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.

Two books from Ursula k. Le Guin.

The Dispossed

Published in 1974, A marvelous work about 2 planets, about anarchy, it’s workings and it’s contrast and conflict with an older capitalistic world.

The story is cut in half, devided even and uneven chapters. On following a man who leaves the anarchistic homeworld founded almost 200 years ago after a revolution to visit the old capitalistic world where his people came from, and the other describing the world it’s workings and it’s faults and how the man came to the choice of traveling.

The book describes quite well how a anarchistic world could work, and what one of it’s major pitfalls could  be. It also sets a situation where a world like this could come to exist, a revolution, a conflict and a compromise. And showing how anarchy although ideal, is and can be in conflict with many other structures.

A great work, very well written and capturing, I could hardly put it down.

Voices

A more recent work by Le Guin, published in 2006.

Voices describes a fictional world, set on the coastline somewhere on a planet, in a country where books are valued greatly, a culture with many gods which are loved closely, but feared by none. A common and free society where knowledge is held in high regard.

Until the Alds, They come in fear of demons, obeying their single god from a world where books are evil and demonic, women are little more then slaves, worse off then their horses. They destroy all the books, forbid reading, rape the women on the streats and are after something in the city.

The describes the horrible conflict about 17 years later, that still goes on. The oppression of the Alds on the Ansul. About how a young girl lives in it, as a daughter and servant of the oldest house of Ansul. How things finally change.

It’s a story about religion, about politics, about knowledge and about freedom.  LeGuin seems clearly inspired by east and middle asian conflicts in this book, both cultures have a clear resemblance to existing cultures, and perhaps so does the conflict. She describes the conflict, and provides a possible solution, but as in the book. The interpretation is still up to the reader.

Another great work I think, very easy to read, read it in 3 days. I found the value added to commerce orriented society a bit downputting, but it’s not the Dispossed. And as a descriptive story, it’s certainly more realistic that way.

Both books I recommend to anyone, go read! :)