Reviews with content warning for Violence - Planet of Exile

I think that it's interesting seeing these broad, intergalactic struggles happen throughout the Hainish books from the perspectives of the people who have little to nothing to do with creating them. The initial colonizers in the Planet of Exile came to the planet hundreds and hundreds of years prior, only to have been left stranded when the war the League was preparing for in the previous book destroyed their hope of returning home. And you see that the people feel so very lost, but it's also hard to forget that they were invaders, and that the distrust between them and those indigenous to the planet continues and (from brief mentions) was likely fueled by conflict. I think it poses some interesting questions about how long you must physically occupy a space before it becomes your home. When do the alien invaders accept and are accepted as living in this "new" world of theirs. Again, as an earlier work of Le Guin, I think some of the ideas could have been pursued further, the critique of colonialism could have been stronger, but overall it's a really interesting read. And it somehow made siege warfare vaguely interesting to me, so there's that.

Content Warnings

More...