Fantasy Friday: Dragonflight vs The Earthsea trilogy.

Last year I read both in an attempt to get back to the roots of fantasy. Dragonflight was a bit of a mess despite some strong points, while Earthsea is one of the best series ever, and highly influential.

A short thread

Dragons have always been my favorite thing about fantasy, so I was excited for Dragonflight, but I ended up disappointed. The books gets a lot of points for originality, but suffers from trying to force too much into a short book. It should’ve been twice as long

What it lacks in storytelling it makes up for in originality and world building, and while I can’t recommend it for its story I consider it a “must read” for serious fantasy lovers due to its influential position; everyone has read her.

There are nice descriptions of dragons in flight, a well imagined hierarchy of nobles and kingdoms, with dragon riders at the top, and a very creative sequence wherein the characters study an ancient tapestry to learn warfare technology. However, the whole book goes to hell...

...when she introduces time travel. Time travel rarely works, and it totally fails when it comes in 50 pages from the end and you introduce a whole new cadre of characters.

The dragons bonding with their riders was also well imagined, and there’s also a brutal scene of a dragon-birth, which involves much carnage. Interestingly, the first time the two “love interests” have sex, it’s a brutal rape! Many such cases in old books!

Earthsea is *far* better and highly recommended. Once you read it you see LOTS of people rip her off. One strong point is that each book in the series stands alone, & like any good trilogy covers vastly different terrain

The first book is the best, and I often find this is the case with trilogies. Like with Dragonbone Chair, the climax of this book is a standoff with a dragon, but instead of a group of knights it’s a battle of wits with a powerful wizard

Similar to Dragonflight, the originality here is a welcome reprieve from most other fantasy, which is just rehashed Tolkien. Harry Potter and Name of the Wind owe Le guin *everything.* Rothfuss stole major plot points from her, in fact his book is almost a re-write...

...except he took a *lot* from Rowling as well.

It would be quite difficult for any fantasy fan not to like Earthsea, and ive not done it much just here except to *insist* that you read it.

Next FF is going to be on Name of the Wind and I will get into more details on Earthsea