Rating: 
Summary: A BAD book
Review: This book may have had a good moral but I think it couldv'e turned out a lot better if it wasn't so borring. I had to read this in school, and not one of my classmates liked it.
Rating: 
Summary: Quietly beautiful
Review: Rarely that one finds a book so simply written, yet so beautiful. The characters are not larger than life. A wonderful few hours of escaping reality. A very enjoyable read.
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Summary: Fantastic fantasy...
Review: Let me start by saying that I'm 36 years old and have been a voracious reader since early childhood. That said, I still love the "Wizard of Earthsea" series. These books (especially the first and the third) really have something for everyone... children, teenagers and adults alike. LeGuin is a master at alliteration (if you don't know what that is, look it up), which gives every sentence a dreamlike, poetic quality. These books are not "adrenaline pumpers" but mature, thoughtful high fantasy written in the spare but beautifully poetic style of Hemingway. I'm very pleased to see that the Earthsea series is still being introduced to kids and teens these days.
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Summary: Jung, Myth and Ursula LeGuin
Review: Ursula Le Guin is the daughter of Alfred Kroeber, an anthropologist, and Theodora Kroeber, a psychologist and writer. It's easy and accurate to say that her parents' interests inform her brilliant writing, and that cultural anthrpology and Jungian psychology are at the core of Wizard of Earthsea and its three sequels. But the book isn't a treatise. It's a wonderful, well-told story of a young man, Ged, coming of age in a world where words can have the power of magic and dragons are as real as earthquakes. There is nothing didactic about this story; Le Guin's writing is compelling and her characters are vivid: Ogion, the Mage of Silence, whose word had stilled an earthquake; Vetch, who helps Ged on a deadly quest for no reason but friendship; Murre, Vetch's sister; Yevaud, the dragon of Pendor; and Skiorh, possessed by a gebbeth. Earthsea doesn't exist in a vacuum. Le Guin constructs a deep and textured history, and her characters act in ways that are consistent with that world. She manages the trick of writing a mythic tale without falling into the traps and foibles of sounding like you are trying. The climax is straight from Carl Jung, but you don't need to know Carl Jung from Steve Young to appreciate it. From time to time, religious groups call for this book to be banned from school libraries, claiming it promotes witchcraft. Nonsense. This is a book every teenager should read. It speaks to self-understanding, nothing more. And some feminists criticize Le Guin because Ged is a male character. Again, nonsense, Ged is an archetype, and his gender matters not at all. This is an important book. It's also terrific fun. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent piece of literary art
Review: It seems wholly appropriate that a work so well crafted, in which the words used are so perfect, should embrace as its central theme the power of words. In the land of Earthsea, magic is inexorably tied to the true name of a thing. Potential, in and of itself, can do nothing without knowledge. It is the two together that enable magic. Wizards spend their lives learning true names, without which, they can only perform charms and tricks. This book is a magnificent piece of literary art. It works on so many levels that one can only marvel at the facility with which disparate pieces of such varying sizes and shapes are moulded into a coherent whole. The result is a masterpiece. One level is dedicated to children. It is an adventure story of inner courage and strength of character. Another level is dedicated to young adults. It is a story of a boy's journey into manhood and the conquest of self-limitation. The deepest level is also the most mature. It is a philosophical rumination on the balance of life. There is more than the one type of magic here - the author submerges her themes into the story so naturally, that one is never aware of her literary magic at work. For example, she does not stretch for the philosophical. She eases into it, without hurry or seeming care. It is only afterward that one becomes aware of having experienced something profound. Another sample; this one a taste of the writer's lyricism: "But Ged went on, falcon-winged, falcon-mad, like an unfalling arrow, like an unforgotten thought, over the Osskil Sea and eastward into the wind of winter and the night." The gift for vivid similes, the cadence of the sentence, the sheer potency in the words, all combine to weave a literary spell that surpasses any magic present in the story. This is a great gift, and not even the greatest. The greatest gift that this or any writer can give to her reader is that of self-discovery. In this work, as in each of the subsequent two, Le Guin crafts such a discovery so perfectly, that her work is elevated into literature. This is one of those books that change lives. Had she written nothing else, the world would owe Ursula K. Le Guin an immeasurable debt of gratitude for writing just this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Small, But Perfect, Gem
Review: When I was about 7, my uncle gave the Earthsea Trilogy to my mother (a reading teacher) for her students to read. I remember reading a couple of chapters of one of them (Tombs of Atuan, I think) and finding it very exciting and mysterious, but also a little hard to understand (probably because I was starting in the middle of the series and because I was 7). Since then, I have often wanted to read the trilogy, but I had difficulty finding the books, which were out of print for most of the 1980s. I also was a little turned off because many people classify the trilogy as "young adult fiction," probably because they are relatively short. I just finished a Wizard of Earthsea and I was surprised to find that it was one of the best fantasy book that I have ever read. Le Guin's narrative style in this book (which differs greatly from "Left Hand of Darkness" and its progeny--a style that I found to be a little plodding and self-indulgent) is very lean, almost minimalist. In this respect it reminds me of Michael Moorcock's Elric series. Unlike Moorcock, however, Le Guin conveys a rich emotional life for her characters. (This is not a criticism of Morcock, I think that he intentionally meant for the characters to remain somewhat distant and enigmatic--making them more like characters of myth and legend). The back of the edition that I read claims that Le Guin has dethroned Tolkien as the ruler of epic fantasy. I wouldn't go that far. But she certainly deserves share the upper eschelon of fantasy writers with Tolkien and a very few other authors.
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Summary: Wonderful book
Review: I loved this book and the two that follow. I have recommended these books to several people and have been gratified by their reactions. I will never be far from them.
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Summary: Magic! Pure Magic!
Review: Le Guin's works, in my opinion, may very well top even The Lord of the Rings in their greatness (although the next 10,000 Tolkien fans who read this review will probably jump on me and rip me to shreds for saying so). A Wizard of Earthsea is quite an incredible work of high fantasy. It's a classic tale of wizardry and magic, but with twists along the way. A Wizard of Earthsea is the story of the Archmage and Dragonlord Ged. Long before Ged had become Archamge and Dragonlord, he was known as Sparrowhawk, an intelligent, but reckless youth, power-hungry and lacking in wisdom. Ged begins learning simple magic from a local witch before being apprenticed to Ogion, a quiet mage from the other side of the island on which he lives. After spending several years with Ogion, he travels to Roke, to attend the school for wizards. However, he soon becomes rivals with a fellow student. One night, intent on putting his rival to shame and establishing himself as the superior magic-user, Ged accidently lets loose a shadow on all Earthsea. For the rest of his life, it will follow him, hunting him down trying to kill him and posses his flesh so it can gain form and substance with which to wreck havoc upon all of Earthsea. In order to prevent this, Ged must confront and defeat this evil, but the quest cannot be accomplished easily, but Ged must try, at risk of his life so that he can save his soul.
Rating:
Summary: A joy for all ages
Review: I bought my first copy of this book for a class when I was a sophomore in high school. Since I finished the first book, I fell in love with the story of Earthsea. The story is gripping and original, and the charachter development is well rounded. I would recommend this series for fantasy readers of any age.
Rating:
Summary: Terse, mystical, profound
Review: It is an insult to the genius of this book to try to describe it in layman's terms. Words just don't do justice. Le Guin always proves that she has a unique outlook on the world, and the Earthsea books are no exception. The Wizard of Earthsea is the first part of a series of (now) four books. This part details the origins and youth of Ged - a boy from a backwater village in the great archipelago world of Earthsea. With a magical feat that saves his entire community from barbaric invaders, he shows himself to be greatly proficient in the Art. He is apprenticed to a sorceror (who nevertheless hides under the guise of a simple healer), and makes his way to the Academy on the Island of Roke. There, out of his great pride, he unleashes a shadow-thing in a contest of forbidden magics. Injured, scarred both physically and mentally, he now must flee the thing he brought into this world - or confront it. One of the most surprising and masterful twists is the terse, epic writing: Le Guin does not spend time to write whole descriptive paragraphs; she sets the scenes with broad strokes of a few sentences, focusing on the most important events. This book is very quick reading. Ged is an inspiring character. He can be crudely compared to Ender from Orson Scott Card's writings, or perhaps Taran from Lloyd Alexander's, in that he wields great power, by which he is burdened. The reader quickly becomes attached to his grim, brooding persona, as his quest takes him through the world. Ged is also a powerful role-model: he must acknowledge his undeniable talent and shed his fears of losing control of his powers. The Wizard of Earthsea is undoubtedly a classic, a powerful work of high fantasy and spiritual development.
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