An essential book
4 stars
I generally prefer novels to short stories, and might have skipped over this entry in the Earthsea series if I wasn't reading all of them with a group. So, I'm glad that I am reading them with a group, because I really enjoyed this book, and think that it is an essential part of the series.
I enjoyed some of the stories more than others, but there were none that I disliked at all. Overall, they very much enriched my understanding of Earthsea.
One of the things that is fascinating to me about reading this series is that I can see Le Guin growing as a writer. In particular, I see her developing the confidence to write realistic female characters, rather than the unsatisfying female characters which I think is what she felt she had to write in her earliest books (when she included female characters at all).