I think you have to read the first three books of Earthsea as one entity. Each is only about 200 pages long, so if you read all three you'll still be under the average length of one volume of the usual wordy fantasy series.Le Guin's prose is a marvel of compact elegance; she can tell you what you need to know in a few vivid paragraphs where other fantasy writers need pages and pages. "A Wizard of Earthsea" is perhaps my least favorite of the three books, although it's essential to the development of the story. It's Ged's bildungsroman, in which Le Guin establishes the parameters of her magic universe and Ged learns what he needs to know to become a true wizard.My favorite remains "The Tombs of Atuan," the middle novel -- an involving story with an attractive young heroine.