8. A Wizard Of Earthsea - Ursula K. Le Guin
I alluded to this one earlier, but it deserves its own entry. The worldbuilding that Le Guin put into Earthsea is impressive, and a breath of fresh air from "everything is Middle Ages Europe." Ged, too, is refreshing. Instead of yet another rendition of the "basically good, maybe a little naive or insecure" hero you typically see in fantasy stories, the story is mostly about the trajectory of Ged's character from an overconfident jerk to a timid, rebuffed shell of himself, to a healthy balance between the two. Not every young wizard has to save the world from a terrible, if melodramatic, evil that cannot be named. Unfortunately, the two moving picture attempts at Earthsea so far have been subpar. You may well recall the venom and outrage of Le Guin and fans and critics alike at the Sci Fi channel's miniseries adaptation, which has become the stuff of book fandom legend. Even Studio Ghibli failed to deliver. Both instances seem to be a case of the supreme hubris of movie-makers: that they don't need to consult with the author because they have already divined said author's "true vision" for the story. There are some books that deserve to be movies because they're classics. There are others that deserve to be movies because earlier adaptations were so awful. A Wizard of Earthsea falls into both of those categories. However, for whatever reason, there seems to be no Internet chatter about the possibility of doing right by Le Guin (and Ged). One can only hope it isn't because Le Guin has thrown her hands up in disgust and despair at the idea.