LeGuin, Ursula K

• Series: Earthsea
  • A Wizard of Earthsea (7 r)
  • The Tombs of Atuan (6 r)
  • The Farthest Shore (4 r)
  • Tehanu: The Last Book of Earthsea (4 r)

    • Very different fantasy series from what I'm used to. LeGuin uses a somehow more "distant" writing style when referring to her characters, rarely giving us glimpses of what motivates them as seems to be the case with more recent books. The actions of the characters speak for themselves very effectively. This series follows a wizard from his first introduction to magic, then through a series of adventures (sometimes the adventures seem completely allegorical yet real at the same time...a nice effect) in a world consisting of lots of islands and a big ocean. Short for a four-book series, but I liked it all right.

• The Dispossessed (6 r)

  • Book about two different societies...a completely communist (in the truest sense) society based on the Moon and it's capitalist counterpart on the Earth. This story follows an ambassador from the lunar colony as he tries to understand what makes the societies tick, among other things. An interesting read.

• The Left Hand of Darkness (7 r)

  • Won all kinds of awards when first published, and rightfully so. This book is about an alien ice-world society in which the entire population changes sex in cycles. An amazing amount of social ground is covered almost as an aside to a fascinating story.

• The Lathe of Heaven (8)

  • This is a novel about alternate realities, brought about by the dreams of a psychiatric patient. In a very interesting twist, the patient and his doctor come to realize what is going on and attempt to control the dreams to reshape the world into a better place. As with all such wish-fulfillment stories, there is the law of unintended consequences, and that's true in spades here. There's also a battle between the doctor and patient for control of the dreams, but that battle soon becomes irrelevant as the world changes result in awful problems far beyond the apparent reach of either man. This novel ages fairly well, and the big ideas in it are compelling enough to make this worth looking for.

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