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Ursula Le Guin Books

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Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#101

Post by bryanrasmussen »

pmoriarty wrote: post #28

As a huge fan of the Wizard of Earthsea , I could never bring myself to read the other big wizard school books: Harry Potter . Harry Potter just seemed so trite, superficial, and generic by comparison.. but since I never actually read them I can't say if my impression of them from the outside was accurate. Would any other Wizard of Earthsea fans who've actually read Harry Potter be so kind as to compare and contrast…

I avoided Harry Potter for a time because in some ways of LeGuin and her critical article "From Elfland to Poughkeepsie", which helped solidify some perspectives I had regarding fantasy, whenever I would see excerpts from Harry Potter I found the language unenticing and mundane.

However I did not give enough weight to the strengths of J.K. Rowling, which are in character and plotting.

LeGuin in my estimation had the full package, but you can't discount Rowling's abilities either.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#102

Post by anand-bala »

sdenton4 wrote: post #88
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…

There's a LOT of stuff in 'golden age' sci fi which hasn't aged well at all. I love the /idea/ of Foundation - both the 'science of history' idea, and the idea of making every chapter a different set of characters, tracing the arc of history. But found it to be pretty terrible as an actual book when I went back to re-read it a year or two back. It's 1/3 good idea, 1/3 engineer's disease on galactic scale, and 1/3 cre…

> Part of the function of time is to filter out the timeless from the merely timely

This is such a beautiful observation.

As a kid, I wasn't into "old" fantasy and scifi, but recently have started reading them. And I must say, there are a lot of authors with some beautiful foresight, especially Le Guinn: the entire Earthsea Cycle talks about some deep psychological introspection, about how power dynamics can affect different sects of society differently, about the notion of "inherent evil". This stuff is as timeless as human society.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#103

Post by vmilner »

pmoriarty wrote: post #50
hardlianotion wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found the later books rather boring - she grew away from me. The book where we departed company, I think, was Always Coming Home.

I never even got to the later Earthsea books. I absolutely loved and treasured The Wizard of Earthsea , which I've read and reread many times over my life (something I almost never do with any books). The other two books in the trilogy: The Tombs of Atuan and The Furthest Shore were pretty disappointing to me, so I stopped reading Le Guin after that.

The 1997 BBC Radio adaptation of TWoE (narrated by Judi Dench and Michael Maloney as Ged) is wonderful - parallel in quality to their 1981 Lord of the Rings adaptation.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#104

Post by pmoriarty »

mrec wrote: post #99
pmoriarty wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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)." Yeah, snobbishness is a huge problem in literature, visual art, and music... in all culture, probably. Some people want desperately to be the gatekeepers of taste, and unfortunately the rest of so…

Honestly, I don't see this as a problem any more. Litfic is as much a genre as SF, and just as an SF novel isn't going to win the Booker, a litfic novel isn't going to win the Hugo or Nebula. Yes, the Booker judges believe that their preferred genre is intrinsically superior to all the others, but nobody else needs to pay any attention to them if they don't want to. Twenty or thirty years ago it was different, becaus…

That's true, but the converse is that it's easy for many of the people buying their velvet Jesus' and Thomas Kinkade paintings to ignore the Van Gogh's and Picassos (well, ok, these are hard to miss, but insert your favorite "serious", "great" painters here).

And fans of whatever the scifi equivalent is of the trashiest of romance novels might never get to seriously give Ursula Le Guin a chance.

I think that's a pity.

People are getting balkanized and locked in to their favorite echo chambers. In one sense its good, because you're not getting your tastes and preferences dictated to from the ivory tower by some gatekeeper elites, but on the other hand I think a lot of people are missing out on discovering some amazing art, music, and literature because they're so enclosed in their little bubble from which many never dare to or even think of escaping.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#105

Post by joshuamorton »

pmoriarty wrote: post #67
Jtsummers wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I find good luck reading stuff that was recently Nebula/Hugo nominated. Usually it isn't strictly scifi, much of it is fantasy (but by the definition in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27090292, it is still sci-fi/speculative fiction).

This year there are 8 novels that appear on either list (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2021-hugo-awards/, https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-the-56th-annual-nebu...). I've read three (Piranesi, The City We Became, The Midnight Bargain). Piranesi isn't speculative at all, just pretty and thought provoking and foreign in a way that's difficult to describe. The City We Became and the Midnight Bargain are both interesting. I found TMB to be at points a bit heavy handed with the metaphor, but still thoroughly enjoyable and interesting. Both it and The City We Became are very openly political, in the case of The City We Became, very openly so in a very contemporary way.

That said, it's also a good way to find authors. Polk, Jemisin, and Moreno-Garcia have other books that I've read or will soon read that are all critically acclaimed and IMO very good, thought provoking, sci fi, in the way that adventure books like Sanderson's aren't (though those are still great to read). I should note that I haven't had the chance to get to Le Guin yet (except for Omelas, which is great, and I see influence of in, for example, Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy). She's on my list, but I want to finish up basically everything by Jemsin first. Hopefully this year!

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#106

Post by greatquux »

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…

Those three initial novels are a really fun read!

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#107

Post by Emigre_ »

timonoko wrote: post #70
Emigre_ wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Oh you mean “icy world”? With an L. You wrote “word”. Yeah, The Left Hand... is the one in a frozen planet. Great book.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#108

Post by [deleted] »

sdenton4 wrote: post #86
howfrontoage wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Anarchism means 'without leaders,' not without society. Actual anarchists are generally interested in how to design a society that can function at a high level without leaders. This usually involves some mix of process and committees, with some serious thought about how to handle delegation of decision making without concentrating power in too few hands.

[deleted]

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#109

Post by teh_klev »

sdenton4 wrote: post #88
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…

There's a LOT of stuff in 'golden age' sci fi which hasn't aged well at all. I love the /idea/ of Foundation - both the 'science of history' idea, and the idea of making every chapter a different set of characters, tracing the arc of history. But found it to be pretty terrible as an actual book when I went back to re-read it a year or two back. It's 1/3 good idea, 1/3 engineer's disease on galactic scale, and 1/3 cre…

I've re-read the original Foundation trilogy around ten times over the years. Sure the writing is clunky, it's a product of its time (~40s-50's) and a bit "Boys Own". But if you can get past that the story itself is still a classic in the genre and I still enjoy it every time I read it again.

But you're right in some respects, thus far for me, Le Guin has been totally captivating and obviously a far better writer than Asimov. But remember she also started her writing in different times.

Also, I don't quite remember any "groping" in Foundation. I know there's some stories about Asimov having wandering hands, but I don't remember that in the books.

Re: Ursula Le Guin Books

#110

Post by teh_klev »

greatquux wrote: post #106
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…

Those three initial novels are a really fun read!

I agree, and flying cats!
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