3 ms·

I've read a ton of speculative fiction over the years (I'm in my mid 50's) but had never gotten around to reading anything by Ursula Le Guin. One day whilst cat

I've read a ton of speculative fiction over the years (I'm in my mid 50's) but had never gotten around to reading anything by Ursula Le Guin. One day whilst catching up on some anarchist reading I found The Dispossessed listed in a "top x books for anarchists" or some such thing. And it seemed like no better time than at that moment to dip into the Le Guin's work. I decided I'd start reading her scifi novels in near chronological order and began with The Left Hand of Darkness which I found devastatingly good. This is the one mentioned in the interview where Genly Ai the observer is embedded on a planet where the humanoid species are in the main genderless and only become male or female during a period of "kemmer" to reproduce. I can't do it justice here but I couldn't put the book down. Next up were the three previous novels; Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile and City of Illusions. These are contained in a handy single volume published under the S.F. Masterworks imprint. All of these are also excellent novels, if a little short. I've just started The Dispossessed and thus far it's holding my attention. I think if you've never considered reading Le Guin's scifi then I can definitely recommend from the limited sampling I gotten through so far. Some folks might be put off by how old these novels are, but Le Guin cleverly shy's away from using technology as a plot driver (perhaps with the exception of the "ansible") so they don't feel dated. Her writing and story telling is as fresh today as it probably was back in the 60's and 70's. Also, and I almost forgot, Le Guin's short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" which is quite disturbing and thought provoking.

pmoriarty 5y ago
"Some folks might be put off by how old these novels are..." I've been reading a lot of books from Project Gutenberg over the last couple of decades. Most of their collection ends in the 1920's, so Le Guin seems pretty modern to me by comparison. People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature. To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than the old.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  > To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than the old. Maybe, but it seems more like an application Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap). The filter of history is fantastic for leaving a lot of the poor quality stuff behind. Contemporary writing (novels, short stories) haven't been filtered for us yet. This leads me to usually favor older writing (even just 2-3 years old) over truly new stuff unless I'm a fan of the author or have received a recommendation from friends who are more voracious fiction readers than me and who I have similar taste to.
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    You're right. Sturgeon's Law applies to all ages, and there are a ton of awful old books.. but it's just a lot easier for me to find good old books than good new books.
    - joshuamorton 5y ago
      I find good luck reading stuff that was recently Nebula/Hugo nominated. Usually it isn't strictly scifi, much of it is fantasy (but by the definition in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27090292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27090292, it is still sci-fi/speculative fiction). This year there are 8 novels that appear on either list (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2021-hugo-awards/ http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2021-hugo-awards/, https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-the-56th-annual-nebula-award-finalists/ https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-the-56th-annual-nebu...). I've read three (Piranesi, The City We Became, The Midnight Bargain). Piranesi isn't speculative at all, just pretty and thought provoking and foreign in a way that's difficult to describe. The City We Became and the Midnight Bargain are both interesting. I found TMB to be at points a bit heavy handed with the metaphor, but still thoroughly enjoyable and interesting. Both it and The City We Became are very openly political, in the case of The City We Became, very openly so in a very contemporary way. That said, it's also a good way to find authors. Polk, Jemisin, and Moreno-Garcia have other books that I've read or will soon read that are all critically acclaimed and IMO very good, thought provoking, sci fi, in the way that adventure books like Sanderson's aren't (though those are still great to read). I should note that I haven't had the chance to get to Le Guin yet (except for Omelas, which is great, and I see influence of in, for example, Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy). She's on my list, but I want to finish up basically everything by Jemsin first. Hopefully this year!
- teh_klev 5y ago
  > People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature. I completely agree. Personally I read fairly widely in a temporal sense, as long as the story engages me I'll run with it. I think the point I was trying to make is that a lot of folks can be put off by scifi thinking it's a genre brim full of space lasers, FTL space craft and nasty aliens and not much else; when in fact it's much much more than that. This part of the interview stood out as evidence of that: > This was when she got the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters in 2014; in her speech she not only thanked the committee for giving her the award, but said it was high time that speculative fiction writers were recognised as participants in the culture of literature, instead of being sort of segregated to a ghetto—she called them “realists of a larger reality.” And she reminded everyone how important science fiction is because the genre is about “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now.” But sadly it's been a long time, if ever (I haven't checked), since we saw any speculative fiction making it onto shortlists or winning prizes on say the Booker Prize[0], because it's not "literary" enough (bloody snobs). Finally I should also say that I also enjoy a good rip-roaring interstellar and galactic scale space opera as much as I enjoy more nuanced writing. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_Prize
  - pmoriarty 5y ago
    "But sadly it's been a long time, if ever (I haven't checked), since we saw any speculative fiction making it onto shortlists or winning prizes on say the Booker Prize[0], because it's not "literary" enough (bloody snobs)." Yeah, snobbishness is a huge problem in literature, visual art, and music... in all culture, probably. Some people want desperately to be the gatekeepers of taste, and unfortunately the rest of society lets them get away with it. On the other extreme, there's a lot of trashy cultural production ("kitsch") which I find problematic myself, because it tends to be so trite and superficial.. but as a cultural relativist I have a hard time mounting any kind of serious argument against it. I guess if someone likes something, that should be enough, and there's really not much anyone can say against it that doesn't amount to anything more than "I don't like it". That conclusion doesn't sit very easy with me, but I can't think of a way around it.
- sdenton4 5y ago
  There's a LOT of stuff in 'golden age' sci fi which hasn't aged well at all. I love the /idea/ of Foundation - both the 'science of history' idea, and the idea of making every chapter a different set of characters, tracing the arc of history. But found it to be pretty terrible as an actual book when I went back to re-read it a year or two back. It's 1/3 good idea, 1/3 engineer's disease on galactic scale, and 1/3 creepy male lens. (like, seriously, if an author treats women as nothing more than background furnishings, useful for occasional groping, I start doubting their ability to say interesting+useful things about human society real quick. And 60's sci fi has a TON of this perspective.) Le Guin is literally exceptional. A fantastic author, who I've loved since I was a kid and can always go back to. Part of the function of time is to filter out the timeless from the merely timely...
  - anand-bala 5y ago
    > Part of the function of time is to filter out the timeless from the merely timely This is such a beautiful observation. As a kid, I wasn't into "old" fantasy and scifi, but recently have started reading them. And I must say, there are a lot of authors with some beautiful foresight, especially Le Guinn: the entire Earthsea Cycle talks about some deep psychological introspection, about how power dynamics can affect different sects of society differently, about the notion of "inherent evil". This stuff is as timeless as human society.
  - teh_klev 5y ago
    I've re-read the original Foundation trilogy around ten times over the years. Sure the writing is clunky, it's a product of its time (~40s-50's) and a bit "Boys Own". But if you can get past that the story itself is still a classic in the genre and I still enjoy it every time I read it again. But you're right in some respects, thus far for me, Le Guin has been totally captivating and obviously a far better writer than Asimov. But remember she also started her writing in different times. Also, I don't quite remember any "groping" in Foundation. I know there's some stories about Asimov having wandering hands, but I don't remember that in the books.
greatquux 5y ago
Those three initial novels are a really fun read!
- teh_klev 5y ago
  I agree, and flying cats!
deathlight 5y ago
Don't stop at sci fi. LeGuin's magical fantasy archipelago of Earthsea (starting with "A Wizard of Earthsea") is my favorite set of books from her.

pmoriarty 5y ago

"Some folks might be put off by how old these novels are..." I've been reading a lot of books from Project Gutenberg over the last couple of decades. Most of their collection ends in the 1920's, so Le Guin seems pretty modern to me by comparison. People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature. To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than the old.

Jtsummers 5y ago
> To me, newer stuff tends to be much worse than the old. Maybe, but it seems more like an application Sturgeon's Law (90% of everything is crap). The filter of history is fantastic for leaving a lot of the poor quality stuff behind. Contemporary writing (novels, short stories) haven't been filtered for us yet. This leads me to usually favor older writing (even just 2-3 years old) over truly new stuff unless I'm a fan of the author or have received a recommendation from friends who are more voracious fiction readers than me and who I have similar taste to.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  You're right. Sturgeon's Law applies to all ages, and there are a ton of awful old books.. but it's just a lot easier for me to find good old books than good new books.
  - joshuamorton 5y ago
    I find good luck reading stuff that was recently Nebula/Hugo nominated. Usually it isn't strictly scifi, much of it is fantasy (but by the definition in https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27090292 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27090292, it is still sci-fi/speculative fiction). This year there are 8 novels that appear on either list (http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2021-hugo-awards/ http://www.thehugoawards.org/hugo-history/2021-hugo-awards/, https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-the-56th-annual-nebula-award-finalists/ https://nebulas.sfwa.org/sfwa-announces-the-56th-annual-nebu...). I've read three (Piranesi, The City We Became, The Midnight Bargain). Piranesi isn't speculative at all, just pretty and thought provoking and foreign in a way that's difficult to describe. The City We Became and the Midnight Bargain are both interesting. I found TMB to be at points a bit heavy handed with the metaphor, but still thoroughly enjoyable and interesting. Both it and The City We Became are very openly political, in the case of The City We Became, very openly so in a very contemporary way. That said, it's also a good way to find authors. Polk, Jemisin, and Moreno-Garcia have other books that I've read or will soon read that are all critically acclaimed and IMO very good, thought provoking, sci fi, in the way that adventure books like Sanderson's aren't (though those are still great to read). I should note that I haven't had the chance to get to Le Guin yet (except for Omelas, which is great, and I see influence of in, for example, Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy). She's on my list, but I want to finish up basically everything by Jemsin first. Hopefully this year!
teh_klev 5y ago
> People who consider something from the 1960's or 70's to be "too old" are really missing out on so much amazing literature. I completely agree. Personally I read fairly widely in a temporal sense, as long as the story engages me I'll run with it. I think the point I was trying to make is that a lot of folks can be put off by scifi thinking it's a genre brim full of space lasers, FTL space craft and nasty aliens and not much else; when in fact it's much much more than that. This part of the interview stood out as evidence of that: > This was when she got the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contributions to American Letters in 2014; in her speech she not only thanked the committee for giving her the award, but said it was high time that speculative fiction writers were recognised as participants in the culture of literature, instead of being sort of segregated to a ghetto—she called them “realists of a larger reality.” And she reminded everyone how important science fiction is because the genre is about “writers who can see alternatives to how we live now.” But sadly it's been a long time, if ever (I haven't checked), since we saw any speculative fiction making it onto shortlists or winning prizes on say the Booker Prize[0], because it's not "literary" enough (bloody snobs). Finally I should also say that I also enjoy a good rip-roaring interstellar and galactic scale space opera as much as I enjoy more nuanced writing. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_Prize https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_Prize
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  "But sadly it's been a long time, if ever (I haven't checked), since we saw any speculative fiction making it onto shortlists or winning prizes on say the Booker Prize[0], because it's not "literary" enough (bloody snobs)." Yeah, snobbishness is a huge problem in literature, visual art, and music... in all culture, probably. Some people want desperately to be the gatekeepers of taste, and unfortunately the rest of society lets them get away with it. On the other extreme, there's a lot of trashy cultural production ("kitsch") which I find problematic myself, because it tends to be so trite and superficial.. but as a cultural relativist I have a hard time mounting any kind of serious argument against it. I guess if someone likes something, that should be enough, and there's really not much anyone can say against it that doesn't amount to anything more than "I don't like it". That conclusion doesn't sit very easy with me, but I can't think of a way around it.
sdenton4 5y ago
There's a LOT of stuff in 'golden age' sci fi which hasn't aged well at all. I love the /idea/ of Foundation - both the 'science of history' idea, and the idea of making every chapter a different set of characters, tracing the arc of history. But found it to be pretty terrible as an actual book when I went back to re-read it a year or two back. It's 1/3 good idea, 1/3 engineer's disease on galactic scale, and 1/3 creepy male lens. (like, seriously, if an author treats women as nothing more than background furnishings, useful for occasional groping, I start doubting their ability to say interesting+useful things about human society real quick. And 60's sci fi has a TON of this perspective.) Le Guin is literally exceptional. A fantastic author, who I've loved since I was a kid and can always go back to. Part of the function of time is to filter out the timeless from the merely timely...
- anand-bala 5y ago
  > Part of the function of time is to filter out the timeless from the merely timely This is such a beautiful observation. As a kid, I wasn't into "old" fantasy and scifi, but recently have started reading them. And I must say, there are a lot of authors with some beautiful foresight, especially Le Guinn: the entire Earthsea Cycle talks about some deep psychological introspection, about how power dynamics can affect different sects of society differently, about the notion of "inherent evil". This stuff is as timeless as human society.
- teh_klev 5y ago
  I've re-read the original Foundation trilogy around ten times over the years. Sure the writing is clunky, it's a product of its time (~40s-50's) and a bit "Boys Own". But if you can get past that the story itself is still a classic in the genre and I still enjoy it every time I read it again. But you're right in some respects, thus far for me, Le Guin has been totally captivating and obviously a far better writer than Asimov. But remember she also started her writing in different times. Also, I don't quite remember any "groping" in Foundation. I know there's some stories about Asimov having wandering hands, but I don't remember that in the books.

greatquux 5y ago

Those three initial novels are a really fun read!

teh_klev 5y ago
I agree, and flying cats!

deathlight 5y ago

Don't stop at sci fi. LeGuin's magical fantasy archipelago of Earthsea (starting with "A Wizard of Earthsea") is my favorite set of books from her.