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3.61 AVERAGE
3.61 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Le Guins first book! A very fun read, it's cool to see her explore so much of what she writes about in later works in the hundred or so pages here.
Took me longer to get into it than I anticipated, though I was originally familiar with "Semley's Necklace" from an anthology of Le Guin's which preceded this novel, but the last chapter and epilogue was so clear and unsparing that it solidified my love for this book. It's clearly an earlier work, rougher in terms of plot, narrative, and characterization (though ripe with threads she explores and expands on in later works, so a delight in that sense), but her direct and apprehensive gaze shines through the growing pains present in the text. I'm constantly awed and startled by Le Guin's directness; it's not detachment but a ruthless curiosity and interrogation of the human condition that inhabits her writing. Metaphor falls away in the face of the attentive encounters she wrote between people not merely discovering themselves but unraveling what was laid on them, before them, between them—and what they are to do with all that is found underneath. I often feel like her fiction has a brutality to it in all the tenderest moments; that love is not spared nor softened by pain. This bruising affect only makes me trust her more. Her writing does not have the quality of Tolkien's "sudden turn" for it is all turnings and the subsequent orientation of character, narrator, reader, finding themself among the biting and bitten worlds. I'll return to Rocannon's again.
adventurous
dark
reflective
medium-paced
It was an easy read, but I was disappointed. I guess Le Guin grew a lot as a writer after this first novel.
There were a lot of ideas here jumbled up. While there were some sci-fi elements, this is essentially a fantasy story (with knights, adventures, ferries and magic). Noone of the characters felt deep enough to make it worthwhile to overlook the storyline with overused bland tropes (the stakes didn't feel real for me). But who knows, maybe they weren't overused at the time this was written.
There were a lot of ideas here jumbled up. While there were some sci-fi elements, this is essentially a fantasy story (with knights, adventures, ferries and magic). Noone of the characters felt deep enough to make it worthwhile to overlook the storyline with overused bland tropes (the stakes didn't feel real for me). But who knows, maybe they weren't overused at the time this was written.
https://mikatchu.substack.com/p/may-your-enemy-die-without-sons
adventurous
lighthearted
medium-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
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Ursula writes so nicely, it's funny that this is basically just a fantasy book with a spaceman in it though. Starts off full Sci-Fi and then all the tech gets lost. I guess Sci-Fi is just fantasy with lasers