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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Murder
Minor: Slavery, Xenophobia, Colonisation, War
Unless you are really into Le Guin or a big fan of classic adventurous science fiction, I would not advise you to read her first published book. However, it is not quite a run of the mill pulp sci fi novel and shows some glimpses of her future work.
Essentially this is a story with a typical golden age sci fi plot about an explorer sent to a planet by a galactic federation, but whose ship and crew are attacked by a rebel planet. The book subsequently revolves around the explorer's quest to reach the enemy's secret base and contact the federation, aided by warriors of the planet's different Tolkienesque and Viking like races and traveling across the world.
In other words: little else than an average sci fi novel from the 1960s mixing high fantasy, space opera, and a sense of male adventure. Not insignificantly, this book was Le Guin's first, after several yeats of publishin in sci fi magazines, published as an Ace double paperback for less than a dollar with a pulp looking cover.
Still, we see an author struggling with what the sci fi publishing market of the 1960s demanded, trying to find her own voice. The protagonist is of course a brave male, but he is an anthropologist - like Le Guin's father. Throughout the book, the anthropologist questions his task to find a suitable race to advance technologically as well as the underlying principles of development, even halting forced modernization schemes, albeit not always explicitly. Moreover, through the anthropologist's eyes, Le Guin teases out some tensions in the planet's supposed rigid hierarchic race system, illustrating hybridities and false self perceptions of purity. In this sense, it turns the space opera genre upside down: instead of war ships and empire building, we see races on the periphery and a person questioning the point of it all, even thougj he ultimately acts in the federation's interest.
In many ways, the novel borrows from high fantasy tropes, from metalworking dwarves to prophecies, but also from Icelandic sagas and Norse mythology. Something we do not see in either is the existence of a race which perceives language and names, e.g. the relation between signifier and signified, place and name, etc. differently than humans and refuses to tell their individual names. It makes me think about Le Guin's father who for many years researched and to some extent cooperated with the last native American of California - a taciturn man who never told the family his real name. Lastly, Le Guin - I think - tried to give women somewhat of a lather role, but could not move beyond the genre's focus on queens and noble women, and only in the form of a legend and wisd via foresight.
Nevertheless, the novel's prose, shortness, and themes are typical for classic sci fi, and clearly predates the British New Wave of sci which foregrounded literary style and ideas rather than technology and adventure, even though some reviewers think otherwise. Still, any reader of Le Guin will find some kernels of her later work there, and maybe therein lies most fun of this reading experience.
Essentially this is a story with a typical golden age sci fi plot about an explorer sent to a planet by a galactic federation, but whose ship and crew are attacked by a rebel planet. The book subsequently revolves around the explorer's quest to reach the enemy's secret base and contact the federation, aided by warriors of the planet's different Tolkienesque and Viking like races and traveling across the world.
In other words: little else than an average sci fi novel from the 1960s mixing high fantasy, space opera, and a sense of male adventure. Not insignificantly, this book was Le Guin's first, after several yeats of publishin in sci fi magazines, published as an Ace double paperback for less than a dollar with a pulp looking cover.
Still, we see an author struggling with what the sci fi publishing market of the 1960s demanded, trying to find her own voice. The protagonist is of course a brave male, but he is an anthropologist - like Le Guin's father. Throughout the book, the anthropologist questions his task to find a suitable race to advance technologically as well as the underlying principles of development, even halting forced modernization schemes, albeit not always explicitly. Moreover, through the anthropologist's eyes, Le Guin teases out some tensions in the planet's supposed rigid hierarchic race system, illustrating hybridities and false self perceptions of purity. In this sense, it turns the space opera genre upside down: instead of war ships and empire building, we see races on the periphery and a person questioning the point of it all, even thougj he ultimately acts in the federation's interest.
In many ways, the novel borrows from high fantasy tropes, from metalworking dwarves to prophecies, but also from Icelandic sagas and Norse mythology. Something we do not see in either is the existence of a race which perceives language and names, e.g. the relation between signifier and signified, place and name, etc. differently than humans and refuses to tell their individual names. It makes me think about Le Guin's father who for many years researched and to some extent cooperated with the last native American of California - a taciturn man who never told the family his real name. Lastly, Le Guin - I think - tried to give women somewhat of a lather role, but could not move beyond the genre's focus on queens and noble women, and only in the form of a legend and wisd via foresight.
Nevertheless, the novel's prose, shortness, and themes are typical for classic sci fi, and clearly predates the British New Wave of sci which foregrounded literary style and ideas rather than technology and adventure, even though some reviewers think otherwise. Still, any reader of Le Guin will find some kernels of her later work there, and maybe therein lies most fun of this reading experience.
Bueno, ya satisfize mi curiosidad con la novela donde se acuñó ansible. Me gustó mucho. Es muy bonita <3. Es bueno ver también los inicios de Ursula.
Creepy as hell and subverts all the expectations of planet-exploring sci-fi that you don't realise you have (but also keeps some of the good 'uns.)
adventurous
inspiring
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Good old fashioned, fun, brisk paced space adventure with rich worldbuilding. Fascinated by the all the myths and legends of this world. Amazing characters - really sweet, simple and innocent. Teenage V would have absolutely loved this, it was almost a throwback to the kind of sci-fi/fantasy novels i would read in high school. As comforting as a bowl of warm nourishing soup. Yum!!!
I would love to see an animated adaptation of this. In my minds eye this whole story played out like a 90s Cartoon Network series. Hope someone makes it one day 💝
I would love to see an animated adaptation of this. In my minds eye this whole story played out like a 90s Cartoon Network series. Hope someone makes it one day 💝
One a scale from fantasy to sci-fi, this book is purple. Author sizes up the book quite well in the 1977 introduction.
This book is not great, but there are points at which Le Guin's future greatness shines through.
This book is not great, but there are points at which Le Guin's future greatness shines through.
Watch me never rate Ursula K LeGuin under 4 stars. Read ‘Semleys Necklace’ in The Winds Twelve Quarters and immediately had to pick this up and continue reading the world.
Definitions are for grammar, not literature, I say, and boxes are for bones. C'est ce que Le Guin écrit dans l'introduction de cette édition, une belle chose de 1977 empruntée à la bibliothèque deux jours avant qu'elle ferme. Introduction dans laquelle elle tire tellement après le fil de ses maladresses de primoromancière qu'on pourrait croire que le livre au complet va se désintégrer à la lecture -- mais non, il s'en sort très bien. Une histoire d'épopée héroïque, rendue plus immédiate & plus poignante parce que située dans un recoin oublié de l'univers, sur une planète tempée dans un âge de bronze qui se surprend de voir des vaisseaux spatiaux parcourir son ciel. Ces temps-ci je n'ai pas tellement envie de définir ce qui arrive ou ce que je ressens, de construire des boîtes pour mes pensées, leur squelette friable, leur moelle sèche; juste lire un roman de science-fiction où l'autrice décrit, avec de beaux mots graves, précis, ce que c'est que de survoler une forêt claire à dos de félin ailé.
La reseña completa en http://inthenevernever.blogspot.com/2023/01/el-mundo-de-rocannon-de-ursula-k-le-guin.html
«¿Cómo distinguir la leyenda de la realidad en estos mundos que se encuentran a tantos años luz de distancia? Planetas sin nombre, a los que sus habitantes llaman simplemente El Mundo, planetas sin historia donde del pasado se ocupan tan solo los mitos y el viajero que regresa descubre que sus actos de pocos años atrás se han convertido en gestos de un dios».
No sé cómo lo hacen ustedes, pero yo siempre me guardo una lectura especial para comenzar el año. Mi 2023 empezó con una historia de una de mis autoras favoritas. O siendo más específica, con la primera novela que publicó en 1966, recuperada ahora en la biblioteca de autor que edita Minotauro con la traducción de Rafael Marín. Se trata de El mundo de Rocannon, de Ursula K. Le Guin. El primer libro del Ciclo de Hainish, esa serie de ciencia ficción en la que la autora estadounidense ambientó muchas de sus novelas (y que también se conocen como Ekumen, el nombre de la confederación galáctica de mundos habitados por seres humanos que vamos a ir descubriendo libro a libro).
«¿Cómo distinguir la leyenda de la realidad en estos mundos que se encuentran a tantos años luz de distancia? Planetas sin nombre, a los que sus habitantes llaman simplemente El Mundo, planetas sin historia donde del pasado se ocupan tan solo los mitos y el viajero que regresa descubre que sus actos de pocos años atrás se han convertido en gestos de un dios».
No sé cómo lo hacen ustedes, pero yo siempre me guardo una lectura especial para comenzar el año. Mi 2023 empezó con una historia de una de mis autoras favoritas. O siendo más específica, con la primera novela que publicó en 1966, recuperada ahora en la biblioteca de autor que edita Minotauro con la traducción de Rafael Marín. Se trata de El mundo de Rocannon, de Ursula K. Le Guin. El primer libro del Ciclo de Hainish, esa serie de ciencia ficción en la que la autora estadounidense ambientó muchas de sus novelas (y que también se conocen como Ekumen, el nombre de la confederación galáctica de mundos habitados por seres humanos que vamos a ir descubriendo libro a libro).