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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I was captivated by the beautiful language of this story.
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I listened to the audiobook. Although ostensibly a sci fi novel, this book is much more a fantasy novel. There is a league of planets of which Earth is a part. They are at war with another group of planets. The planet upon which the story is set has multiple intelligent species. None have moved into an industrial age. The league of planets trained one of the intelligent species in some technology and provided some technology to them. Mostly the league of planets taxes the multiple species to aid their war effort. The title character is an ethnologist. He studies species on newly discovered planets. He gets an interdiction, which stops the exploitation of the planet until the intelligent species can be better studied. The book is mainly two quests. A short one at the beginning. And a longer one that Rocannon is part of. Quests are found in many fantasy novels. They are done well here. They are both tense. The intelligent species are described well. They have some depth. There is some good world building. I recommend this book to someone who wants to read a really good fantasy with some sci fi trappings. If you go into it expecting a straight sci fi novel you might be disappointed. If you enjoy audiobooks, I suggest you listen to the audiobook.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Injury/Injury detail
This was Le Guin's debut "novel", though it's a novella by word count. She coined the term "ansible" with it. I didn't know what to think of it the entire time I was reading it and I still don't. It has all the trappings of a high fantasy novel, but goes out of its way to tell you that it's a science fiction novel over and over again.
Rocannon is an ethnologist from an advanced civilization who ends up stranded up on the primitive world he was studying due to an attack by another advanced civilization. He must journey with his party among the lands to try to stop these advanced invaders from taking over the world. Among the way he meets the not-dwarves, not-elves, and many other not-ones. It seemed tinged with mythology as well.
Rocannon ought to be in dire peril, but. At the end of novel he I wanted to, and should have, liked this more than I did because it has so much that I should enjoy greatly. I can only assume the unidentified strange feeling I had while reading it is the main reason why I didn't.
Rating: 2.5/5
Rocannon is an ethnologist from an advanced civilization who ends up stranded up on the primitive world he was studying due to an attack by another advanced civilization. He must journey with his party among the lands to try to stop these advanced invaders from taking over the world. Among the way he meets the not-dwarves, not-elves, and many other not-ones. It seemed tinged with mythology as well.
Rocannon ought to be in dire peril, but
Spoiler
he's not because he has an invisible suit of nigh invincibility, aka literal plot armorSpoiler
goes full native and lives the rest of his life there.Rating: 2.5/5
Ursula’s imagination knows no bounds! To think this was her first book and she has beings of all kinds! It’s truly astounding. I absolutely love the ending. Really a journey over destination type book.
This story is not as refined or seemingly 'effortless' as her later work; however, this by no means made it less enjoyable. The space explorer encounters a Tolkienesque world with elves, dwarves, and humans, and the original use of these tropes made for very funny and absurd dialogue.
The concept of mindspeech was interesting but did not feel sufficiently explored to 'justify' forming such a large part of the conclusion. Surely if such a thing existed there would be more consequences for these societies. Luckily, LeGuin agrees with that in her foreword ;)
For the rest, the plot, conclusion, quest-like journey, races, characters, and space explorer-elements all worked well together. Despite not being as flawlessly coherent as her other stories, she did mention to convince me in this one also.
As usual the prose was beautiful ('Arrows played around him like reversed rain', p. 49). This story serves as a fun warmup to the rest of the Hainish tales.
The concept of mindspeech was interesting but did not feel sufficiently explored to 'justify' forming such a large part of the conclusion. Surely if such a thing existed there would be more consequences for these societies. Luckily, LeGuin agrees with that in her foreword ;)
For the rest, the plot, conclusion, quest-like journey, races, characters, and space explorer-elements all worked well together. Despite not being as flawlessly coherent as her other stories, she did mention to convince me in this one also.
As usual the prose was beautiful ('Arrows played around him like reversed rain', p. 49). This story serves as a fun warmup to the rest of the Hainish tales.
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
emotional
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No