Tag: fantasy

#17 A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin

Brief Book Reviews2 Comments

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When I was chatting with my friend Noelle’s husband about fantasy/sci-fi books (they’re his jam), he recommended I read Ursula Le Guin. A few days later I went to the bookstore and picked up the first in Le Guin’s Earthsea Cycle trilogy, A Wizard of Earthsea. I think that had I been a 15 year-old boy and not a woman of 38, I would have connected with this book more than I did; Le Guin wrote it for a teenage audience and it does read like a YA book.

It’s the story of a young magician who, in an attempt to best his rival at magician school, unleashes a fearsome shadow into the world. In an attempt to escape the shadow he has called forth, he hones his powers, fights dragons, escapes the dangerous clutches of a beautiful queen, and embarks on an epic sea journey to the end of the world.

Though I didn’t love A Wizard of Earthsea, I’m interested in reading more Le Guin so I’m putting the next two Earthsea books and The Left Hand of Darkness on my to-read list.

#11 A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Brief Book Reviews2 Comments

22055262I discovered this trilogy by V.E. Schwab on Goodreads and loved the cover treatments so decided to give the books a try.

About the series, from V.E. Schwab’s website: “A fantasy series that takes place in a series of parallel Londons—where magic thrives, starves, or lies forgotten, and follows the last of a line of blood mages and a pickpocket from Georgian London as they combine forces to save the worlds—all of them.”

A Darker Shade of Magic (#1 in the series) is a rollicking good time of a book about a blood magician named Kell, and a kick-ass heroine pickpocket named Delilah. They join forces to defeat those out to destroy Kell and the London he inhabits. Time/space travel, political intrigue and evil plots, spells, adventure, and (you guys!) MAGIC.