The Left Hand of Darkness and other Le Guin stories. Good timing on when I started expending my scifi reading in her direction; I was in high school, meeting more people outside my little conservative family and church bubble, trying to form new conceptual models for the much bigger world that I was previously insulated from.
Le Guin is phenomenal. Her acceptance speech at the 65th National Book Awards makes me tear up to this day.
“Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.”
Edit: Here’s the full speech if anyone is interested in listening to it. It’s only six minutes and well-worth it.
The Left Hand of the Darkness was one of the few times I saw my partner cry for a book.
I recently read The Word for World is Forest, and while a smaller story it’s still really good. While The Ones that walk away from Omelas is extremely impactful.
Of her I often say: even her shits were pure gold.
The Left Hand of Darkness and other Le Guin stories. Good timing on when I started expending my scifi reading in her direction; I was in high school, meeting more people outside my little conservative family and church bubble, trying to form new conceptual models for the much bigger world that I was previously insulated from.
Le Guin is phenomenal. Her acceptance speech at the 65th National Book Awards makes me tear up to this day.
“Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom — poets, visionaries — realists of a larger reality.”
Edit: Here’s the full speech if anyone is interested in listening to it. It’s only six minutes and well-worth it.
Like Becky Chambers.
Anything by Le Guin. She’s a revolutionary and visionary. Imo greatest sci-fi author ever.
I have to drop “The Dispossessed” here.
For anyone else scrolling by, you can read The Dispossessed here for free! :D
The Left Hand of the Darkness was one of the few times I saw my partner cry for a book.
I recently read The Word for World is Forest, and while a smaller story it’s still really good. While The Ones that walk away from Omelas is extremely impactful.
Of her I often say: even her shits were pure gold.