This collection of the first four novels (out of five, plus an additional collection of short stories) of the Earthsea cycle recounts four episodes in the life of the Archmage Sparrowhawk (which is not his true name) as he travels about the many islands of this fantasy world.

I found Le Guin's writing refreshingly different from most other fantasy novels, and on many different levels. First of all it is very taut: Whereas sprawling works like The Wheel of Time expand thousands of pages to introduce dozens of characters that drive many simultaneous plotlines and often engage each-other on battlefields involving huge armies, these four books are a combined seven hundred pages, and there are only a handful of characters and a single narrative thread. As far as geography is concerned, instead of a band of heroes traversing a continent on horseback, we are presented with an archipelago and little sailboats. Unlike your average mighty wizard, Sparrowhawk spends about half of the time sick, injured, helpless, sleeping, unconscious and/or dying. And even though all four books chronicle crucial events in his life, he is the main protagonist only in the first one. Finally, there is definitely a female sensibility at work here, especially in the fourth book, which interestingly enough was written decades after the others (1968, 1971, 1972, 1990), but takes place immediately after the third book, whereas the first trilogy was written in closer succession but is decades apart storywise.

Studio Ghibli's Hayao Miyazaki had for many years wanted to create a movie based on Earthsea, but Le Guin refused until finally approving the project after the great international success of Spirited Away. Miyazaki was then busy with Howl's Moving Castle. however, and his son Goro instead took over to direct his first film, Tales from Earthsea, which received a mixed reaction.