This story, for me, was much more interesting than the previous two books in the series, but it's also the first one I've read that the SciFi miniseries was not based on so I had no expectations going into it.

I really enjoyed the story in this book and getting to return to the previous books through Sparrowhawk's memories. I loved seeing him as an old man who has gone through so much in his life and is now the Archmage, trying to teach boys not to make the types of mistakes he once made himself. Arren made a really good companion on the journey the two took to the Western Reaches of the world: the young prince who still has much to learn about the world and about life.

The two travel to the southern and western ends of the world in search of a being that is creating a darkness that is spreading across Earthsea. They meet various people who have been affected by the darkness and the two continuously chart new courses, hoping to find where the darkness is coming from before it's too late. The main question that comes up throughout their travels is whether or not it is possible to cheat death and achieve immortality.

The two downsides in this book for me, and why it didn't get a higher rating, were the writing and pacing, and the climax. This series, in general, has a lot of slow points where there's just nothing going on and nothing much to discuss through dialog, and they're not written in a way that really pushes the story forward. Like I said, I enjoyed this book over the other two for its overall plot, but the writing bogged it down a lot for me.

The other issue for me was the climax of the story.

Spoiler

Sparrowhawk and Arren travel to the western-most islands and find a man named Cob who has found a way to die and yet still live, or so he says. He opened a hole between the land of the living and the land of the dead to do so, and the hole is wreaking havoc between to the two worlds. He tells Sparrowhawk that he (Sparrowhawk) can't close it, and even if he tried he would not have enough magic to do it alone. Then Sparrowhawk does just that, all by himself, and it's only the aftereffects on his body that give any indication that it was a difficult task. It's all over in a matter of minutes, as far as how it's written, and just feels very anticlimactic after everything they did and learned about on their journey

This was a good story overall, and the main plot was enjoyable, but the writing, for me, bogged it down and the climax would have been a lot better if the task at hand had appeared as difficult as it was built up to be.