For me, Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed is a treasure — along with The Left Hand of Darkness and The Lathe of Heaven, I think, her finest work in science fiction. It brings together so many of her themes in a complex story that is beautifully written and deeply engaging. Themes like coming home, […]
Lining Up My Vintage SciFi Month and the Winter TBR
Vintage SciFi Month for 2022 is coming up fast, and I wanted to set out my planned reviews for this event. The great thing about this is its simplicity. You just use the tag #VintageSciFiMonth on Twitter or your blog or Instagram to post anything of interest about science fiction written before your birth year […]
Ursula K. Le Guin on What Is Science Fiction?
When I started this blog, I considered having a page offering various answers to the question, What is science fiction? There are so many different, often clashing views that I thought that would be interesting, but I eventually rejected the idea because it seems too pedantic to even suggest that there is or ought to […]
The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin – Vintage Science Fiction Month
I’m starting off my Vintage Science Fiction Month with Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven (1971). It is one of the most thrilling books I’ve read but also one of the most philosophical and poetic. It achieves an amazing balance in the confrontation between two opposing characters: George Orr, whose “effective” dreams change […]
Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home: Dialogue Between Present and Future
When Samuel R. Delany reviewed Ursula K. Le Guin’s Always Coming Home on its publication in 1985, he referred to science fiction as a dialogue between present and future. That happens to be a good way of thinking about this unique work. It is part imaginary ethnography and part literary anthology of a people, the […]
