Legend of Earthsea == Atrocity

[deccan]

Will said:
I've read The Left Hand of Darkness by Le Guin, thought it was pretty interesting. Any thoughts on how the Earthsea series compares? I might pick it up now that I have some time over break

I've read both. I've probably read most of Le Guin's stuff include "The Word for World is Forest", "The Dispossessed", etc. "A Wizard of Earthsea" is very good, but not at all like "The Left Hand of Darkness".

"A Wiard of Earthsea" is about a world in which there is real magic. This is not the Tolkienesque, Gandalf tosses fireballs type of magic. In the Earthsea books, there is magic because every thing has a true name, from the birds in the sky, to a raging volcano to every drop of water in the ocean. If you know the true name of a thing, you can make friends with it, negotiate with it, and perhaps bend it to your will.

Note that the books are not about epic adventuring and fighting. They are about facing personal demons, learning about responsbility, about self-sacrifice, about soft power, if you will, rather than hard power.

[Randallw]

deccan said:
Note that the books are not about epic adventuring and fighting. They are about facing personal demons, learning about responsbility, about self-sacrifice, about soft power, if you will, rather than hard power.

ah, well then I won't bother.

[Raging Deadstar]

In defence of the Sci-Fi Channel they show Firefly here at 6pm every weekday.

The time period (6-7) that used to be the home of sacred Stargate SG1 has finally been filled

[solops]

Interesting comments. My 16 year old daughter is a big fan of the books. We watched most of episode I together. She laughed at some of the show (not out of amusement) and was unhappy about much of the way the story was handled. She refused to watch any of the Last 15 minutes of episode I or any subsequent episodes.

I watched it and found it mildly interesting. For me, it was the usual Sci-Fi channel production offering -

Special effects - mildly sub-par to good
Acting - really bad to OK, flashes of good
Sets - painfully bad to OK
Costumes - mostly sub-par, some neat stuff
Directing - bad; responsible for some lapses in acting
Writing (dialog)- bad
Writing (storyline) - poor

Had I read any of the books, the storyline might have graduated down to bad. As a connoisseur of "C" movies, I'd say it falls right into place. The disappointing thing about these series is that decent writing and directing could have graduated some of these series up to as high as good "B" films. You have to wonder why anyone would consent to be in these shows....not something to brag about on your resume. Hunger, I suppose....

At least it was not as bad as the "Battlestar Galactica" debacle.

Now I'll go watch the original Godzilla or Lugosi's Dracula...classics.

[solops]

" Grunts"...yeah, I remember liking that book. By Mary Gentle or someone like that?

[geoschmo]

Don't know if this was mentioned earlier in this thread, but the author of Earthsea is apparently not too happy with the miniseries either. Here's an article she wrote complaining about the job they did.

http://www.slate.com/id/2111107/