A short story by Ursula Le Guin, publisched in 1974.

A short story, fairly easy to read, set in a similar universe as The Dispossed and many other  books from the Hainish cycle.

The story is about a conflict. On one side the old, military, very colonist-styled earth colonists, who rape, enslave and abuse the native population while taking their land and trees. And on the other side an native race of peaceful dreamers who knew no hate before the humans came. The book goes into detail on how both cultures operate, the natives having a mixture of females ruling and males informing, the humans being a pure male oriented race where women are little less then tools/o bjects and not to be understood. It then goes on, how some of the natives learn hate by their abuse, the murder and rapes of their partners and how they plan to solve their problem.

It’s an intresting analis how an off-world conflict could go wrong. Considering aspects as no long term contact with the home-world and major cultural-misunderstanding and the racism following from it.

It’s a nice short story, well written. The only major problem I have with the book is the one time mention of use of tabaco by the natives (besides the extreme drug-abuse by the humans of halucigens and weed), and a few pages later a full-color advertisement of a sigaret brand. But I supose that could be blamed on the 70’s.

Unlundun, by China Miéville.

I read it in just a few days, could hardly stop. But digesting a good book also ought to take time I think. If you eat uhm read it all at once, you’ll lose flavour, and I wanted to savor every bit of taste. So yes, I liked it.

You might want to read the book before reading on…

Continue reading ‘Unlundun.’ »

A book by China Miéville, ISBN: 0-345-45940-7
The story is set a world which seems older yet newer then this one. A world driving by steam and strange and uncertain physics. A world full of strange and different species. The city is a cauldron of culture and culture clash. A city ruled by militia, ruled by the strive for indivudual power and survival.

In this place China Miéville unfolds a story that is magnificent in it’s beginning, center and ending. Involving ’simple’ humanic species, strange unspeakable multi-dimensional animals and beings and impossible physics and chemistry. Yet it all makes sense.

It’s a story threats, strange new things, inguinity, culture, strange species and about horrible dangers.
Although the story starts and ends in a rather different way then it unfolds in it’s center, Miéville works these things toghether in a story that makes sense, which binds and atracts the reader constantly.

It’s a book I can recommonend wholeheartedly, I quite loved it.