Earthsea Series

The series started off as a fairly decent (i.e. nothing special) boy-turns-into-powerful-wizard type of story that reminded me quite a bit of REF's Magician. Barring the boring chase and pursuit of the unnamed evil section the book was quite good.

The second book had a different protagonist which seemed odd at first but the book itself was enjoyable enough and has a satisfying ending. The third book again returns to the standard fantasy template with the wise wizard taking a young apprentice along on a quest to save the world. This book although suffers from the same prolonged climax that ails the first one. The story ends with the wizard losing his powers and the young apprentice being crowned as king after fulfilling a long foretold prophecy.

The last book I read in this series was Tehanu, it may surprise the readers but almost nothing happens in this book. At least nothing to classify it as a fantasy novel. The wizard returns in this book after losing his powers and mostly lies around while the female protagonist from the second book tries to keep him alive. This book feels like something a angry women's lib activist with no creative talent would write after reading the other Earthsea novels.

I didn't understand how these books could have won so may awards so I've ordered some of the author's Sc-Fi books to see how that goes.