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Fantasy Fiction Novelist Ursula K. Le Guin Dies At 88 (nytimes.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the rest-in-peace dept.

sandbagger shares a report from The New York Times (Warning: may be paywalled; alternative source): Ursula K. Le Guin, the immensely popular author who brought literary depth and a tough-minded feminist sensibility to science fiction and fantasy with books like "The Left Hand of Darkness" and the Earthsea series, died on Monday at her home in Portland, Oregon. She was 88. Her son, Theo Downes-Le Guin, confirmed her death. He did not specify a cause but said she had been in poor health for several months.

Ms. Le Guin embraced the standard themes of her chosen genres: sorcery and dragons, spaceships and planetary conflict. But even when her protagonists are male, they avoid the macho posturing of so many science fiction and fantasy heroes. The conflicts they face are typically rooted in a clash of cultures and resolved more by conciliation and self-sacrifice than by swordplay or space battles. Her books have been translated into more than 40 languages and have sold millions of copies worldwide.

10 of 89 comments (clear)

  1. One of the greats. by gbr · · Score: 3, Insightful

    A huge, huge loss.

    1. Re:One of the greats. by jwhyche · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Totally Agree. I can't say I was a fan of all of her works but EarthSea was one of the first books I can recall reading. I found many of the concepts she wrote about in that book have affected some of the amateur writing that I do.

      Huge loss indeed.

      --
      I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
    2. Re:One of the greats. by Mathinker · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > but EarthSea was one of the first books I can recall reading

      For some reason, the library of my primary school had a copy of "The Tombs of Atuan" (just that, not the whole EarthSea series) on the shelf. Yes, I certainly still remember reading that as an impressionable young child (maybe I was nine?).

      Even though the experience creeped me out for life, I did eventually read a lot of her books, including the original EarthSea trilogy. My personal favorite is "The Lathe of Heaven".

  2. Even when her protagonists are male... by pots · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But even when her protagonists are male, they avoid the macho posturing of so many science fiction and fantasy heroes.

    ::sigh:: This is a completely necessary sentence. It's flamebait, in an article which should be about the passing of a very talented author who has, no doubt, impacted a lot of people here and elsewhere.

    1. Re:Even when her protagonists are male... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Unnecessary. Un. I'm blaming the spell checker for this.

      You were right the first time. She made the Puppies of her day rage.

    2. Re:Even when her protagonists are male... by hey! · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I don't know. The point is she wasn't one of those writers who just recycle tropes. That is incredibly hard to do, because it means giving up on a huge trove of stereotypes that readers instantly understand without you having to do much work.

      I have a friend who's been successful enough as an urban fantasy writer to quit her day job. I was critiquing her first novel and one of the scenes where two men are alone discussing the female protagonist stuck out. It didn't ring true. Then I realized -- as a woman she her idea what men like when there's no women around came from television.

      So I wrote in the manuscript, "Men don't actually sound like this. Rewrite this scene as if these characters were human beings rather than men."

      --
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    3. Re:Even when her protagonists are male... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I assume your friend consciously failed the "reversed Bechdel test" there. Nice!

  3. Among the greatest writers in human history by eriks · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Such a great writer, and a Great Lady. She will be missed by multitudes, and loved for centuries to come. She is among the greatest of both fantasy and sci-fi writers.

    I am crushed that the worlds she created are now finite.

    “All knowledge is local, all truth is partial. No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot get back to seeing the part as the whole.”
    Ursula K. Le Guin

  4. What impressed me. by BitterOak · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What really impressed me about Ursula Le Guin wasn't just her incredibly imaginative ideas, but also her great economy with language. She could say in a very short sentence what many writers would need a paragraph or two to say. As someone who has tried to do some writing myself, I really envy that gift.

    --
    If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
  5. She wrote so beautifully. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I've read a lot of fantasy and sci-fi authors, and I considered Le Guin up there with the very best. Her ability to use the English language was second to no one. Her writing possessed a hauntingly beautiful quality to it, managing to be both delicate and momentous at once.

    I always thought that her Earthsea series was a strong candidate for the best fantasy work of all time. It's almost the opposite of Lord of the Rings, but absolutely no less towering. LotR is big, epic, a clash of good and evil. Earthsea is intimate, personal, nuanced, more about the ramifications of a single mistake. It's a brilliant piece of writing and exploration of themes of power, responsibility, and what it takes to right mistakes made through lack of wisdom.

    Very sad to see Le Guin go :(. Even in her later years, well into her 80's, she was active and writing new material.

    She stands alongside the titans of the 1940's-70's generation of sci-fi and fantasy authors that included Clarke, Niven, and Tolkien, and was one of the last of the greats to go.

    JK Rowling? Sorry, but you are so far from Le Guin's level that you aren't worthy of proofreading her work.