Sci-fi. A bind-up of the first three novels in Ursula Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, a series of very loosely interrelated novels and stories set in humanity’s space-faring future. She came back to this universe a number of times later as well, but the three novels in this book were written quite early in her career, in the mid 1960s. I’m not generally given to fretting about genre distinctions, but I do think it’s interesting that the feel of the first two of these novels and much of the third is more like fantasy than sci-fi – the way the universe differs from ours fits the standard understanding of science fiction but the stories are largely set in low-tech contexts and are centred on either a journey or a battle, much like so many fantasy novels. As well, though all three are worth reading (particularly for fans of Le Guin), it is also interesting to see her become a stronger writer over the course of them, with a particularly big jump from the first to the second, but also notable improvement between the second and the third. I’ve found myself unexpectedly reading more fiction and less nonfiction in this pandemic year, which I have mixed feelings about given the volume of nonfiction that I really should be reading for work purposes, but I am glad that the extra fictional wiggle room it gives me has encouraged me to start dipping into older works by beloved authors, and I look forward to slowly making my way through the rest of the Hainish Cycle in the coming years.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.