At the end of the fourth part of "Tales of Earthsea", "Orphan of Earthsea", the story has reached what I thought it was at the time.Like the present in the so-called real world, I don't know what's going to happen next.I can guess, predict, worry, hope and still not know what's going to happen. Unable to continue the story of Orphan on Earthsea (because it hasn't happened yet), and foolishly thinking that the story of Ged and Tenar has reached its "happily ever after" finale, I gave the book a subtitle—— "Earthsea Final Chapter". Ugh, stupid writer.The present is fluid.Even in story time, dream time, time long ago, the present is not the same as the then.

Seven or eight years after "Orphan of Earthsea" was published, I was asked to write a set of stories that took place in Earthsea.With just a glance, I can see that a lot has happened to Earthsea when I'm not looking.I should go back and find out what's going on right now. I wanted to get some information so I could understand what happened at that time, especially the time before Ged and Tenar were born.A lot of things started to puzzle me about Earthsea, wizards, Roke Isle, or dragons.To understand what's happening now, I'll have to take a moment and do some historical research with the archipelago's archipelago.

The way to study non-existent history is to tell stories and understand what happened.I believe this is not too far from the approach used by "real world" historians.Even if we are living in a historical event, can we understand, or even remember, a historical event before we can tell a story about it?As for times or places outside our own experience, we have little else to do but rely on stories told by others.After all, past events exist only in memory, and memory is a kind of imagination.The event is the real present, but once it is then, the reality thereafter is entirely up to us, with our energy and honesty.If we allow an event to fade from memory, only the imagination can rekindle its faint gleam.When we hoodwink the past, force it to tell the stories we want to hear, or represent what we think it means, the stories become distorted and fake.We carry the luggage of myths and history, and travel through time with the past. The responsibility is heavy, but as Lao Tzu said: "The sage never leaves his luggage all day long." (Editor's Note: Volume 26)

When constructing or reconstructing worlds that never existed, and entirely fictional histories, research has to be done in a different order, but the basic motivations and methods are quite similar: to see what happened, to try to understand why it happened, to hear what others say, to see what they How to do it.After rigorous thinking, try to tell the story honestly, so that the story has weight and makes sense. The five stories in this book are all exploring and extending the world constructed by the first four Earthsea stories.Each story stands on its own, but it may be more helpful to read these stories after reading the first four books first than to read them directly.

The "Searcher" is about three hundred years before the rest of the novels, when the world was dark and turbulent. This story may help to understand how many customs and institutions in the archipelago kingdom were formed. "Bones of the Earth" tells the story of the mentor of Ged's first master, which shows that it takes more than one wizard to stop an earthquake. "The Black Rose and the Diamond" may take place at any moment in the last two hundred years of Earthsea. After all, a love story can take place in any age and any place. "On the High Swamp" takes place during Ged's brief but eventful six-year tenure as Master of Earthsea.The last story "Dragonfly" happened a few years after "Orphan from Earthsea" ended, and it is a bridge between "Orphan from Earthsea" and the next "The Wind from Earthsea", it is a dragon bridge.

In order to allow my mind to wander through the years and centuries without disturbing the sequence of events, and to minimize the contradictions and differences that might arise in my writing these stories, I began to (more) systematically summarize my knowledge of these peoples and their The knowledge of history is compiled into the chapter "Earth Sea Customs and Local Records".It functions much like the first large map of the Archipelagic Kingdoms and Frontiers that I drew when I started writing thirty years ago.I need to know where things are and how they get from here to there, both in time and space.

For some readers, such fictional facts or imaginary maps of the kingdom may be attractive, so I add these descriptions at the end of the book.I have also redrawn the maps for this book, and was delighted to find a very old map in the Havnor Tome in the course of this work. Over the decades of writing Tales from Earthsea, I have changed, and so have the readers.All ages change, but in ours the moral and psychological changes have been rapid and violent.Typicals become milestones, broad and simple things become more complex, chaos becomes elegant, and what everyone knows to be true becomes what some people once thought was self-righteous.

This is disturbing.No matter how much we love the brilliant impermanence, the alluring flashing neon lights, there is still a desire for the constant.We cherish the constant old stories: King Arthur dreamed forever in Avalon; Bilbo could go "there and come back"; Hede set off to assassinate the windmill... People therefore turned to the realm of fantasy to find stable ancient facts and unchanging simplicity. "Note: Bilbo is a character in Tolkien's "Lord of the Ring" novel. 』 Then the capitalist factory starts.There is supply and there is demand.Fantasy became a commodity, an industry.

There is no risk in commoditizing fantasy: there is no creation, only imitation and triviality.Exploiting the wisdom and complex morals of old stories, turning actions into violence, actors into puppets, and statements of fact into sensational clichés.The hero is like an electric harvester, mechanized wielding swords, laser lights, and magic wands, making huge profits.The deeply unsettling moral choices are sifted through and made cute and safe too.The inspiration inspired by the great storyteller's enthusiasm is reproduced but becomes rigid, reduced to gaudy plastic toys, which are advertised, sold, damaged, discarded, and can be replaced or replaced at will.

The commercialization of fantasy relies on and exploits the immeasurable imagination of readers (adults and children alike).Imagination can bring these dead things back to life, temporarily possessing a certain type of life. Imaginations, like living things, live in the present and coexist with and grow from real change.Imagination, as we all do and all, may be compromised, but it survives commercial and dogmatic exploitation.Land outlasts empires, and conquerors may turn forests and grasslands into deserts, but eventually the rain will fall and the rivers will flow to the sea.Faraway lands that once swayed, shifted, and illusory were as much a part of human history and thought as the countries on our colorful maps, some even more enduring.

For a long time, we have lived in both real and imagined lands, but in both the ways of life have been different from those of our parents or ancestors.Magical powers change with age. We know a dozen King Arthurs today, all of them real.The Shire had undergone many changes during Bilbo's lifetime.Don Quixote went to Argentina, where he met Luis Borges. Plus cest la meme chose, plus a change. ——The more things are the same, the more they will change. I was delighted to return to Earthsea to find it still there, all familiar, but changed, and changing.What I thought would happen didn't happen, people weren't who I thought they were, and I got lost among islands I thought I knew. So these stories are my adventures and discoveries.I would like to dedicate the story of Earthsea to readers who like it (or think they might like it), and are willing to accept the following assumptions: all things are constant; Authors and wizards are not entirely reliable; Dragons are inexplicable.