Voices (Annals of the Western Shore #2)

Voices is Ursula Le Guin’s second book in the Annals of the Western Shore collection. The story takes place seventeen years after Gifts. The main character, Memer, lives in a city taken over by the ignorant neighboring country – a people who believe that books and written words are evil.

Before the siege Memer’s people were scholars. Today, all books that have not been thrown into the Sea by the Alds, are hidden – to be caught with one would mean death. But things may be about to change. A story-teller and his wife come to town. They are Orrec and Gry of the Uplands and they give Memer hope of a brighter future.

The third book, Powers, is due out in September of this year.

Le Guin, Ursula K. (2006). Voices. New York: Harcourt Inc.

Gifts (Annals of the Western Shore #1)

Gifts is the first book in Ursula Le Guin's Annals of the Western Shore series.

But these are not necessarily gift you would like to receive. The Uplanders are farmers in a fairly unpopulated land. Some have wonderful or useful abilities like summoning animals or bringing forth fire. Others have gifts that only destroy - the ability to inflict illness or chain a mind. The Uplanders live in fear that their neighboring families will unleash these "gifts" against each other.

But even worse for Orrec, he has a wild gift. He has the power to undo - to destroy. But he cannot control it. In an effort to spare the people he loves potential harm he binds his eyes. His friend Gry will help him find his way through the darkness.

Will a blindfold be enough to harness the power to destroy? Or will the wild gift control young Orrec even in the darkness?

Le Guin, Ursula K. (2006). Gifts. New York: Harcourt Inc.

The Telling

Ursula LeGuin's The Telling takes place on a planet that our Earth is headed toward. The planet of Aka is a corporate planet. It is all about consumerism. This is another of her books about the Ekumen.

Sutty travels to Aka from Earth. She is an Indian woman living in Vancouver, BC. She is grateful to leave her planet and what has become a religious planet. The government puts all non-believers (of their religion) into camps.

On Aka, people are forced to give up the old ways to become what past missionaries have described as the right way to be - producer-consumers.

Sutty finally get permission to leave the city and travel up river to a place that might hold on to the old ways of life. Will she find anyone who dares defy the law and continues the old ways?

LeGuin, Ursula K. (2000). The Telling. New York: Harcourt, Inc.

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness has been hailed as a science fiction masterpiece. It won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

Genly Ai is an emissary from Ekumenical Counsel, a sort-of league of planets, to Gethen to invite them to join the counsel. The planet of Gethen has been called Winter by the Ekumen. It is a land of vast glaciers and little livable land. Mr. Ai is sent alone to this planet to ready the political and social consciousness to accept the fact that the Gethenians are not alone in the universe.

The humans of Gethen are somewhat different than those of us from Earth. They are a genderless race. Or rather they are androgynous and can change their gender. People are not put into rolls of man or woman. Anyone past puberty can give birth or father a child.

It is interesting that Le Guin, given credit for being one of the first women to write science fiction has wrote one of her first books about a genderless society. This book is a thought-provoking, philosophical story of mythology. It is praised as a landmark achievement in intellectual science fiction.

Le Guin, Ursula. K. (1969). The left hand of darkness. New York: Ace Books.