The Word For World Is Forest

The novella is a neglected literary form, and Le Guin's The Word for World Is Forest, published in a collection of SF edited by Harlan Ellison, definitely reflects the 1970s and the Vietnam War, as well as Le Guin's other passions, environmentalism and racial/gender politics. While reading it, the obvious comparisons came to mind, with the Ewoks of Star Wars to Avatar, but Philip K. Dick's 1964 novel, Martian Time-Slip, seems like an even better comparison to make. Both writers knew each other and followed each other's work, and much like Dick's earlier novel, a humanoid alien race on another planet must confront colonialism. Of course, Dick's Martian setting more closely resembles the American western than the forest world of Le Guin's novella, but both writers reflect on colonialism, slavery, racism, gender, genocide, and the turbulent decades of US war and intervention in Southeast Asia. 

Unfortunately, where Le Guin lost me is in her extremely didactic moralism (overt references to Vietnam, guerrilla warfare, and massacres of that period abound in the text, with a final message boiling down to violence begets violence?), whereas Dick is a tad more ambiguous and ontologically unstable (although, the question of insanity and the different frames of reference for Terran humans and the native humans of Le Guin's planet regarding dreams indicates some parallels). Another Dick novel of comparable thematic content is Dr. Futurity, especially in postulating a future in which humanity is "mixed race" and Native American (indigenous) spirituality and social organizations are prominent. Sadly, Dick's fiction, from what I've read, did not continue to experiment with these notions of race and gender in the creative ways of Le Guin, hence her stature in science fiction.  

Due to her her father's background in anthropology, the chapters told from the perspective of Selver, the 'god' who leads his race against the Terran settlers, are the most interesting for bringing, in her own way, cosmology and epistemology of indigenous societies to the forefront is fascinating, albeit less engaging than the the larger universe of her Hainish Cycle stories. One finds oneself more interested in the other humanoid aliens, ansible, and League of Worlds, and an extended form of prose writing to bring the world into Le Guin's unique vision. Perhaps if approached as an introduction to the larger world of her Hainish Cycle, some of its flaws can be forgiven.