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Ursula Le Guin Books

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11–20 of 122 posts

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#11
I'd recommend The Wind's Twelve Quarters (a collection of short stories) as a good introduction to Le Guin's work. Many of those stories later sprouted into separate novels.

Outside of the Hainish Cycle The Lathe of Heaven is also worth checking out.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#12

If I would allowed to only own one book, it would be "The Dispossessed". This books explains so many different sides of humanity. On a more personal note: After reading it a dozen times there are still parts I need to cry. Just thinking about the strong emotions in parts of the book waters my eyes right now.

Good to know.

I tried "the left hand of darkness" and didn't like it. Somehow it read more like mediocre fantasy than scifi.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#14
post #2

What, no Earthsea?

The real star of the Earthsea trilogy is the second book, The Tombs of Atuan: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tombs_of_Atuan The others put me to sleep, honestly

Interesting. I’ve read the first two books, and had the opposite experience.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#16
post #12

If I would allowed to only own one book, it would be "The Dispossessed". This books explains so many different sides of humanity. On a more personal note: After reading it a dozen times there are still parts I need to cry. Just thinking about the strong emotions in parts of the book waters my eyes right now.

Good to know. I tried "the left hand of darkness" and didn't like it. Somehow it read more like mediocre fantasy than scifi.

Because the science part takes a backseat to the cultural exploration.

I guess that could be either fantasy or science fiction, but since it has spaceships it must be the latter.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#17

I'd recommend The Wind's Twelve Quarters (a collection of short stories) as a good introduction to Le Guin's work. Many of those stories later sprouted into separate novels. Outside of the Hainish Cycle The Lathe of Heaven is also worth checking out.

The 1980 film The Lathe of Heaven is wonderfully done, especially when you consider it was made as a PBS project for $250,000.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lathe_of_Heaven_(film)

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#18
What a coincidence, I just finished The Lathe of Heaven by her this morning. It's not on the list here but I enjoyed it quite a bit (4/5 stars I would say), so I'm even more excited to check these out.

The Lathe of Heaven is about a man whose dreams change reality—rewriting the past so everything fits—but his therapist is trying to use that power for his own gain and to create a utopia. Things don't exactly go as planned though.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#19

If I would allowed to only own one book, it would be "The Dispossessed". This books explains so many different sides of humanity. On a more personal note: After reading it a dozen times there are still parts I need to cry. Just thinking about the strong emotions in parts of the book waters my eyes right now.

That book, more than anything, helped me to see anarchism as a viable organizational system and not just people “doing whatever they want”.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#20
post #16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know. I tried "the left hand of darkness" and didn't like it. Somehow it read more like mediocre fantasy than scifi.

Because the science part takes a backseat to the cultural exploration. I guess that could be either fantasy or science fiction, but since it has spaceships it must be the latter.

> since it has spaceships it must be the latter.

I look forward to the day when spaceships become as mundane as trains and helicopters, so that their presence alone will not make a novel "science fiction".

Le Guin never identified her books as science fiction. Sadly the world can't seem to look at a book without shoving it into the bounds of a familiar genre. This doesn't help readers, either, as GP was apparently given the wrong expectations by these labels.

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