Tales from Earthsea (2001) is a collection of stories set in Earthsea, written between Tehanu (1990) and The Other Wind (2002), and clearly meant as a bridge between those two novels. Le Guin says in the introduction that “a great deal about Earthsea, about wizards, about Roke Island, about dragons had begun to puzzle me”. These stories are uncertain, questioning, puzzled stories, as different from the certainty of the first Earthsea trilogy as you could find. Le Guin is questioning the things she took for granted, and finding tentative answers, answers that go against the grain of story. This was a brave thing to do, but not always a successful one. These stories are beautifully written and contain flashes of wonder, but I neither really like them nor really believe in them. The first three books are rock solid and makes a world that feels like a real place. These stories are set somewhere wavering. Even as I get caught up in them I am thrown out of them.

“Finder” is about the founding of Roke. I quite like the beginning of it, Medra’s talent for finding and how he is enslaved and escaped, but once it gets to Roke it feels forced and I can’t believe it. Also, and this is a small thing, I really liked not seeing Havnor. Havnor’s the central and most important island, and we never went there. There’s a moment in A Wizard of Earthsea when people on some distant island ask Ged about Havnor because it’s the only place in the archepelago they’ve heard of, and he’s never been there and he has to talk about a white city he’s never seen. I liked not seeing it. It was part of the way the world was. So I was disappointed to see it, not just disappointed to see it full of pirates and evil wizards, but to see it at all.

“Darkrose and Diamond” is a love story that depends on the wizardly celibacy that was unexamined in the original trilogy and revealed in Tehanu. It’s not a bad story, but it doesn’t need to be Earthsea.

“On the High Marsh" is the best story in the book—a broken mage comes to a remote village to cure a murrain among the cows. Ged feels like himself and all the characters and the world feel solid.

“Dragonfly” is the direct bridge between Tehanu and The Other Wind and I cannot like it. I don’t like Irian, so passive. If a girl was going to go to Roke and ask to be let in, why did it have to be her? And I don’t believe she’s a dragon—it’s too easy and insufficiently grounded. I’d question why Thorion has to be a bad guy too. The only bit of this that feels authentic to me is the Master Namer being distracted by etymology.

Again—Le Guin at her weakest is always beautifully written and thought provoking, and a million times better than I’ll ever be. But I cannot like this book, and I have even more problems with The Other Wind.

Jo Walton is a science fiction and fantasy writer. She’s published eight novels, most recently Half a Crown and Lifelode, and two poetry collections. She reads a lot, and blogs about it here regularly. She comes from Wales but lives in Montreal where the food and books are more varied.