Overall Rating: 4/5 stars
Genre: Fantasy (Middle school - adult)
Gender Appeal: All
Re-read value: High
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Wizard-Earthsea-The-Cycle-ebook/dp/B008T9L6AM/ref=pd_sim_kstore_2?ie=UTF8&refRID=0K05W4KJPNH886HMKX1D
Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13642.A_Wizard_of_Earthsea?from_search=true
This book is one of those books that really stayed with me after I read it for the first time. In fact, the first time I read it, I only made it about 2/3 of the way through, and got so scared I had to put it down. (I came back to it not too much later because I had an insatiable curiosity about how things turned out.) Don't let my experience put you off the book, though, because I have a notoriously low tolerance for terror.
The premise of the book is that a young man, named Sparrowhawk, discovers that he has magical powers; he subsequently trains with a famous mage who lives nearby, and later goes to the school for mages that trains all mages who live in the archipelago. (Side note - I always found the fact that the book is set on an archipelago fascinating. Not your traditional landscape.)
Sparrowhawk, coming from a poor region, clashes with some of the more wealthy students at the school. His pride causes him to do some pretty stupid things in order to compete with the other students; he also has great aptitude to match his pride, of course.
MINOR SPOILER ALERT! (although the back of the book will tell you this)
Sparrowhawk's pride leads him to try out an extremely powerful spell one night, but his magic goes awry. A hungry specter takes advantage of his spell and slinks through into the human world. The evil spirit and Sparrowhawk are linked with an unbreakable bond, and he knows that the spirit will hunt him until the day he dies if he cannot find a way to conquer it.
END SPOILER!
One of the things I love about this book is the characterization. Sparrowhawk and his friends, as well as his rivals, are well-fleshed out. You get inside his head - you sympathize with him, even when you know he's making poor decisions. And as I mentioned above, when I first read this book (sometime around the age of 11-12) it was truly creepy enough and haunting enough that it unnerved me. But the story had me so hooked that I had to know how things turned out. While it's a story about a magician and the battle between good and evil, it's also the story of Sparrowhawk's inner battle to develop himself, to grow beyond his pride and open himself to greater possibilities.
The Earthsea cycle is composed of four books altogether; and while I really like the first three, I admit that I have mixed feelings about the fourth. It's worth reading, but... I can't say more without spoiling the whole thing for you. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. And if you saw that incredibly awful made for TV movie version, know that the story in the books is very different - and of course much better. The book is always better.
