This omnibus contains the first three published novels of Ursula K. Le Guin. Before it, only her short stories and poetry had been published. The novels are the first entries in Le Guin’s somewhat unofficial Hainish Cycle, a collection of often philosophical and anthropological science fiction stories set in a loosely connected universe.
I have read The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, the fourth and fifth novels in the series, respectively. Both, I wish to re-read and write about in the future to accompany this post and my previous writing on The Lathe of Heaven (not in the cycle—see “A Note From Ursula”). With this, I suppose, I am creating a tradition of writing about my favorite author.
The three novels in succession grow in scope. The first, Rocannon’s World, is concerned primarily with the business of a single, almost fantastical world inhabited by Tolkienesque creatures. The vast history that Le Guin has yet to establish when writing the novel is a foggy backround. Even the foreign protagonist is assimilated by the end of his journey. In Planet of Exile, the culture and politics of The League take a stronger role, despite the actual League contact being centuries lost. The abandoned Terran colony of Landin still holds to its culture, at least until the events of the story force the native and colonial peoples together. In any case, the second book is my least favorite for its weak love story, although the way it sets up the events of the last is genius. In this third book, City of Illusions, we see the sprouting seed of Le Guin’s earlier world-building. Thrown into a tale that may shape the future of all the old League worlds, the scale is suddenly immense. No contest, the last novel is the best and most interesting, so I will say the least.
Even in its most lofty moments, the entire volume never drops focus on the people. Each culture is vivid and believably foreign. The way that Le Guin weaves something of fantasy and mythology into her science fiction is truly enchanting.
“You come from very, very long ago. I am old but you are much older; you should have died a century ago. Will you remember a century from now that in the desert you met a king?”
— City of Illusions