Well, this could be interesting:
Japan’s Studio Ghibli, the Japanese studio and home of anime master Hayao Miyazaki (Howl’s Moving Castle), announced that it will adapt Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea fantasy novel series in an animated movie called Gedo Senki (Tales From Earthsea), the IGN FilmForce Web site reported. Gedo Senki will be released in Japan in July 2006 and will be based on the third and fourth books in Le Guin’s six-volume series, which was first published in 1968, the site reported.
I was a little disappointed by Howl’s Moving Castle, and this will be a first-time feature for Miyazaki’s son, so I don’t know. It may never even become available in the United States, for all I know. I do know that Le Guin was none too pleased with the Sci-Fi Channel miniseries of her Earthsea books, so we’ll see if she likes this one any better. I have a copy of the first book sitting on my desk at home, waiting to be read.
Of course, it’s just one in a very large pile.