The book/series of hers most mentioned is the Earthsea series. But the ones I would recommend are The Dispossessed and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. The latter is a short story. The Dispossessed shows, among other things, how alike anarchy and statism can be -- pressure to conform with serious consequences for failing to do so -- while The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is a not so subtle criticism of utopia.
For me, her most powerful was The Left Hand of Darkness-- in fact I just recommended it to a teacher creating a course around literature of "otherness."
Yes, another great choice. Le Guin wrote SF&F with social and political themes. Not much techno-babble in her works, not even in The Dispossessed, whose protagonist was a physicist. The physics wasn't the point.
The book/series of hers most mentioned is the Earthsea series. But the ones I would recommend are The Dispossessed and The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas. The latter is a short story. The Dispossessed shows, among other things, how alike anarchy and statism can be -- pressure to conform with serious consequences for failing to do so -- while The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas is a not so subtle criticism of utopia.
ReplyDeleteFor me, her most powerful was The Left Hand of Darkness-- in fact I just recommended it to a teacher creating a course around literature of "otherness."
ReplyDeleteYes, another great choice. Le Guin wrote SF&F with social and political themes. Not much techno-babble in her works, not even in The Dispossessed, whose protagonist was a physicist. The physics wasn't the point.
ReplyDeleteI think "The Left Hand of Darkness" is a model of how to write a political novel that is not too political to be fascinating and enjoyable.
ReplyDelete