The Word of Unbinding and The Rule of Names

Ursula K. Le Guin

★★★★☆

I finally read the original two stories set in Earthsea, before Le Guin began the first novel and the stories of Ged and Tenar. She hadn’t quite settled on the tone yet, but you can see the rough outlines of the archipelago, and magic working through words and names, and mages both traveling and settled. And, surprisingly enough, the land of the dead and the human/dragon dichotomy, themes which she brings together in The Other Wind.

“The Word of Unbinding” feels a bit more like an Earthsea story despite some of the inconsistencies. (Le Guin suggests in the intro that perhaps trolls went extinct in Earthsea sometime after this story.) It’s a story of the balances between life and death, and between responsibility and ambition.

“The Rule of Names” feels a bit more Tolkien-esque, set in a pastoral village like the Shire, complete with a Mr. Underhill who lives, well, under a hill and a mysterious wizard showing up on an equally mysterious errand. Though with a wry twist at the end.

Spoilers for a 60-year-old story

Imagine Smaug decides to lay low for a bit and hide out in the Shire. And the definition Ged later gives of a "dragonlord" is about probabilities, after all.

Each stands on its own, and neither really contains any major revelations about Earthsea that aren’t explored in more depth in the novels (ok, except maybe the trolls), but they’re interesting enough to be worth checking out, whether you’ve read the rest of the series or not.

Both stories are collected in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters and The Books of Earthsea. (The former is a lot easier to carry around unless you’ve gone for a digital edition!)