Series: Hainish Cycle
by Author Ursula K. Le Guin
Four Ways to Forgiveness (2004)
There is just no denying it: Ursula le Guin is one of the greatest writers of the last 50 years (at least), and I firmly believe that the only reason she does not get more recognition for her commentary on race, politics, and - especially - gender - is because she sets much of that discussion off...
Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions (1996)
The short version first . . .Ursula K. Le Guin is one of today's most famous living science fiction/fantasy authors. The titles of her works are frequently in contention for if not announced as winners of the coveted Hugo and Nebula Awards for Excellence in Science Fiction. Her writing consistent...
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (2005)
Ursula Le Guin is best known for her fantasy and her science fiction writings, though she also writes other fiction as well as poetry, articles and reviews. The short stories in this 1994 collection, while firmly in the SF genre, also demonstrate her ability to compose in various tones, from ligh...
The Word for World is Forest (1989)
Part evocative and subtle, part heavy-handed but still compelling.This is a novella about the devastation a human colony wreaks on a forested world and its inhabitants, and how the inhabitants must fight back despite their habitual peacefulness -- written by a U.S. author during the U.S.'s partic...
The Telling (2003)
(I chose to compare this book to a nonfiction work for my review.)The alien civilization in Ursula K Le Guin’s The Telling is deeply evocative of post-Cultural Revolution China. A few months ago I read the non-fiction book Song & Silence: Ethnic Revival On China’s Southwest Borders by Sara L. M. ...
Rocannon's World (1984)
Rocannon's World was Ursula K. LeGuin's first published novel and is the first of her novels I have read. I've always thought that if I read Le Guin I would read The Left Hand of Darkness, since it was the big prize winner and the one everyone read back in the 1970's, during the years after it fi...
City of Illusions (1970)
The short version first . . .Actually it is the longer version from the one associated with the Worlds of Exile and Illusion compendium which was what I read. . .You find yourself emerging from darkness and unconsciousness into a world of light, trees, and lifeforms. You can’t remember your name,...
The Dispossessed (1994)
Thoughts on The DispossessedOf the various layers of content in The Dispossessed, the most obvious is the socio-political: capitalism vs. anarchistic-communism. The claim often made is that, even though her heart is with the latter, she nonetheless treats the two structures impartially. The claim...