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. 

Planet of Exile

Le Guin's next novel in the Hainish Cycle takes place at an indeterminate time after the events of Rocannon's World. Indeed, the mindspeech or telepathy of that former novel appears in Planet of Exile as a widespread power among descendants of humans who have been stranded on Werel for centuries. Fortunately, Le Guin sheds the fantasy tropes here to tell a story of exiled humans eventually adapting to and coming to a greater symbiosis with the less advanced humanoid natives. Predictably, Agat drops the sense of doomed exile, finding hope for humanity on Werel lies in their future relationships and crossbreeding with the locals, who, though human-like, are fair-skinned, technologically "primitive" and divided into various clans. 

Thus, through their centuries-long adaptation to their new environment and the overly long Winter season and attacks of the Gaal (inspired by the Huns or Central Asian steppe nomads?) invaders from the north, a "primitive" Other and the remnants of an advanced space-traveling people overcome their difference. While it is certainly romantic and perhaps utopian, the novel offers a realistic call for overcoming difference. After all, the survival of both human groups relies on their coming together to respond to natural and personal aggression. There is no suggestion of primitivism either, but simply human acclimatization to their harsh environment through collaboration. It almost brings to mind The Dispossessed and Annares. 

One can also find interesting insights into the commonalities of both populations and their rituals, practices, and reckoning of their past. After centuries on Werel, not knowing if the League of All Worlds survived, the descendants of those left on the planet rely on half-understood theories and records of their origins, forgetting the use of past technology like spaceships and aircars, and restricted by long-gone League protocol forbidding their technological influence on the native population. Indeed, it is after witnessing their troops defending their town settlement succumb to similar wounds as the natives that their doctor understands fully that they are now adapting to the planet. With a combination of the remnants of their technology and the local Tevarans, humanity will survive, expand, and, perhaps, one day bring the Gaal into the fold. All in all, this makes for an entertaining and worthwhile early novel from Le Guin. 

Rocannon's World

Le Guin's first novel is not great. However, it already displays some of the maturity one comes to expect from her work. In its blend of science fiction and fantasy elements it intriguingly introduces the world of the Hainish Cycle while exploring time dilation and the impact of technology and intra-galactic conflict on a backwards planet settled by humanoids with feudal and "primitive" socioeconomic structures. Truly the child of an anthropologist, Le Guin uses an ethnologist for the protagonist of the novel. Along the way in his journey to end attacks on the planet by an aggressive member race of the League, Rocannon learns more about the understudied aboriginal populations of the island. What particularly stood out for this blog was the prologue, "Semley's Necklace," for an evocative short story about one native woman's encounter with advanced alien technology and the time dilation from her trip to another planet and back. Le Guin convincingly captured the wonder of advanced technology to someone from a "feudal" or fantasy-inspired setting, while also exploring the ethical dilemmas of maintaining galactic peace. Definitely a worthy read for a more intelligent example of 1960s anthropological science fiction.

The Dispossessed

The Dispossessed is one of those science fiction classics all should read. It tells the story of Shevek, a physicist from an anarchist society on Anarres struggling to complete a General Temporal Theory while also adjusting to the dangers of archism on the homeworld of Urras and the bureaucratization of life on Anarres. Anarres is indeed an "ambiguous utopia" based on anarchist values (and, at times, referring indirectly to Prouhon and Kropotkin). For nearly two centuries, the followers of Odo have managed to survive on a bleak landscape through solidarity and mutual aid. However, there are forces within their society which are creeping towards statism and laws (through conventional behavior, customs) that impede the will of individuals. Facing obstacles for his research on Anarres, Shevek attempts to break down more walls by going directly to Urras, and visiting the land of his ancestors in A-Io.

As a novel exploring the contrast between an anarchist society and a wealthy, centralized state with a capitalist economy (A-Io is likely inspired by the US, Thu by the USSR), this novel requires the reader to think seriously beyond any simplistic utopia. Solidarity and mutual aid as social principles require constant work, a "permanent revolution" to limit the reappearance of state-like apparatuses or the tyranny of the majority. Due to widespread inequality, gross sexism, and war on Urras, it is clearly a flawed place and will not be the solution to the estrangement Shevek experiences at home. However, Anarres also suffers through a traumatic drought, bureaucratic abuse and power struggles, and a harsh material existence that suggests anarchist utopias can only be achieved and maintained through an aforementioned "permanent revolution." Shevek's recollections of solidarity, communication and mutual aid on Urras, however, lead to him joining with socialists and syndicalists in an insurrection against the government of A-Io, demonstrating the appeal of Odonian principles to other peoples beyond Anarres. 

Perhaps the appeal of anarchism and stateless principles to others and the need for breaking down all walls explains why Shevek's research helps lay the foundation for the ansible. Technology which can allow for communication among all the known worlds will ensure ideas and technological advances can be shared equally, and therefore allow for information and other forms of change to prevent Anarres from continuing down its isolationist path, living in the past. Shevek's theory, and mindset, requires a synthesis of the past, present, and future, and an anarchist settlement cutting itself off from the rest of humanity will not last. One can find this sentiment in the novel to be quite moving, as its suggests the degree to which utopian thinking is itself a problem since there are no utopias. Life on Anarres may be egalitarian and, for the most part, no one suffers from want. But, pain, suffering, conflict, and the need to learn are an enduring presence in human existence. 

The Left Hand of Darkness

The Left Hand of Darkness is the second novel in Le Guin's Hainish Cycle that I've read, and far more developed and interesting than the great novella, The Word For World Is Forest.  Exploring androgyny in a wintry planet possibly on the brink of war, Le Guin's brilliant novel forces us to rethink our notions of gender as Genly Ai seeks to bring Gethen into the Ekumene. Mr. Ai is forced to confront a society of humans without gender (well, except for kemmer) and see how despite the differences, the balance of "masculinity" and "femininity" has led to the creation of a very different society. Much like The Word For World Is Forest, Le Guin's interest in anthropology must have led her to research the differences in the social construction of gender in various societies, and brings mythology, elements of Eastern philosophy, and fantasy to craft this world. Much of the transgender and non-binary movements have pushed for a similar sort of realization in the present: an acknowledgement of how the gender binary is not necessarily "natural" and independent of social forces. Le Guins's consistent use of male pronouns for the non-gendered Gethenians is a bit confusing, particularly when coming from the point of view of Gethenians themselves, but the general point remains consistent on dualism that is not neither/nor but both/and, a form of thinking quite common in indigenous societies. 

The astonishing level of detail and chapter entries consisting of Gethenian mythology and history create a fully-fleshed world where the past, present, and future collide and connect with the main plot, including a powerful moment at the novel's conclusion. Furthermore, this world features some uncanny parallels to the "precogs" of Philip K. Dick's literature and the Cold War-era. The Foretellers, mindspeech among the Hainish humans of other worlds, and last but certainly not least, the power accorded to deviants (those with mental illness or in a permanent state of kemmer) have numerous comparable scenarios and characters in Dick's oeuvre, albeit Dick was never quite on the same page when it came to androgyny. In fact, the only instance in which "hermaphrodites" appear in Dick's fiction are the "mutants" who have sex with each other while changing genders for audiences (The World Jones Made). Nonetheless, the mutual interest in precognitive abilities, telepathy, and metaphysics point to a shared concern for understanding who and what we are. So what if novelists lie, as Le Guin says in her introduction, if those lies can lead to some truth? Perhaps Naipaul is right about fiction never lying.

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. 

The Lathe of Heaven

Bill Moyers interviews Ursula K. Le Guin about the film adaptation of her excellent (and phildickian) novel, The Lathe of Heaven. What I love about her work is it exemplifies how Le Guin and Philip K. Dick shaped each other's work, in addition to their correspondence. Indeed, I am still amazed that these two titans of SF went to the same high school and supposedly never crossed paths. Both also allude to The Beatles in powerful ways for their novels, particularly John Lennon in Dick's The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. As for the novel, it's an entertaining read on ethics, dreams, metaphysics, and even climate change, race, power, and gender. Like the old saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, as Haber's character illustrates in his twisted use of Orr's power.