I’m over half way through The Dispossessed and I’d rather rub sandpaper on my eyeballs than read anymore. How can someone so progressive about sexuality have utterly sexless writing? The main character repeatedly has gay sex with a socialist revolutionary inside a highly patriarchal, capitalist state and somehow the relationship is less interesting than a scatterplot with no coorelation. Le Guin’s prose has zero color, zero suspense, zero humanity, zero poeticism, all anodized on an aimless plot. This is the most ivory-tower, assume-spherical-human author I have encountered.
I’ve read Those Who Walked Away from Omelas and its the best Le Guin has to offer because its only like 2 pages. Even then half of it is a professor hand-waving away what a utopia might be.
When I was a I child I had to read The Wizard of Earth-Sea for school and I actually read it. My memory of it is all white noise because there were no humans in the book, only ideas with no flesh. I’ve never seen someone make a fantasy book boring. Tolkien would spend pages describing a single tree but at least it would be in color and depth.
I watched the film adaptation of The Lathe of Heaven. A man who’s dreams actually become reality, but he must actually go to sleep and dream the reality. Fascinating idea. One of a kind premise. SOMEHOW STILL BORING.
Is Asimov this bad too? I’ve read Starship Troopers from Heinlein and it was about as bad but it at least had some suspense and violence to keep things wet. If anyone has read Rand and Le Guin, I’d love to hear a comparison.
I need to rehydrate myself with my big wet boy PKD, and try to finish VALIS. I had to keep putting it down because, “thats enough crazy for today”.
I’ve only read left hand of darkness, but I really enjoyed it? I get the dry writing, but it was good idk?
I think that book was written before The Dispossessed but comes after it chronologically in the Hainish cycle. Maybe I should’ve started with it.
Is there any real conflict in the story? Because the only conflict in The Dispossessed is a scientist feeling unfulfilled about the science he’s not doing. I know he’s supposed to make the ansible. Maybe I should stick it out until then?
It’s been awhile so recollection is hazy, but no I don’t recall conflict as such, certainly not any the narrator is involved with.
The world is split into two continents, with conflict existing between the mercantile state and the… idk, ‘outlanders’? It’s told through the eyes of an offworld envoy detailing their experiences with different peoples and societies/ways of being
I loved that short story as well. If you want something a bit different but also in the same untraditional but critical vein I would suggest Solaris by Stanislaw Lem. I also read an edition of Roadside Picnic which Le Guin wrote a foreword to and it was great.
As an enjoyer the STALKER movie and game series (which I understand have little relation) I should pay my respects and read A Roadside Picnic.
They aren’t too long! I think the film (if you mean the Tarkovsky one) is related in spirit albeit it takes a different route. The film had one of the Strutgatsky brothers on as some kind of producer or writer or something. It’s one of the movie/book combos I would hesitate to put against one another as I find they both approach the same idea in their own way. I felt I had a better understanding of the book after having watched the film.
Also, Tarkovsky also directed an adaptation of Solaris (which O have not had the pleasure of seeing ಥ_ಥ) so there’s another reason to read the book!
I’ve only listened to The Lathe of Heaven on audiobook at work. I enjoyed it well enough. I went in expecting a bad philosophical work so when it turned out to be a classic science fiction story complete with
spoiler
bad guy wanting to take over the world
I was amused. But I can understand how that may be boring to some.
Its more of a classy SciFi for sure the two bits that stuck out were:
spoiler
- Guy dreams to end racism, world turns greyscale.
- Guy dreams to end alien robot invasion he accidentally dreamed. Alien Robots are now slaves.
In comparison with PKD
spoiler
- Abusive husband gets possessed by alien. Wife is cool with it.
- Mortician in propeller beanie
- mutant Jesus vs satanic jimmy Kimmel
- summoning elden sword with mind
- 3+6 gears = 9 speed bike
- autistic children can time travel
And of course, triple titty women.
I can’t speak about her books since I have never read them, but I have heard only good things about them, especially in any leftist circles. Then again, I will fully admit that I prefer the book equivalent of Marvel movies, so I’m not even sure if Ursula K. Le Guin would be something for me.
They’re hailed by left wing circles as she’s the most progressively left wing of all the classic SciFi authors. You should go read Those Who Walked Away from Omelas right now to get an idea: https://files.libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf
Its great essay but now imagine reading an entire book that reads exactly the same way. Like a hundred page long thought experiment.
