I love some of Le Guin's works, although I found that some are much better than others. I would definitely recommend reading The Left Hand Of Darkness, I think it stands out among her best.
The follow-up, The Dispossessed, I thought was much weaker and less interesting and in fact I couldn't even finish it, which was odd given how much I loved Darkness. But in general she's a more intelligent, perceptive, engaging and literary writer than many of her (usually male) science fiction counterparts, whose work is often barely readable (flimsy characters, lousy dialogue) or is reminiscent of what you'd expect if you asked a teenage boy to write the plot to a science fiction action movie (e.g. much of Neal Stephenson's work).
I read The Telling quite recently and enjoyed it as well. The Earthsea fantasy series is also excellent.
The Dispossessed has always been one of my favorites, and I was incredibly disappointed when I read LHoD! I found LHoD sort of boring. So much focus on this gender-bending stuff which I found pointless... I actually thought there was a lot in there that was downright mysogenistic. In fact, I made a list of quotes a few years ago when I read it. These are mostly said by the narrator, who's supposed to come from some elevated society where they've got everything figured out. I've been waiting for someone to explain to me how exactly U. K. LG is a feminist, maybe the article above will help, going to read now. Here's that list... please read: http://files.aaroncurt.is/lhodGender.txt
Genly Ai, the book's narrator, is pretty sexist and arrogant. He is repulsed and confused by the way gender works on the planet. He observes what he sees like an anthropologist from an "enlightened" Earth society, comparing their folkways to his own and finding them insufficient. The other Hainish Cycle books make it pretty clear that the Ekumen is not a utopia, and Genly's faith in it is naive. By the end, Genly has a deeper understanding of Gethenian society, contrasted with his earlier arrogance.
I love both books. Left Hand is much more melancholy and anthropological, while The Dispossessed is more political and speaks to themes of trying to find one's place in society, accomplishing great works, "selling out", being heard when nobody wants to hear you, etc. They're books for different moods, for me.
> I would definitely recommend reading The Left Hand Of Darkness, I think it stands out among her best.
I slogged through "The Left Hand of Darkness". I was bored most of the time. And the whole gender thing felt very hamfisted and very at odds with real biology (reproduction generally tends to shut down when organisms are under extreme stress and need to conserve energy).
However, I do recognize that I am reading it in a different time from when it was written.
I also found her hit-or-miss. But in case you wanted another reccomendation, we read The Word For World Is Forest in my science fiction literature course in college, and it was excellent.
As a young man, Wizard of Earthsea was my favorite book, and it remains one of my all-time favorite series. Focus on language, toying with both fantasy and coming-of-age tropes, and mortality as something to be fought and, ultimately accepted and perhaps desired. It's truly great.
Wizard of Earthesea always stuck out to me as one of the few coming of age stories in which the main character severely fucks up. He makes a HUGE mistake, owns up to it, and deals with it. Nobody kisses his wound and makes it better, he betters himself. It's a story about bootstrapping life and dealing with your problems head on, I've never read another big story that deals with that idea. The base conflict in the book is Ged's fault and nobody elses.
"After all, she was raised on the hard sci-fi of male physicists and engineers."
Not completely so! As usual in articles like these there's no mention of James Tiptree Jr. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Tiptree,_Jr.) who contributed immensely to the genre of using sf as a lens to investigate feminism, gender, and related issues. Unfortunately she's largely forgotten now. It's interesting that Le Guin doesn't mention her more often, since it's fairly obvious from their letters that they influenced each other very much.
I always wonder what would have happened if Sheldon had not succumbed to depression and lived as long as Le Guin has, perhaps she would be as/more famous.
If you have not done so, please read the stories The Screwfly Solution, Houston, Houston Do You Read and (my personal favorite) Love is the Plan the Plan is Death (http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/love-is-the-plan-t...). They will stay with you for a long time.
Excerpts of the letters show two women, whose work has had a major influence in science fiction, facing great challenges. Le Guin moved forward, with purpose and determination, and demonstrated that being a woman, wife, and mother didn’t mean she couldn’t make major contributions to culture and to literature. And Sheldon rocketed towards the brink, churning out autobiographical work such as “Painwise,” “Love Is the Plan the Plan is Death,” and “The Women Men Don’t See.”
After her secret was revealed in 1976, ending a run of nearly nine years, Tiptree wrote to Le Guin:
“Ursula, Ursula, I am petrified. All the friends, the sf world—will they take it as deception? […]Will the women who mean so much to me see it all as an evil put on? […] Well dear Starbear an old age is dead and time to begin a new one. But I think I’m finished. Tip says goodbye to a very dear friend and all this is hers.”
Le Guin responded:
“oh strange, most strange, most wonderful, beautiful, improbable—Wie geht’s, Schwesterlein? sorella mia, sistersoul! […]I suppose there are some who resent being put on, but it would take an extraordinarily small soul to resent so immense, so funny, so effective and fantastic, and ETHICAL, a put on.”
"Love is the Plan the Plan is Death" is one of my absolute favorite science fiction stories. "The Screwfly Solution" is along the same themes but harder to take in IMO because you're less emotionally distanced from it. Tiptree was definitely one of the best SF writers of her generation.
The follow-up, The Dispossessed, I thought was much weaker and less interesting and in fact I couldn't even finish it, which was odd given how much I loved Darkness. But in general she's a more intelligent, perceptive, engaging and literary writer than many of her (usually male) science fiction counterparts, whose work is often barely readable (flimsy characters, lousy dialogue) or is reminiscent of what you'd expect if you asked a teenage boy to write the plot to a science fiction action movie (e.g. much of Neal Stephenson's work).
I read The Telling quite recently and enjoyed it as well. The Earthsea fantasy series is also excellent.