Reading Order
The Farthest Shore Reading Order
The Farthest Shore (1972) by Ursula K. Le Guin is the third volume of the original Earthsea trilogy and the winner of the National Book Award for Children's Books — the story of Ged, now Archmage, and the young prince Arren sailing to the western edge of the world to find the source of a leaking of magic from the world. Magic is failing across Earthsea: wizards are forgetting their spells, healers are losing their knowledge, crafters can no longer do what they could. The cause is a man named Cob who, in terror of death, opened a hole in the boundary between the living world and the land of the dead — and through that hole, magic is draining away. The Farthest Shore is both the most epic and the most philosophically serious of the original Earthsea trilogy. Where A Wizard of Earthsea is about confronting one's shadow self, and The Tombs of Atuan is about liberation from a controlling institution, The Farthest Shore is about accepting death — the argument that life derives its meaning from being finite, that a life extended by draining the world's magic is not more life but less. Ged's sacrifice at the novel's end (he uses his remaining power to close the hole, losing his magic permanently) is one of the most moving endings in fantasy literature, and one of the most philosophically clear: the willingness to accept an ending is what makes life meaningful.
Where to start
The Farthest Shore — read A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan first. This is the trilogy's conclusion and requires the context of both predecessors for its emotional weight.
Complete The Farthest Shore Book List
- 1Buy
The Farthest Shore
Ursula K. Le Guin·1972·The novel — Ged and Arren sailing to the world's edge, magic draining from Earthsea, and the confrontation with Cob; Le Guin's argument about the meaning of mortality; National Book Award winner. - 2Buy
A Wizard of Earthsea
Ursula K. Le Guin·1968·The Earthsea trilogy's first volume and essential predecessor — Ged's education and his confrontation with his shadow self; the origin of the protagonist whose last quest The Farthest Shore narrates. - 3Buy
The Tombs of Atuan
Ursula K. Le Guin·1971·The Earthsea trilogy's second volume — Tenar's story and Ged's recovery of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe; the middle book whose events lead to Ged becoming Archmage in The Farthest Shore. - 4Buy
Tehanu
Ursula K. Le Guin·1990·The Earthsea Cycle's fourth volume — the essential sequel to The Farthest Shore; Ged after his loss of power, and what the Archmage becomes when he is just a man. - 5Buy
The Dispossessed
Ursula K. Le Guin·1974·Le Guin's Hugo-winning Hainish SF — published two years after The Farthest Shore; the argument about freedom and community in Shevek's Anarres is the political companion to The Farthest Shore's argument about mortality and meaning. - 6Buy
The Last Battle
C.S. Lewis·1956·Lewis's Narnia conclusion — the companion in the tradition of fantasy trilogy conclusions that deal with endings and death; but where Lewis's ending is a Christian heaven, Le Guin's land of the dead is a dry darkness, and her argument about death is exactly the opposite of Lewis's. - 7Buy
The Return of the King
J.R.R. Tolkien·1955·Tolkien's Lord of the Rings conclusion — the most important predecessor in epic fantasy trilogy conclusions; the comparison point for understanding Le Guin's different approach to the question of what endings mean in fantasy. - 8Buy
The Book of the New Sun
Gene Wolfe·1980·Wolfe's unreliable narrator SF/fantasy — the companion in speculative fiction of the 1970s–80s that takes mortality, entropy, and the end of things as its central philosophical concern; Severian's dying sun is the SF companion to Le Guin's leaking magic.
The Farthest Shore — Frequently Asked Questions
What is The Farthest Shore about?
The Farthest Shore begins when a young man named Arren, prince of Enlad, brings news to the Archmage Ged that wizards in his country are forgetting their spells. The same is being reported across Earthsea: magic is failing, old knowledge is being lost, healers cannot heal. Ged and Arren sail west to find the source of the failure, eventually following a trail of addicted magic-users (who have been promised immortality in exchange for 'unmaking' their magic) to the world's westernmost island and then beyond — to the land of the dead, where a man named Cob has opened a hole in the boundary between life and death. Through this hole, the power that makes magic possible is draining away. Ged must find a way to close the hole, at great personal cost.
What is Le Guin's argument about death in The Farthest Shore?
The central philosophical argument of The Farthest Shore is that life gets its meaning from being finite — that a life without death would not be more life but less, because it is the ending that gives each moment its weight. Cob's bargain (immortality in exchange for unmaking your magic) is presented as the ultimate nihilism: by refusing death, Cob has made everything meaningless, and the world's magic is draining away because the meaning that animates it is being destroyed. Ged's sacrifice at the end — using his remaining power to close the hole, at the cost of his magic — is the enactment of the argument: he accepts his ending, and in accepting it, restores meaning to the world. This is Le Guin's explicitly Taoist argument: accepting what is, including death, is what makes life possible.
Who is Arren and what is his significance?
Arren is a young prince from the island of Enlad who becomes Ged's companion on the voyage west. He is about 16, noble, brave, and earnest — the kind of hero figure that fantasy readers will recognize from many other contexts. But Le Guin uses Arren to explore the experience of a young person confronting mortality for the first time: Arren is infected by the despair that Cob's opening of the land of the dead has caused, and for a significant portion of the novel he loses his courage and his sense of purpose. His recovery — and the way he eventually serves as the anchor for Ged's return from the land of the dead — is the coming-of-age story that The Farthest Shore contains within its larger philosophical argument. Arren eventually becomes the High King of all Earthsea, the first king in centuries.
How does The Farthest Shore compare to the other Earthsea books?
The Farthest Shore is the most epic and the most overtly philosophical of the original Earthsea trilogy. A Wizard of Earthsea is a coming-of-age story about confronting one's shadow self; The Tombs of Atuan is a quiet, almost interior story about liberation from a controlling institution; The Farthest Shore is an old man's voyage to the edge of the world to argue about the meaning of death. It is also the darkest of the three — the land of the dead is a genuinely horrifying, dry, empty place, and the novel does not flinch from depicting the consequence of the world's loss of meaning. Le Guin's refusal to save magic through any means other than sacrifice, and her refusal to give Ged a happy ending (he loses everything), make it arguably the most mature of the original trilogy.
What should I read after The Farthest Shore?
After The Farthest Shore, Tehanu (1990) is the most important next step — it shows Ged after his loss of power and Tenar in middle age. Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind (both 2001) complete Le Guin's return to Earthsea. For Le Guin's SF, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are the most important companions. For fantasy that deals with mortality and endings in a similar philosophical register, Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun and Ursula Le Guin's own The Word for World is Forest are important companions.
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