Genre: Fantasy, Magic

Narrative Style: Third person

Rating: 3/5

Format: Kindle

Published: 1968

Synopsis: Sparrowhawk is set to become one of the most powerful wizards in Earthsea. He has natural talent and it isn’t long before he comes to the attention of the other wizards. Taken away as an apprentice to Ogion, he is impatient for power and accidentally evokes a shadow creature that will haunt him forever. The rest of the novel covers his quest to rid the world of this evil. 

Reading challenges: 2020 Alphabet Soup Author Edition.

This really wasn’t for me. I gave it three out of five because it really isn’t badly written but it didn’t grab me at all. I think I was expecting it to be more science fiction and less magic based fantasy – not a genre I particularly like. It’s also a bit boy’s own for my taste – boy does quest at expense of everything else in his life is not something that is interesting to me.

To be fair, at first I thought it might be okay. Sparrowhawk (or Duny as he is originally called) has a natural talent for magic and is taught as much as he can be by his aunt. When his village is threatened by a neighbouring tribe, he manages to save them by conjuring a magical fog. This was quite exciting and well written. Even Sparrowhawk’s school days were quite exciting with rivalries with other wizards, one of which nearly leads to his death.

It is really the second half of the novel – which focuses on the chase after the evil shadow that Sparrowhawk has accidentally unleashed on the world. A lot of the time Sparrowhawk is alone and at sea – not very exciting to be honest. After all the chasing and running, you might hope that the final confrontation between man and shadow would be exciting but even that was anti-climatic.

I know that this is children’s literature and maybe I am too old to appreciate the innocence of this tale. I did find the ideas of good and evil simplistic as was the final solution to merge with the  shadow. It could be considered a bildungsroman with Sparrowhawk learning what it means to be a man in his world but because I found the story so unexciting, I didn’t really feel like Sparrowhawk developed all that much.