Book Review: "The Telling" by Ursula Le Guin

(Hainish Cycle)

My Rating: 

Why? Le Guin writes brilliant science fiction books with amazing world building and character development. The Telling is no exception. The plight of the Akan people is extremely compelling. (Especially for us book lovers!)

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Plot Tease

Once a culturally rich world, the planet Aka has been utterly transformed by technology. Records of the past have been destroyed, and citizens are strictly monitored. But an official observer from Earth will discover a group of outcasts who still practice its lost religion - The Telling. Intrigued by their beliefs, she joins them on a sacred pilgrimage into the mountains...and into the dangerous terrain of her own heart, mind, and soul.

Full Book Review

Let me just tell you straight off: Le Guin is the queen of character driven science fiction books. The amount of world building and details she puts in just to develop the character is crazy, and I love it. I'm sure you will too!

Aka has a really intriguing history—because when Sutty arrives, it is essentially a blank slate. While the galatic "ambassadors" from the Ekumen were studying old texts in preparation for the visit to Aka, the Akan government was destroying all records and wiping out their old culture. The world Sutty travels to has completely changed. Everything is mechanized and carefully controlled, and religion in any classical sense is illegal. So, what kind of characters survive in this setting?

Book Review: "Lathe of Heaven" by Ursula Le Guin

My Rating: 

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Plot Tease

George Orr is a man who discovers he has the peculiar ability to dream things into being - for better or for worse. In desperation, he consults a psychotherapist who promises to help him. It soon becomes clear that he has his own plans for George and his dreams.

Book Review

I really need to begin by explaining my review to you. The concept of this book is amazing and intriguing from start to finish. But Lathe of Heaven loses its gripping pace in the last half, and what was awesome becomes merely cool and just a little old.

That said, you'll still zip through the book easily. Because the main character is a drug addict that can unravel worlds but has no control over his ability. Sounds crazy right?

George Orr is a unique take on the over-powered hero archetype. He has 'effective' dreams: what he imagines changes reality, but he has no control over when or how this happens. No one else in the world has memories of these past realities except for George. This first came about the day that George lay dying in a holocost that destroys the world in the early 2000's. Slipping out of consciousness from blood loss, he dreams... And wakes up in an entirely different life where there has been no war. The result? Earth is overcrowded and life is miserable for everyone. Is it better or not?

Book Review: "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Ursula Le Guin

(Series: Hainish Cycle)
My Rating: 

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Plot Tease
Genly Ai is an emissary from the human galaxy to Winter, a lost, stray world. His mission is to bring the planet back into the fold of an evolving galactic civilization, but to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own culture and prejudices and those that he encounters. On a planet where people are of no gender—or both—this is a broad gulf indeed...

Book Review
Left Hand of Darkness (LHoD) is now one of my favorite scifi books of the 20th century. It initially appears to be a typical encounter-the-aliens book, but you will be surprised. The characters are gripping, managing to blur stereotypical gender images in an amazingly realistic way.

The main character is Human,  but his contact throughout the novel is a Gethenian named Estraven. S/he is a layered personality with a poignant history: both of which reveal themselves over time. The reader is given pieces and clues, but denied the full picture until literally the last pages of the book and then it hits you like a ton of bricks. Estraven stole my heart. I want to cry and smile and ALL THE EMOTIONS.