Finished the audio book version of Ursula Le Guin’s The Farthest Shore today. Another Fantastic Audio production, technologically and aurally it was another fine product. Scott Brick did a fine job with narration, giving characters enough personality to make it clear who was saying what, without falling into the trap of over-dramatizing things.

As for the book itself… I know The Earthsea Trilogy is considered one of the classics of fantasy, but I’d beg to differ. I enjoyed A Wizard of Earthsea quite a bit, but I found The Tombs of Atuan started very slowly and only really got going in the second half. This last volume starts slow and ended slow. It was a classic quest story but, really, the questers never met with much in the way of obstacles, beyond the sheer distances needing to be travelled. The end result was a book that was more mood-piece than story. A very good mood piece…Le Guin can really paint a picture with words, but I wouldn’t enjoyed a bit more action/adversity.