> That's not challenging anything for fantasy I had certainly not read anything like it. Remember how old those books are - the fantasy of that age was closer

> That's not challenging anything for fantasy I had certainly not read anything like it. Remember how old those books are - the fantasy of that age was closer to Moorcock, Leiber etc. Where in that sort of literature can you find gentle, hands-off wizards (hell, men of any sort) who live a largely contemplative life? And written well enough that it seems really appealing? > That doesn't erase the earlier portrayals. Well it doesn't exactly erase them, but it reinterprets them drastically. Also, even though Le Guin later didn't consider it good enough, the Tombs of Atuan were written from a woman's perspective. A woman who's frankly a bit hard to recognize in the book Tehanu. Isn't a bit odd that the former high priestess of the Nameless Ones, of a visibly different race (who the islanders are understandably afraid of) settles down in a domestic life, and coincidentally develops concerns about domesticity similar to modern women at that time? You'd think she'd have much worse concerns than that her son doesn't help with housework! I feel like Le Guin devalued her own story in the first three books, failed to recognize that through its basic empathy it did tell good and thoughtful stories with a gender dimension that challenges you to think.