The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin

I enjoyed the last, at least for now, book in the Earthsea Cycle. Like Tehanu and Tales from Earthsea, it retains the psychological focus, and continues reworking and re-imagining the connections between magic and gender, between humans and dragons, between life and death. It's exciting to see Earthsea grow and change as Le Guin matures and spends more time thinking about it. I do think, despite their flaws, the first three books work so well as a unit, that the big plot that develops in the second three feels a bit off. J.K. Rowling said of her Harry Potter series that she doesn't want to write any more novels because she has already written her epic battle for good and evil, and anything else would either make that battle less important or be less important itself. So it feels a little funny to me, to write a series where Ged breaches the wall between life and death, then heals it, and then, only after you've gone through all that thinking the world is healed but Ged isn't, to find that the wall is the problem in the first place. But, loving the characters and the world as I do, it's always a delight to return.