A Thought Experiment Turned Into a Novel: The Unspoken Name & The Tombs of Atuan

The magic of inspiration is a far departure from soulless amalgamation

Background

Last week, when I was rattling off books I love and want to write more about, I found myself saying that I hadn't come across many fitting topics with which to discuss A.K. Larkwood's The Serpent Gates duology. These are books about power and relationships – including gay and lesbian romances – with a heaping helping of intriguing worldbuilding that first hooked me in. But I've never written about the startling realization I had about this duology months after setting the books down for the first time: their origin and inspiration in the work of Ursula K. Le Guin.

The Tombs of Atuan (1970) is the sequel to Le Guin's ground-breaking A Wizard of Earthsea (1969), which was hugely influential over speculative fiction as a whole and served as inspiration for the books by she who must not be named.

Larkwood has stated that The Tombs of Atuan is both among her favourite books and a direct foundation for The Unspoken Name (2020):

"In The Tombs of Atuan, the main character is a young woman brought up in the cult of a strange god, and she eventually makes her escape with a visiting wizard, who is a selfless, considerate person. Unfortunately, what I love best is a wizard who is neither of those things, and imagining how that would have panned out was what originally sparked the idea of The Unspoken Name."

I only learned this while reading the older novel, and it was one of those delightful moments of revelation that I live for in this hobby. So, what happens when you flip a mysterious visiting wizard on his head?

Tenar and Ged in The Tombs of Atuan, fan cover painted by Keith Robinson

Inspiration vs. Amalgamation

A few months ago I brought up Christopher Ruocchio's Empire of Silence (2018), a book about which I was then on the fence and am now mildly negative. Ruocchio clearly took his favourite parts from a dozen different SFF stories and blended them together into a decently interesting world, but didn't quite manage to capture any of the character, emotion or narrative pacing that brought those previous works to life.

(There's also the AI of it all, obviously, mashing all of humanity's words and works together for the entertainment of no one. But you've heard about that before, or if not here's a good video about it. Back to humans, elves and orcs for me.)

Larkwood adapts from Le Guin's premise in a number of core ways. Both Csorwe and Tenar are chosen from birth to hold a sacred place within their cults to the Unspoken and Nameless Ones respectively, with their fourteenth birthdays marking their departures from the lives they know. Both are also paid unexpected visits by foreign wizards, with goals of their own.

But beyond that (and other inspirations she's mentioned), Larkwood crafts her own story and world. She builds on what has come before, rather than fulfilling a long checklist of borrowed ideas.

Official covers for The Serpent Gates duology, art by Billelis

Worlds Apart

The Tombs of Atuan sees the first book's protagonist, selfless and considerate Sparrowhawk, travel into the heart of a distant cult in search of an artifact that will help bring peace to the known world. But Sparrowhawk is trapped by the cult's high priestess, a girl of fourteen named Tenar, and must help her break free of her indoctrination if either of them are going to survive.

The Unspoken Name, on the other hand, sees the wizard Belthandros Sethennai visit Csorwe and the House of Silence in his search for information about an ancient relic, later revealed to contain his own heart and memories. Belthandros Sethennai (I’m just noticing his initials now, excellent touch) could easily be first mistaken to be every bit as endearing as Sparrowhawk. He persuades Csorwe not to complete the ritual that would end with her death and escapes with her under his wing as his apprentice.

But where Sparrowhawk wants peace and to let Tenar live her own life, Sethennai wants his power back and a sheltered, manipulable pawn who can help him get it.

Belthandros Sethennai (left) and Talasseres Charossa (right), by Ryan and Laya Rose

Then there’s the fact that Belthandros is an elf and Csorwe an orc, where Sparrowhawk and Tenar are human (though I like that Sparrowhawk is Indigenous-inspired and Tenar is from the barbarian white Kargish tribes). There's the sprawling interconnected and decaying worlds which make up The Serpent Gates, against the vibrant archipelago of Earthsea. And of course, the slight difference between Sparrowhawk's quest for natural balance and Sethennai's quest for universal sovereignty.

Here's where I have to admit that I haven't yet read the rest of Tenar's story, as depicted in the latter three Earthsea novels, though I vaguely know she follows in Sparrowhawk's footsteps as a wise guardian of the world. Even with the stark difference in their teachers, I hope she finds other companions and relationships like Csorwe does.

If you've played Baldur's Gate III or touched that sphere of the internet in recent years, I think Astarion is a good enough parallel for Talasseres Charossa in a lot of ways. He's another castaway picked up and used by Sethennai, at first a chaotic rival to Csorwe for their mentor's affection (romantic in only his case) and later a close friend to her.

Shuthmili is a young human wizard who, like Csorwe, has spent her life training for a role that seems as much death sentence as achievement. (That's another post that's been a very long time in coming.) Also like Csorwe – and Rin from The Poppy War, come to think of it – she is inextricably linked to a terrifying god and spends the books navigating that relationship as much as her love for Csorwe.

Csorwe and Shuthmili, art by Exmakina

Back to the Tomb

Another admission: I went back for a re-read of The Serpent Gates earlier this year and found them less magical the second time around, partly for their wild pacing and partly because my favourite, most memorable parts were the surprising and imaginative worldbuilding elements. I have yet to re-read The Tombs of Atuan, but something tells me it will stand the test of time a little stronger.

A.K. Larkwood's inclusion of Oranna feels like a truly beautiful expansion of Tenar and Csorwe's stories: Oranna was the librarian at the House of the Silent, secretly another Chosen Bride of the Unspoken who went undevoured on her fourteenth birthday, and plays a significant role in representing Csorwe's past even as she uses every necromantic tool at her disposal to race Belthandros Sethennai to his goals.

She's a stark contrast to the apparent destruction of Tenar's cult immediately upon her escaping it – though again I can't say for sure whether Le Guin also brought out another surviving cultist in later books. I really appreciate the ideas around entropy and finality Oranna and her god (The Unspoken) ultimately represent, and may well get around to writing more about her journey as well.

Finally, I can't help but wonder whether Tamsyn Muir also took inspiration from The Tombs of Atuan, or whether Larkwood was inspired by Muir, for the fascinating parallels between The Ninth House in The Locked Tomb and the House of Silence in The Unspoken Name. Lots of wonderful necromancer women and eerily singing dead, which is apparently a vibe I can't get enough of.

Thanks for reading and until next time <3