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4.07 AVERAGE
4.07 AVERAGE
dark
tense
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism
Moderate: Racial slurs, Violence
challenging
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
mysterious
reflective
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
inspiring
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
A very good short story by Le Guin, set in her Hainish universe. I take a star off because of some weird anachronistic references that don't make any sense in their place and time in the story.
challenging
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Touched me so deeply. I can still close my eyes and see pale greens.
3.5/5 stars
Set within Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, the only other entry which I've head was [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|118028|The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553024007l/118028._SY75_.jpg|817527], "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" follows a ten person group of researches on a centuries-long (due to interstellar travel) journey and mission to a planet merely called World 4470. Headed by Tomiko Haito, the researchers all have various abilities and jobs and come from different parts of the universe. The most notably member is the sickly empath Osden, whose empathic abilities were engendered as a result of being cured from autism (more on that in a bit). Everyone is afraid of or hates Osden because of his "combative" behavior towards them. However, once they arrive on World 4470 they discover new problems. For one, the planet consists solely of flora, not fauna. And there's something within those plants and trees that seems to be after them, but Osden thinks there's something else going on.
Up front, I will say the "curing of autism" thing probably hasn't aged well today. Also, some of the descriptions of Tomiko's being Asian feel weird to me, especially from Le Guin of all people. Tomiko is said to be of East Asian descent within the text, but she's clearly Japanese specifically. I am not Japanese, but referring to her as "puritanical" seems to be a bit of a sweeping generalization to me. Also there's a part where Osden calls her "yellow face" and it's just brushed aside.
If not for those concerns, I would've considered "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" as one of Le Guin's strongest stories. The pacing here is much better than anything else I've read so far, fiction or non-fiction. And the concept and themes are genuinely interesting. The forest--no, the entire planet of World 4470 is sentient and can "see" and feel the entire crew and all of its vegetation are its receptors. It is never explained why the planet is like this, and it doesn't need to be explained because the sentience alone works for the story's themes. The relationship the researchers have with World 4470 is also parallel to Osden's relationship with the rest of the crew. It's soon revealed that the reason Osden is so "hostile" towards them is that's because his empathy powers pick up their emotions towards him and reciprocates in kind (doesn't excuse the yellow face comment though). He is only returning what they have thrown upon him. Likewise, World 4470 is afraid of the researchers because it can sense how they feel about them after Osden was maimed by Porlock, one of the other researchers, and how Osden's fear and hurt was sent out to the planet via his empathy.
It's a message that serves multiple themes. At the root of it is the relationship between Subject and Other, which Le Guin refers to at the story's end. This direct reference, in my opinion, is another weak, albeit briefer, part of the story. Le Guin told countless messages throughout her stories, but her ability to tell rather than show--especially when she already showing quite well to begin with in this story--hurts her delivery. Regardless, this Subject and fear of the Other relationship is transposed onto both humanity's relationship with nature and humanity's relationship with the outsiders within itself. Subjects often feel like the Other is being aggressive and hateful towards them, but that's only because they have enacted that aggression and hatred first, they have Othered the Other first, as we see with the crew and Osden. As humans, whether in our current technological state or even in our far future spacefaring one, we will continue to disregard nature despite that even the flora part of it is still living organisms. Even those who follow vegan and vegetarian lifestyles seem to do this, unaware of how their foods are currently cultivated and produces and shipped. Le Guin isn't telling us to avoid scientific and technological progress and go all hippie commune, rather she is saying to consider nature's place and existence in what we do, connect with it.
In the end of the story Osden symbolically and literally abandons humanity to unite with World 4470 which he does so with his empathy. He abandons the other Subjects and embraces the Other becoming connected to all things. World 4470 is written off as un-colonizable and I cannot help but think of two things. First, It is un-colonizable, because they cannot colonize it in their own way. They cannot unite with the sentience of nature. Second, in abandoning the planet they are not righting their wrongs (except for Osden, obviously) and are also losing their chance to embrace the Other.
There is a tinge of sadness to this story, but there's also a sense of "What else would I expect from such people?"
Set within Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, the only other entry which I've head was [b:The Left Hand of Darkness|118028|The Left Hand of Darkness (Hainish Cycle #4)|Ursula K. Le Guin|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553024007l/118028._SY75_.jpg|817527], "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" follows a ten person group of researches on a centuries-long (due to interstellar travel) journey and mission to a planet merely called World 4470. Headed by Tomiko Haito, the researchers all have various abilities and jobs and come from different parts of the universe. The most notably member is the sickly empath Osden, whose empathic abilities were engendered as a result of being cured from autism (more on that in a bit). Everyone is afraid of or hates Osden because of his "combative" behavior towards them. However, once they arrive on World 4470 they discover new problems. For one, the planet consists solely of flora, not fauna. And there's something within those plants and trees that seems to be after them, but Osden thinks there's something else going on.
Up front, I will say the "curing of autism" thing probably hasn't aged well today. Also, some of the descriptions of Tomiko's being Asian feel weird to me, especially from Le Guin of all people. Tomiko is said to be of East Asian descent within the text, but she's clearly Japanese specifically. I am not Japanese, but referring to her as "puritanical" seems to be a bit of a sweeping generalization to me. Also there's a part where Osden calls her "yellow face" and it's just brushed aside.
If not for those concerns, I would've considered "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" as one of Le Guin's strongest stories. The pacing here is much better than anything else I've read so far, fiction or non-fiction. And the concept and themes are genuinely interesting. The forest--no, the entire planet of World 4470 is sentient and can "see" and feel the entire crew and all of its vegetation are its receptors. It is never explained why the planet is like this, and it doesn't need to be explained because the sentience alone works for the story's themes. The relationship the researchers have with World 4470 is also parallel to Osden's relationship with the rest of the crew. It's soon revealed that the reason Osden is so "hostile" towards them is that's because his empathy powers pick up their emotions towards him and reciprocates in kind (doesn't excuse the yellow face comment though). He is only returning what they have thrown upon him. Likewise, World 4470 is afraid of the researchers because it can sense how they feel about them after Osden was maimed by Porlock, one of the other researchers, and how Osden's fear and hurt was sent out to the planet via his empathy.
It's a message that serves multiple themes. At the root of it is the relationship between Subject and Other, which Le Guin refers to at the story's end. This direct reference, in my opinion, is another weak, albeit briefer, part of the story. Le Guin told countless messages throughout her stories, but her ability to tell rather than show--especially when she already showing quite well to begin with in this story--hurts her delivery. Regardless, this Subject and fear of the Other relationship is transposed onto both humanity's relationship with nature and humanity's relationship with the outsiders within itself. Subjects often feel like the Other is being aggressive and hateful towards them, but that's only because they have enacted that aggression and hatred first, they have Othered the Other first, as we see with the crew and Osden. As humans, whether in our current technological state or even in our far future spacefaring one, we will continue to disregard nature despite that even the flora part of it is still living organisms. Even those who follow vegan and vegetarian lifestyles seem to do this, unaware of how their foods are currently cultivated and produces and shipped. Le Guin isn't telling us to avoid scientific and technological progress and go all hippie commune, rather she is saying to consider nature's place and existence in what we do, connect with it.
In the end of the story Osden symbolically and literally abandons humanity to unite with World 4470 which he does so with his empathy. He abandons the other Subjects and embraces the Other becoming connected to all things. World 4470 is written off as un-colonizable and I cannot help but think of two things. First, It is un-colonizable, because they cannot colonize it in their own way. They cannot unite with the sentience of nature. Second, in abandoning the planet they are not righting their wrongs (except for Osden, obviously) and are also losing their chance to embrace the Other.
There is a tinge of sadness to this story, but there's also a sense of "What else would I expect from such people?"
slow-paced
As someone who enjoyed "the word for world is forest", I had high expectations of this one, but it was a chore to read.
The world building was nice, and I thought the idea of creating either a positive or negative feedback loop with projected emotions was interesting.
Apart from this I did not like any of the characters. Osden was a misogynistic and racist egotist. He is supposedly autistic (later defined as total psychological withdrawal as a consequence of being hyper-empathetic ?) and is "cured" in his youth (trained out of his coping mechanisms, which atleast seemed accurate enough to the horrors of ABA therapy). He is also straight up rude, which everyone seems to explain away as a symptom of his cured autism ? Idk this whole thing had me confused and it was not the autistic representation any of us asked for. I will say though, despite the severe 1970-flavoured lack of information and understanding about autistic people, Ursula still manages to connect the dots enough to reveal that maybe "curing" autism isn't necessarily a good thing, which I thought was impressive for the time.
The world building was nice, and I thought the idea of creating either a positive or negative feedback loop with projected emotions was interesting.
Apart from this I did not like any of the characters. Osden was a misogynistic and racist egotist. He is supposedly autistic (later defined as total psychological withdrawal as a consequence of being hyper-empathetic ?) and is "cured" in his youth (trained out of his coping mechanisms, which atleast seemed accurate enough to the horrors of ABA therapy). He is also straight up rude, which everyone seems to explain away as a symptom of his cured autism ? Idk this whole thing had me confused and it was not the autistic representation any of us asked for. I will say though, despite the severe 1970-flavoured lack of information and understanding about autistic people, Ursula still manages to connect the dots enough to reveal that maybe "curing" autism isn't necessarily a good thing, which I thought was impressive for the time.
I can’t say I think much of Dr Hammergeld’s cure, really, Mannon; autism might be preferable. . . .”
“I agree,” he said in a high, harsh tenor, “that even autistic withdrawal might be preferable to the smog of cheap secondhand emotions with which you people surround me"
Otherwise I generally tired of the crews othering of him for all the wrong reasons. They seemed to hate him because he was unlike them, not because he was a jerk. Their growing tolerance and his heroics could have been nice moments but they were lost on me because it's hard to view him in a favourable light after the racism/misogyny.
Lots of potential, ruined by the weird autism theories and the messy crew dynamic.