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Fantasy Fiction Novelist Ursula K. Le Guin Dies At 88 (nytimes.com)
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.
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.
I was very sad to read about her passing. LeGuin's Earthsea books are some of my all time favourites. In fact, I just finished re-reading A Wizard of Earthsea about a month ago. Apart from the also fantastic Left Hand of Darkness award winning book, I also highly recommend her novel The Dispossessed. It's a sci-fi story which explores life on two neighbouring worlds, one purely communist and one purely capitalist.
I love how LeGuin could get across several points and emotions very simply. She wouldn't say, "There hadn't been rain for weeks, people were worried because the crops were dying. David and everyone he knew was hungry." She would write something like, "David looked out over the wilted wheatfields, failing to ignore the rumbling in his belly."
I'm not doing it justice, but she had a way of presenting scenes in a way which got across both the situation and an emotion without listing off a bunch of related information.
I read Rocannon's World last November, the first I've read of Le Guin and was very impressed. Sorry to hear that she's passed away.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Not that much of fantasy fan, but Earthsea created a kind of longing that makes me reread it once a decade. I want to sail the Dragon reach and watch the dragon rise on the winds of morning.
The Dispossessed was one enormously thoughtful polemic, changing your assumptions. One of the best utopian novels I've read, especially because its nuiance.
And then there is The Left Hand of Darkness. This book was really too full of ideas for one book. It has thought-provoking insights into human nature the Le Guin revisited several times in later books with greater depth, but the hidden love-story was the real key, challenging your assumptions on male and female identity. A real classic.
Le Guin was a good example of writer using fantasy to hold up a mirror on the real world. Sometimes she was too polemical (The word for world is forest) but mostly I found her thought provoking. We need more like her.
I may have a word or two wrong, but from memory, this was the pivotal line in Tehanu, book #4 in Earthsea. Magnificent writing.