The original Earthsea trilogy was a revelation when I read it as a child -- the setting was not the usual pseudo-medieval Europe but rather the sea-faring communities of an archipelago, and more importantly most of the characters were brown- and black-skinned. As a dark-haired Latina used to reading about blond or redheaded protagonists, I can't tell you how much representation matters.
Of course, the story was amazing, too, involving wizards, dragons, and an intriguing take on magic that depends upon an ancient, "true" language. The main characters have satisfying character arcs, philosophical concepts on the value of life and death suffuse the story, and the world felt lived-in, full of little details that suggest a complex world rather than just a stage for the main players.
Many years later LeGuin revisited Earthsea in a fourth novel, Tehanu, intended to address some of the gender-inequities of the both the world and the previous novels. It's a good book, and I appreciated what LeGuin was trying to do, but I didn't enjoy it as much as the others; there's enough gender-based violence in the real world that I don't want to read more of it in fiction.
The final novel, The Other Wind, was an effective synthesis of the two styles, delving more into notions of gender, power, and obligations while giving us lots of dragons. It's a satisfying conclusion to a wonderful series.
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