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Ursula Le Guin Books

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Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#61

Post by pmoriarty »

_haoa wrote: post #5
swayvil wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Srsly. Earthsea is the most potent of all her work.

Agreed. The Earthsea Cycle is one of the greatest and most influential fantasy sagas of all time, right up there next to LotR. It pioneered the wizarding school trope, later popularized by Harry Potter, as well as a magic system incorporating “true names” of things, a concept used in many other fantasies such as Eragon. A Wizard of Earthsea is my all time favorite book.

"right up there next to LotR"

I absolutely hated LotR and everything else from Tolkien that I've read.

To me The Wizard of Earthsea is infinitely better, and Tolkien is not even in the same league as Le Guin.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#62

Post by Jtsummers »

pmoriarty wrote: post #59
teh_klev wrote: post #57

I've read a ton of speculative fiction over the years (I'm in my mid 50's) but had never gotten around to reading anything by Ursula Le Guin. One day whilst catching up on some anarchist reading I found The Dispossessed listed in a "top x books for anarchists" or some such thing. And it seemed like no better time than at that moment to dip into the Le Guin's work. I decided I'd start reading her scifi novels in near…

"Some folks might be put off by how old these novels are..." I've been reading a lot of books from Project Gutenberg over the last couple of decades. Most of their collection ends in the 1920's, so Le Guin seems pretty modern to me by comparison. People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature. To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than th…

> To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than the old.

Maybe, but it seems more like an application Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap). The filter of history is fantastic for leaving a lot of the poor quality stuff behind. Contemporary writing (novels, short stories) haven't been filtered for us yet. This leads me to usually favor older writing (even just 2-3 years old) over truly new stuff unless I'm a fan of the author or have received a recommendation from friends who are more voracious fiction readers than me and who I have similar taste to.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#64

Post by Emigre_ »

timonoko wrote: post #52
KingOfCoders wrote: post #3

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.

"Dispossed", "Left Hand of Darkness" and "Strangers" (by Gardner Dozois) are about the same icy word. And I cant remember which is which, except Strangers is the creepiest. I do not cry, but Liraun's final words pain me so much that I cant breathe.

Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll read “Strangers”. I liked “Dispossessed” and “The Left Hand of Darkness”, specially the later. I have to ask - which “icy word” you mean?... :)

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#65

Post by pmoriarty »

onei wrote: post #23
_haoa wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The Earthsea Cycle is one of the greatest and most influential fantasy sagas of all time, right up there next to LotR. It pioneered the wizarding school trope, later popularized by Harry Potter, as well as a magic system incorporating “true names” of things, a concept used in many other fantasies such as Eragon. A Wizard of Earthsea is my all time favorite book.

I read a Wizard of Earthsea as a kid, and looking back 2 things stood out to me. First is the diversity of the characters. It's not all white people, although I recall some TV/film adaptions were not particularly faithful to that much to Le Guin's disappointment. The other is a phrase that I still use to this day: "tired is stupid". Particularly when I've been debugging something for many hours, late into the evening…

"First is the diversity of the characters. It's not all white people"

I read The Wizard of Earthsea when I was 11, and didn't even notice the race of the characters. I don't think much of it is made in the book. It's just a passing description.

Much, much later, as an adult I heard someone mention it, and I went back and checked and sure enough they were right. But the characters' race had absolutely nothing to do with why I loved the book.

The characters could have been blue, or purple, or glowing orange for all I cared. The book was not about that.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#66

Post by forgotpwd16 »

pmoriarty wrote: post #61
_haoa wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. The Earthsea Cycle is one of the greatest and most influential fantasy sagas of all time, right up there next to LotR. It pioneered the wizarding school trope, later popularized by Harry Potter, as well as a magic system incorporating “true names” of things, a concept used in many other fantasies such as Eragon. A Wizard of Earthsea is my all time favorite book.

"right up there next to LotR" I absolutely hated LotR and everything else from Tolkien that I've read. To me The Wizard of Earthsea is infinitely better, and Tolkien is not even in the same league as Le Guin.

Why is that? Basically why you dislike Tolkien, as LotR and TWoE have different flavor so liking one over the other isn't strange.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#67

Post by pmoriarty »

Jtsummers wrote: post #62
pmoriarty wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Some folks might be put off by how old these novels are..." I've been reading a lot of books from Project Gutenberg over the last couple of decades. Most of their collection ends in the 1920's, so Le Guin seems pretty modern to me by comparison. People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature. To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than th…

> To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than the old. Maybe, but it seems more like an application Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap). The filter of history is fantastic for leaving a lot of the poor quality stuff behind. Contemporary writing (novels, short stories) haven't been filtered for us yet. This leads me to usually favor older writing (even just 2-3 years old) over truly new stuff unless I'm a fa…

You're right. Sturgeon's Law applies to all ages, and there are a ton of awful old books.. but it's just a lot easier for me to find good old books than good new books.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#68

Post by howfrontoage »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #19
KingOfCoders wrote: post #3

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”.

Honestly I disagree they had anarchism. Seemed they had a sort of collectivism where they replaced some authority with "computers that hand out assignments" and pseudo-authority from the capital (Anares? I forgot).

It looked like an odd system where presumably you were free but conditions were so hars and social pressure so strong that you did what was required. Sweden in space desert.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#69

Post by teh_klev »

pmoriarty wrote: post #59
teh_klev wrote: post #57

I've read a ton of speculative fiction over the years (I'm in my mid 50's) but had never gotten around to reading anything by Ursula Le Guin. One day whilst catching up on some anarchist reading I found The Dispossessed listed in a "top x books for anarchists" or some such thing. And it seemed like no better time than at that moment to dip into the Le Guin's work. I decided I'd start reading her scifi novels in near…

"Some folks might be put off by how old these novels are..." I've been reading a lot of books from Project Gutenberg over the last couple of decades. Most of their collection ends in the 1920's, so Le Guin seems pretty modern to me by comparison. People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature. To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than th…

> People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature.

I completely agree. Personally I read fairly widely in a temporal sense, as long as the story engages me I'll run with it. I think the point I was trying to make is that a lot of folks can be put off by scifi thinking it's a genre brim full of space lasers, FTL space craft and nasty aliens and not much else; when in fact it's much much more than that. This part of the interview stood out as evidence of that:

> This was when she got the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters in 2014; in her speech she not only thanked the committee for giving her the award, but said it was high time that speculative fiction writers were recognised as participants in the culture of literature, instead of being sort of segregated to a ghetto—she called them “realists of a larger reality.” And she reminded everyone how important science fiction is because the genre is about “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now.”

But sadly it's been a long time, if ever (I haven't checked), since we saw any speculative fiction making it onto shortlists or winning prizes on say the Booker Prize[0], because it's not "literary" enough (bloody snobs).

Finally I should also say that I also enjoy a good rip-roaring interstellar and galactic scale space opera as much as I enjoy more nuanced writing.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_Prize

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#70

Post by timonoko »

Emigre_ wrote: post #64
timonoko wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dispossed", "Left Hand of Darkness" and "Strangers" (by Gardner Dozois) are about the same icy word. And I cant remember which is which, except Strangers is the creepiest. I do not cry, but Liraun's final words pain me so much that I cant breathe.

Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll read “Strangers”. I liked “Dispossessed” and “The Left Hand of Darkness”, specially the later. I have to ask - which “icy word” you mean?... :)

As I said I cant really remember which is which. Or maybe the Dispossed was about two worlds and only the other one was hostile and cold?
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