"... no doubt in some remote library carrel a solitary man sits at his chair and lets his monocle drop at the idea of science fiction having literary merit, but the world has moved on."
😂 This made my day.
Ok, it's a sign and it's settled: will start digging into Ursula Le Guin's oeuvre. 📚
"To say that the Le Guin we meet in this book is argumentative, sometimes unfair, sometimes wrong and even self-contradictory is not to diminish her greatness. It is rather to rescue her from the dullness imposed on her by her canonization." --B. D. McClay
wapo.st/456qyG6
Her books are wonderful and by modern standards most are quite short and focussed. I’m nearing the end of the Hainish Cycle and I’ve enjoyed every one although Left Hand of Darkness is indeed the standout.
Her short story collections aren’t great, there are a few gems but the format isn’t hers.
If you’ve ever read Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead, the amazing sci-fi origin story of the ansible (instantaneous communication) is in The Dispossessed. Also, one of the most dynamic explorations of anarchism as a mode of social organization.
you don’t come away feeling much love for the anarchism either, it’s very carefully laid out, and certainly isnt a one sided polemic of how great an anarchist planet would be - I mean it literally starts with the main character fleeing it
Exactly.
I wrote my MA thesis partly on it:
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/c...
The freedoms afforded by Odonian anarchism were terribly won and brutally maintained. Balancing individual initiative and social cohesion requires great sacrifice and responsibility.
Stephen R Clark “How to Live Forever - Science Fiction and Philosophy”
Sam’s book “Living Without Domination” also has some stuff specifically on Le Guin, he’s not certain when his new book will be ready.
Nice! Thanks for sharing this. I appreciate you pointing at Thomas P Hughes to illustrate system function & how nothing is independent of its system.
Great read with pop culture contrast 🤠
