City of Illusions

City of Illusions is a far more ambitious novel than the previous entries of the Hainish novels. Significantly longer and more ambiguous in its ending, it features a descendant of Agat from Planet of Exile who travels to an Earth under the rule of aliens known as the Shing. After living among the decentralized, "primitive" and divided Terrans for years due to his memory being wiped, he eventually recovers his past identity and must find a way to thwart the Shing and ensure the survival of humanity on Earth and his home planet, Werel. Most of the novel follows the journey of Falk/Ramarren across the desolate post-apocalyptic US to the singular city of Es Toch, where the Shing hope to find the coordinates to Werel after restoring his former personality of Ramarren. Earthlings are living in isolated hamlets, nomadic tribes, Kansas enclaves, and have lost most of the ancient knowledge and technology of their ancestors. If they begin to form large cities or rekindle too much ancient knowledge, the Shing put a stop to it.

Instead of the typical space opera which would have consisted of far more action and perhaps a violent uprising against the alien Shing, this novel asks more of its readers. It is unclear who is lying or who is telling the truth for much of the story, as it is not exactly clear what happened to cause the downfall of the League of All Worlds and if the Shing were human or alien beings. They appear to resort to deception and likely caused the fall of the League by turning its various members against each other through manipulation and deceit.  Our protagonist, knowing the Shing are not to be trusted, eventually succeeds in escaping from Earth, but takes a Shing hostage and a fellow Werelian survivor of his expedition back to Werel, to present their 3 versions of the truth to his homeworld. 

As to be expected with Le Guin, one finds strong inklings of her anthropological interest in the various human societies or cultural groups populating the US thousands of years into the future. Moreover, references to Taoism and the Way hint at the greater interest she developed into Taoism for a greater subsequent novel, The Lathe of Heaven. In City of Illusions, the influence of Taoism can be found everywhere in the Canon, the character(s) of Ramarren/Falk, and the search for balance for humanity in the several centuries after the fall of the League and the isolation of Werel. Only when reconciling their opposite natures within the League can they succeed in expelling the Shing. This makes for an entertaining read, bringing to mind some of the post-apocalyptic US landscapes of Philip K. Dick's myriad novels yet featuring the superior prose of Le Guin.