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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.
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.
Do not libel the late, great Ursula Le Guin by calling her a Trump supporter. In fact, in her few public pronouncements on the matter, she made her distaste for Benedict Donald very clear. Here's a quote:
You are welcome on my lawn.
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?
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'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.