is inconsistent.
—Philosophy of Time: Yeah, it’s fantasy so I don’t know how applicable it is to our world. But I appreciate people who think about time.
—What Makes Humans Human: Emotions, ego, desire. He believes pain and pleasure are the result of these? Or maybe they’re premising factors.
—Apocalypse: Tied into the theme of humanity’s humanity, the apocalyptic storyline is built on the premise that humanity will murder itself through curiosity and petty disagreements.
—Heores: When saving the world, can a hero afford to stop and help an old man? Well, video games and movies often answer “yes.” But Pratchett seems to imply “no,” before the plot resolves it to a modified “yes.” Essentially, the hero can still save the world, but it’s a lot harder and more complicated.
—So, he’s got a lot of interesting ideas, but they fit together a little discordantly. The one that drew me in the most was the discussion of humanity’s defining characteristics, but that seems like more my place in life than anything Pratchett did.

The first words that are read by seekers of enlightenment in the secret, gong-banging, yeti-haunted valleys near the hub of the world, are when they look into The Life of Wen the Eternally Surprised.

The first question they ask is: 'Why was he eternally surprised?'

And they are told: 'Wen considered the nature of time and understood that the universe is, instant by instant, recreated anew. Therefore, he understood, there is in truth no past, only a memory of the past. Blink your eyes, and the world you see next did not exist when you closed them. Therefore, he said, the only appropriate state of the mind is surprise. The only appropriate state of the heart is joy. The sky you see now, you have never seen before. The perfect moment is now. Be glad of it.'

The first words read by the young Lu-Tze when he sought perplexity in the dark, teeming, rain-soaked city of Ankh-Morpork were: 'Rooms For Rent, Very Reasonable.' And he was glad of it.

2. The most noticeable difference between this and his other novels is that he lets up on the humor a little bit. It’s not as fast and furious as earlier books, where almost every line is a joke. The whole thing is an extended, absurd joke about kung fu, but this book lacks the one-liner after one-liner that defines a lot of Pratchett’s work. In other words, he’s trying to get in depth to the characters and themes, rather than using them just to make his jokes. And it works. Despite the unfocused nature of this novel, the tone of this book is brilliant. I adore this change and hope some of his later stuff is comedically dramatic philosophy like this, rather than just comedic.
—However, this refocusing on the drama and themes instead of the comedy is also a part of why he spends more time there, allowing the themes to meander a little, as mentioned above. So, it’s the flip side of the same coin: in order to turn the comedy down a notch, he focuses on the themes, and the themes aren’t focused enough to allow this to be pulled off perfectly.

Some humans would do anything to see if it was possible to do it. If you put a large switch in some cave somewhere, with a sign on it saying 'End-of-the-World Switch. PLEASE DO NOT TOUCH', the paint wouldn't even have time to dry.

3. So that’s it on this book. Short notes, sure, but I’m bored writing the same stuff about every Pratchett novel, so I’m trying this new tactic of focusing my notes more to what I found worked and didn’t work the most. Hopefully this shift in tactics for my notes will be as profitable as Pratchett’s shift in comedic density here. I love this book. It may be one of my favorite Pratchett novels, and that’s saying something.

No other species anywhere in the world had invented boredom. Perhaps it was boredom, not intelligence, that had propelled them up to the evolutionary ladder.

The Chronoliths by Robert Charles Wilson

For Lu.

1. On page eighty-one, this book shifts from being pulp-adventure to a character study of Scott, the protagonist. It doesn’t lose the adventure of the novel past this point, by any stretch of the imagination. But at this point, it became clear to me that Wilson had moved past backstory necessary to setting up his characters, into character study levels of backstory. This shift surprised me and I told Lu where I was in the novel, and she agreed that the background starting at page eighty-one is a fantastic addition or shift to the novel. So, it’s not just me that recognized this. However, Wilson places these background-expositions between action scenes, effectively allowing him to jump from scene to scene within a chapter without confusion.

2. As a character study, the main themes of the book are really two-fold.
—First, Scott is a reluctant hero. Not in any anti-hero sense, and not in a cheap lip-service sense either; rather, Scott wants so badly to settle down to a wife and kids that his heroic actions are done almost in spite of his wishes. This drives home the importance of his failure as a husband and father, as laid out in the first eighty pages, and contextualizes them in a way that serves to explain Scott and everything that he does after. The situations fall into his lap because all of his other options have been exhausted. He’s torn between the quiet life and his curiosity about the Chronoliths. This is an unusually sedate character in a genre so rife with action. He’s not ironically a quiet person like Arthur Dent is, Scott genuinely desires peace, steady-employment, and to pursue his interest in these Chronoliths—to the point that years pass between events in the novel. I think the novel covers something like twenty years in Scott’s life, with an epilogue much later. This serious look at a personality type so familiar from daily life is refreshing in speculative fiction. He shows that given time and need, normal people can become heroic while remaining mostly normal.
—Second, Scott is attached to a messiah, so it’s a discussion of being a disciple, in a sense. Scott and Sue are, as a pair, familiar from my own college and work experiences, so I really understand their relationship through Wilson’s descriptions. The reluctant disciple who is using the professor as a sounding board and to gain access to—and an outlet for—their own interests, while the professor understands they are being used and uses the disciple in turn for their own sounding board and self-fulfillment. They become linked more and more through the novel and the discussion of discipleship never really falters. This is an unusual take on the disciple narrative—much different than Stranger in a Strange Land or Lord of Light. And outside of Scott, the discipleship of others to Kuin or workplace bosses, and the effect that has on surrounding characters like Ashlee, Kait, and Janice, supports this theme and creates an even-handed, holistic view of it.
—The character study is fascinating in its own right, but placed within the exciting context of the plot, it’s engrossing.

3. Wilson doesn’t run away with the pseudo-science-babble. He uses the layman’s terms to help explain and drive the plot, but it’s never the point—Kuin is never revealed, Sue never builds her own Chronolith, the science or politics never become concrete. The novel is firmly and irrevocably attached to its themes, and the science fictiony parts are contextual. They are important contextually—especially the idea of tau turbulence—but they serve the themes, rather than the other way around.

4. It’s written as Scott’s memoir, and this works well for the story. The novel is centered on the themes, with Scott acting as the focal point from which the lens never strays. Therefore, the structure is appropriate to the story. It reminds me quite a bit of Robert Heinlein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress in this way. But I think, in some way, this works a little better. Mannie is more pragmatic than Scott, so the ruminations Scott engages in tend to work in a more typical and engaging way for the memoir form.

5. Wilson builds Scott through telling interior monologue, then uses his actions to reinforce who Scott is through showing. These two tactics are balanced beautifully within the novel and the plot. There is a lot of opportunity for Wilson to make this plot and this novel just drip with excitement and action, but he holds himself back from over-running the novel with action in order to communicate his theme. However, he doesn’t forsake the action and keeps both in there—seemingly in equal parts.

6. I loved this book and anticipate reading more by Wilson. Sure, the word choices are a little bland and there’s quite a bit of violence, but he strikes an interesting and engaging balance between the action and the explanation that allows the unique themes and characters to shine. I’m quite impressed.