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112-517: Ursula K. Le Guin coined the word "ansible" in her 1966 novel Rocannon's World . The word was a contraction of "answerable", as the device would allow its users to receive answers to their messages in a reasonable amount of time, even over interstellar distances. The ansible was the basis for creating a specific kind of interstellar civilization – one where communications between far-flung stars are instantaneous, but humans can only travel at relativistic speeds. Under these conditions,

224-745: A commencement speech entitled "A Left-handed Commencement Address" at Mills College in Oakland, California . It is listed as No. 82 in American Rhetoric ' s Top 100 Speeches of the 20th Century, and was included in her nonfiction collection Dancing at the Edge of the World . Le Guin died on January 22, 2018, at her home in Portland, at the age of 88. Her son said that she had been in poor health for several months, and stated that it

336-582: A "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Le Guin was born in Berkeley, California , to author Theodora Kroeber and anthropologist Alfred Louis Kroeber . Having earned a master's degree in French, Le Guin began doctoral studies but abandoned these after her marriage in 1953 to historian Charles Le Guin. She began writing full-time in

448-633: A 1976 essay "Is Gender Necessary?" she wrote that gender was secondary to the primary theme of loyalty in The Left Hand of Darkness . Le Guin revisited this essay in 1988, and acknowledged that gender was central to the novel; she also apologized for depicting Gethenians solely in heterosexual relationships. Le Guin responded to these critiques in her subsequent writing. She intentionally used feminine pronouns for all sexually latent Gethenians in her 1995 short story "Coming of Age in Karhide", and in

560-648: A being materializes in the Council chambers claiming to be a “true” human and a god. The being, a Koroem, takes full responsibility for the human genocide and claims that it ordered the Seekers to exterminate humanity because they were physically imitating the Koroem. A battle ensues after the Koroem wounds one of the Aurelians, but it is ultimately killed when Gideon uses a previously unknown mystical ability. This opens

672-592: A catastrophic global flood. Gender and sexuality are prominent themes in a number of Le Guin's works. The Left Hand of Darkness , published in 1969, was among the first books in the genre now known as feminist science fiction , and is the most famous examination of androgyny in science fiction. The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, whose inhabitants are ambisexual humans with no fixed gender identity , who adopt female or male sexual characteristics for brief periods of their sexual cycle. Which sex they adopt can depend on context and relationships. Gethen

784-521: A city inhabited by descendants of criminals. Always Coming Home , set in California in the distant future, examines a warlike society, resembling contemporary American society, from the perspective of the Kesh, its pacifist neighbors. The society of the Kesh has been identified by scholars as a feminist utopia, which Le Guin uses to explore the role of technology. Scholar Warren Rochelle stated that it

896-483: A delicate balance, which is disrupted by somebody in each of the first three novels. This includes an equilibrium between land and sea, implicit in the name "Earthsea", between people and their natural environment, and a larger cosmic equilibrium, which wizards are tasked with maintaining. Another prominent Taoist idea is the reconciliation of opposites such as light and dark, or good and evil. A number of Hainish novels, The Dispossessed prominent among them, explored such

1008-656: A device called an interocitor in the 1952 novel This Island Earth by Raymond F. Jones , and the 1955 film based on that novel. Also in the "Dirac Communicator" which first appeared in James Blish 's short story "Beep" (1954) and was later expanded into the novel The Quincunx of Time (1973). Robert A. Heinlein in Time for the Stars (1958) employed instantaneous telepathic communication between identical twin pairs over interstellar distances, and like Le Guin, provided

1120-407: A dialog session, and are attached to a keyboard and small display to perform text messaging. Since Le Guin's conception of the ansible, the name of the device has been borrowed by numerous authors. While Le Guin's ansible was said to communicate "instantaneously", the name has also been adopted for devices capable of communication at finite speeds that are faster than light. David Langford publishes

1232-452: A full-fledged galactic empire is not possible, but there is a looser interstellar organization, in which several of Le Guin's protagonists are involved. Although Le Guin invented the name "ansible" for this type of device (fleshed out with specific details in her fictional works), the broader concept of instantaneous or faster-than-light communication had previously existed in science fiction. Similar communication functions were included in

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1344-647: A larger reality. —Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin refused a Nebula Award for her story " The Diary of the Rose " in 1977, in protest at the Science Fiction Writers of America 's revocation of Stanisław Lem 's membership. Le Guin attributed the revocation to Lem's criticism of American science fiction and willingness to live in the Eastern Bloc , and said she felt reluctant to receive an award "for

1456-564: A later reprinting of " Winter's King ", which was first published in 1969. "Coming of Age in Karhide" was later anthologized in the 2002 collection The Birthday of the World , which contained six other stories featuring unorthodox sexual relationships and marital arrangements. She also revisited gender relations in Earthsea in Tehanu , published in 1990. This volume was described as a rewriting or reimagining of The Tombs of Atuan , because

1568-598: A member of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. As a child she had been interested in biology and poetry, but had been limited in her choice of career by her difficulties with mathematics. Le Guin undertook graduate studies at Columbia University , and earned a Master of Arts degree in French in 1952. Soon after, she began working towards a PhD , and won a Fulbright grant to continue her studies in France from 1953 to 1954. In 1953, while traveling to France aboard

1680-500: A paperback and sold as a single low-cost volume. City of Illusions was published as a standalone volume, indicating Le Guin's growing name recognition. These books received more critical attention than Le Guin's short stories, with reviews being published in several science fiction magazines, but the critical response was still muted. The books contained many themes and ideas also present in Le Guin's better known later works, including

1792-404: A portal that Gideon is dragged into. He finds himself on an ice planet, where a horned creature dubbed "The Stranger" appears and says, "Come with me, human. There is much to be done." It then beckons Gideon to follow. The game's overall story was created by Donald and Geremy Mustard. The dialog and screenplay was written by Orson Scott Card and Cameron Dayton. Card's influences are noticeable in

1904-493: A process of reconciliation. In the Earthsea universe, it is not the dark powers, but the characters' misunderstanding of the balance of life, that is depicted as evil, in contrast to conventional Western stories in which good and evil are in constant conflict. Although Le Guin is primarily known for her works of speculative fiction, she also wrote realistic fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and several other literary forms, and as

2016-496: A result her work is difficult to classify. Her writings received critical attention from mainstream critics, critics of children's literature, and critics of speculative fiction. Le Guin herself said that she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist". Le Guin's transgression of conventional boundaries of genre led to literary criticism of Le Guin becoming " Balkanized ", particularly between scholars of children's literature and speculative fiction. Commentators have noted that

2128-474: A secretary until the birth of her daughter Elisabeth in 1957. A second daughter, Caroline, was born in 1959. Also in that year, Charles became an instructor in history at Portland State University , and the couple moved to Portland, Oregon , where their son Theodore was born in 1964. They would live in Portland for the rest of their lives, although Le Guin received further Fulbright grants to travel to London in 1968 and 1975. Le Guin's writing career began in

2240-480: A slave society. In 2000 she published The Telling , which would be her final Hainish novel, and the next year released Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind , the last two Earthsea books. The latter won the World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 2002. From 2002 onwards several collections and anthologies of Le Guin's work were published. A series of her stories from the period 1994–2002

2352-536: A story about political intolerance from a group that had just displayed political intolerance". Le Guin once said she was "raised as irreligious as a jackrabbit". She expressed a deep interest in Taoism and Buddhism , saying that Taoism gave her a "handle on how to look at life" during her adolescent years. In 1997, she published a translation of the Tao Te Ching . In December 2009, Le Guin resigned from

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2464-420: A technical explanation based on a non-Einsteinian principle of simultaneity. In her subsequent works, Le Guin continued to develop the concept of the ansible: Any ansible may be used to communicate through any other, by setting its coordinates to those of the receiving ansible. They have a limited bandwidth , which only allows for at most a few hundred characters of text to be communicated in any transaction of

2576-520: A variety of work in the second half of the 1970s. This included speculative fiction in the form of the novel The Eye of the Heron , which, according to Le Guin, may be a part of the Hainish universe. She also published Very Far Away from Anywhere Else , a realistic novel for adolescents, as well as the collection Orsinian Tales and the novel Malafrena in 1976 and 1979, respectively. Though

2688-599: A younger audience. In 1985 she published the experimental work Always Coming Home . She wrote 11 children's picture books, including the Catwings series, between 1979 and 1994, along with The Beginning Place , an adolescent fantasy novel, released in 1980. Four more poetry collections were also published in this period, all of which were positively received. She also revisited Earthsea, publishing Tehanu in 1990: coming eighteen years after The Farthest Shore , during which Le Guin's views had developed considerably,

2800-406: Is an action-adventure third-person shooter video game developed by GlyphX Games and published by Majesco Entertainment . The game was released on May 31, 2005, for Xbox and on August 9, 2005, for Microsoft Windows . Its story was created by Donald and Geremy Mustard and featured a script written by science fiction writers Orson Scott Card and Cameron Dayton; the full orchestral soundtrack

2912-430: Is an element in science fiction, it isn't the name of the game by any means. It is far too rationalist and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's. Variables are the spice of life. [If] you like you can read [a lot of] science fiction, as a thought-experiment. Let's say (says Mary Shelley) that a young doctor creates a human being in his laboratory; let's say (says Philip K. Dick) that

3024-665: Is considered a pioneer in the field, and was a director of the University of California Museum of Anthropology : as a consequence of his research, Le Guin was exposed to anthropology and cultural exploration as a child. In addition to myths and legends, she read such volumes as The Leaves of the Golden Bough by Elizabeth Grove Frazer , a children's book adapted from The Golden Bough , a study of myth and religion by her husband James George Frazer . She described living with her father's friends and acquaintances as giving her

3136-657: Is depicted as seeing beyond narrow choices the protagonists are presented with by society. In Gifts , Orrec and Gry realize that the powers their people possess can be used in two ways: for control and dominion, or for healing and nurturing. This recognition allows them to take a third choice, and leave. This wrestling with choice has been compared to the choices the characters are forced to make in Le Guin's short story " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas ". Similarly, Ged helps Tenar in The Tombs of Atuan to value herself and to find choices that she did not see, leading her to leave

3248-575: Is particularly the case in those works written for a younger audience, such as Earthsea and Annals of the Western Shore . Le Guin wrote in a 1973 essay that she chose to explore coming-of-age in Earthsea since she was writing for an adolescent audience: "Coming of age ... is a process that took me many years; I finished it, so far as I ever will, at about age thirty-one; and so I feel rather deeply about it. So do most adolescents. It's their main occupation, in fact." She also said that fantasy

3360-409: Is that the game's camera can be jumpy and jittery, leaving you discombobulated. It distracts you from the very good story line and well-done video cut scenes." Charles Herold of The New York Times , however, gave it an average review, saying that "Its most interesting aspect is 'flick targeting,' in which you snap your right control stick at an enemy to lock your weapons on it." Upon the release of

3472-697: The Queen Mary , Ursula met historian Charles Le Guin. They married in Paris in December 1953. According to Le Guin, the marriage signaled the "end of the doctorate" for her. While her husband finished his doctorate at Emory University in Georgia, and later at the University of Idaho , Le Guin taught French: first at Mercer University , then at the University of Idaho after their move. She also worked as

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3584-481: The Authors Guild in protest over its endorsement of Google's book digitization project . "You decided to deal with the devil", she wrote in her resignation letter. "There are principles involved, above all the whole concept of copyright ; and these you have seen fit to abandon to a corporation, on their terms, without a struggle." In a speech at the 2014 National Book Awards , Le Guin criticized Amazon and

3696-692: The Earthsea novels specifically received less critical attention because they were considered children's books. Le Guin herself took exception to this treatment of children's literature , describing it as "adult chauvinist piggery". In 1976, literature scholar George Slusser criticized the "silly publication classification designating the original series as 'children's literature ' ", while in Barbara Bucknall's opinion Le Guin "can be read, like Tolkien, by ten-year-olds and by adults. These stories are ageless because they deal with problems that confront us at any age." Fortunately, though extrapolation

3808-550: The Earthsea series, challenged the conventions of epic fantasies and myths. Many of the protagonists in Earthsea were dark-skinned individuals, in comparison to the white-skinned heroes more traditionally used; some of the antagonists, in contrast, were white-skinned, a switching of race roles that has been remarked upon by multiple critics. In a 2001 interview, Le Guin attributed the frequent lack of character illustrations on her book covers to her choice of non-white protagonists. She explained this choice, saying: "most people in

3920-550: The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters . Le Guin influenced many other authors, including Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie , David Mitchell , Neil Gaiman , and Iain Banks . After her death in 2018, critic John Clute wrote that Le Guin had "presided over American science fiction for nearly half a century", while author Michael Chabon referred to her as

4032-582: The PlayStation Portable handheld as a side story of Advent Rising which ended up cancelled in January 2006. It followed the story of Marin Steel, a mercenary pilot thrust into a saga of intergalactic proportions. In the midst of extracting herself from a hostile negotiation, Marin is interrupted by a planetary invasion led by monstrous aliens bent on human genocide. In her efforts to escape

4144-440: The terminology which has been carried over from Ender's Game . The terms "vids", " Buggers ", and " ansible " are all references from his critically acclaimed novels (though the term ansible was coined by Ursula K. Le Guin , and was not actually added to the script by Card himself, but by Donald Mustard). In 2008, Novint announced they are adding Novint Falcon support to this game and will sell it as Ascension Reborn for

4256-414: The "archetypal journey" of a protagonist who undertakes both a physical journey and one of self-discovery, cultural contact and communication, the search for identity, and the reconciliation of opposing forces. When publishing her story "Nine Lives" in 1968, Playboy magazine asked Le Guin whether they could run the story without her full first name, to which Le Guin agreed: the story was published under

4368-435: The "greatest American writer of her generation". Ursula Kroeber was born in Berkeley, California , on October 21, 1929. Her father, Alfred Louis Kroeber , was an anthropologist at the University of California, Berkeley . Le Guin's mother, Theodora Kroeber (born Theodora Covel Kracaw), had a graduate degree in psychology, but turned to writing in her sixties, developing a successful career as an author. Among her works

4480-404: The "white man conquers the universe" tradition. Several scholars state that the influence of mythology, which Le Guin enjoyed reading as a child, is also visible in much of her work: for example, the short story " The Dowry of Angyar " is described as a retelling of a Norse myth . The discipline of cultural anthropology had a powerful influence on Le Guin's writing. Her father Alfred Kroeber

4592-530: The 1976 edition of The Left Hand of Darkness . Several of her works have a premise drawn from sociology , psychology , or philosophy . As a result, Le Guin's writing is often described as "soft" science fiction , and she has been described as the "patron saint" of this sub-genre. A number of science fiction authors have objected to the term "soft science fiction", describing it as a potentially pejorative term used to dismiss stories not based on problems in physics, astronomy, or engineering, and also to target

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4704-460: The Allies lost the second world war; let's say this or that is such and so, and see what happens... In a story so conceived, the moral complexity proper to the modern novel need not be sacrificed, nor is there any built-in dead end; thought and intuition can move freely within bounds set only by the terms of the experiment, which may be very large indeed. —Ursula K. Le Guin, in the introduction to

4816-491: The DVD release of the 2007 Uwe Boll film Seed . A million dollars was offered in a contest via Xbox Live for the first player to find a set of hidden symbols spread throughout the levels of the game. On August 15, 2005, the contest was cancelled, due to concerns that there was "no technically feasible solution that would allow the contest to continue in a fair and secure manner". Majesco offered, as compensation to those players,

4928-514: The Hainish universe released by the Library of America . Other works from this period included Lavinia (2008), based on a character from Virgil 's Aeneid , and the Annals of the Western Shore trilogy, consisting of Gifts (2004), Voices (2006), and Powers (2007). Although Annals of the Western Shore was written for an adolescent audience, the third volume, Powers , received

5040-680: The Hugo Award again in 1973 for The Word for World Is Forest . The book was influenced by Le Guin's anger over the Vietnam War , and explored themes of colonialism and militarism : Le Guin later described it as the "most overt political statement" she had made in a fictional work. Le Guin continued to develop themes of equilibrium and coming-of-age in the next two installments of the Earthsea series, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore , published in 1971 and 1972, respectively. Both books were praised for their writing, while

5152-545: The Mother, Animus, and Anima, have also been identified in Le Guin's writing. the planetary forests featured in multiple Hainish works are described as a metaphor for the mind, and of Jungian "collective unconscious. Philosophical Taoism had a large role in Le Guin's world view, and the influence of Taoist thought can be seen in many of her stories. Many of Le Guin's protagonists, including in The Lathe of Heaven , embody

5264-596: The Nebula Award for Best Novel in 2009. In her final years, Le Guin largely turned away from fiction, and produced a number of essays, poems, and some translation. Her final publications included the non-fiction collections Dreams Must Explain Themselves and Ursula K Le Guin: Conversations on Writing , and the poetry volume So Far So Good: Final Poems 2014–2018 , all of which were released after her death. Once I learned to read, I read everything. I read all

5376-486: The Novint Falcon only. Following its Xbox release, the game received "average" reviews according to the review aggregation website Metacritic . The most common complaints were the large number of bugs which caused a range of problems including freezing. Another common complaint regarded the difficulty in using the targeting system. The game visual design choice was noted by several reviewers, pointing out that

5488-501: The PC version of the game a few months after the Xbox counterpart, the game was slightly better received, garnering above-average reviews according to Metacritic. Many reviewers felt that the months long delay had been put to good use as many of the glitches in the Xbox version had been fixed. Framerate was also improved, with slowdowns becoming rarer. A free copy of the PC version was included on

5600-455: The Taoist ideal of leaving things alone. The anthropologists of the Hainish universe try not to meddle with the cultures they encounter, while one of the earliest lessons Ged learns in A Wizard of Earthsea is not to use magic unless it is absolutely necessary. Taoist influence is evident in Le Guin's depiction of equilibrium in the world of Earthsea: the archipelago is depicted as being based on

5712-520: The Tombs with him. Alternative social and political systems are a recurring theme in Le Guin's writing. Critics have paid particular attention to The Dispossessed and Always Coming Home , although Le Guin explores related themes in a number of her works, such as in "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". The Dispossessed is an anarchist utopian novel, which according to Le Guin drew from pacifist anarchists, including Peter Kropotkin , as well as from

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5824-564: The ansible was also featured in the video game Advent Rising , for which Card helped write the story, and in the movie Ender's Game , which was based on the book. Numerous other writers have included faster-than-light communication devices in their fictional works. Notable examples include: Ursula K. Le Guin Ursula Kroeber Le Guin ( / ˈ k r oʊ b ər l ə ˈ ɡ w ɪ n / KROH -bər lə GWIN ; née Kroeber ; October 21, 1929 – January 22, 2018)

5936-595: The book was grimmer in tone than the earlier works in the series, and challenged some ideas presented therein. It received critical praise, won Le Guin a third Nebula Award for Best Novel, and led to the series being recognized among adult literature. Le Guin returned to the Hainish Cycle in the 1990s after a lengthy hiatus with the publication of a series of short stories, beginning with " The Shobies' Story " in 1990. These stories included " Coming of Age in Karhide " (1995), which explored growing into adulthood and

6048-585: The characters all appear fairly elongated, although it has been said that this was a deliberate stylistic choice. Scott Jones of Maxim gave the game four stars out of five, saying, "The game's unique flick-targeting system—'flick' the right control stick towards an enemy and you're automatically locked on—takes some getting used to, but actually frees up the triggers and face buttons, meaning you've got plenty of options when it's time to dole out ass-bootings." Jim Schaefer of Detroit Free Press gave it three stars out of four, saying, "my biggest overall complaint

6160-419: The choice of two free games ( BloodRayne 2 , Guilty Gear X2 #Reload , Psychonauts , Raze's Hell , and/or Phantom Dust ) and an apology on its home page. An avid comics fan, game creator Donald Mustard originally realized the story of Advent Rising in hand-drawn comic books. He revealed in a 2005 interview: "With Advent , from day one, we conceived it initially as a comic book itself. Back when I

6272-640: The control it exerted over the publishing industry, specifically referencing Amazon's treatment of the Hachette Book Group during a dispute over ebook publication . Her speech received widespread media attention within and outside the United States, and was broadcast twice by National Public Radio . Le Guin's first published work was the poem "Folksong from the Montayna Province" in 1959, while her first published short story

6384-472: The counterculture of the 1960s and 1970s. Le Guin has been credited with "[rescuing] anarchism from the cultural ghetto to which it has been consigned", and helping to bring it into the intellectual mainstream. Fellow author Kathleen Ann Goonan wrote that Le Guin's work confronted the "paradigm of insularity toward the suffering of people, other living beings, and resources", and explored "life-respecting sustainable alternatives". The Dispossessed , set on

6496-607: The course of their journeys on other planets. Le Guin's writing often examines alien cultures, and particularly the human cultures from planets other than Earth in the Hainish universe. In discovering these "alien" worlds, Le Guin's protagonists, and by extension the readers, also journey into themselves, and challenge the nature of what they consider "alien" and what they consider "native". Several of Le Guin's works have featured stylistic or structural features that were unusual or subversive. The heterogeneous structure of The Left Hand of Darkness , described as "distinctly post-modern",

6608-423: The experience of the other . The experiences of Ishi, in particular, were influential on Le Guin, and elements of his story have been identified in works such as Planet of Exile , City of Illusions , and The Word for World Is Forest and The Dispossessed . Several scholars have commented that Le Guin's writing was influenced by Carl Jung , and specifically by the idea of Jungian archetypes . In particular,

6720-400: The experimental work Always Coming Home (1985). Social and political themes, including race, gender, sexuality, and coming of age were prominent in her writing. She explored alternative political structures in many stories, such as in the philosophical short story " The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas " (1973) and the anarchist utopian novel The Dispossessed (1974). Le Guin's writing

6832-688: The exploration of death as a theme in The Farthest Shore also drew praise. Her 1974 novel The Dispossessed again won both the Hugo and the Nebula awards for best novel, making her the first person to win both awards for each of two books. Also set in the Hainish universe, the story explored anarchism and utopianism . Scholar Charlotte Spivack described it as representing a shift in Le Guin's science fiction towards discussing political ideas. Several of her speculative fiction short stories from

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6944-707: The famous fantasies – Alice in Wonderland , and Wind in the Willows , and Kipling . I adored Kipling's Jungle Book . And then when I got older I found Lord Dunsany . He opened up a whole new world – the world of pure fantasy. And ... Worm Ouroboros . Again, pure fantasy. Very, very fattening. And then my brother and I blundered into science fiction when I was 11 or 12. Early Asimov , things like that. But that didn't have too much effect on me. It wasn't until I came back to science fiction and discovered Sturgeon – but particularly Cordwainer Smith . ... I read

7056-459: The feelings of the protagonist are not directly separated from the narration, making the narrator seem sympathetic to the characters, and removing the skepticism towards a character's thoughts and emotions that are a feature of more direct narration. Cadden suggests that this method leads to younger readers sympathizing directly with the characters, making it an effective technique for young-adult literature. A number of Le Guin's writings, including

7168-580: The fictional country of Orsinia , several works for children, and many anthologies. Cultural anthropology , Taoism , feminism , and the writings of Carl Jung all had a strong influence on Le Guin's work. Many of her stories used anthropologists or cultural observers as protagonists, and Taoist ideas about balance and equilibrium have been identified in several writings. Le Guin often subverted typical speculative fiction tropes, such as through her use of dark-skinned protagonists in Earthsea, and also used unusual stylistic or structural devices in books such as

7280-582: The genre as a child. Authors Le Guin describes as influential include Victor Hugo , William Wordsworth , Charles Dickens , Boris Pasternak , and Philip K. Dick . Le Guin and Dick attended the same high-school, but did not know each other; Le Guin later described her novel The Lathe of Heaven as an homage to him. She also considered J. R. R. Tolkien and Leo Tolstoy to be stylistic influences, and preferred reading Virginia Woolf and Jorge Luis Borges to well-known science-fiction authors such as Robert Heinlein , whose writing she described as being of

7392-588: The language. Thus I paid tribute to the writer from whose works I learned the word." In the universe of the Ender's Game series, the ansible's functions involved a fictional subatomic particle, the philote. The two quarks inside a pi meson can be separated by an arbitrary distance, while remaining connected by "philotic rays". This concept is similar to quantum teleportation due to entanglement ; however, in reality, quark confinement prevents quarks from being separated by any observable distance. Card's version of

7504-480: The late 1950s and achieved major critical and commercial success with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), which have been described by Harold Bloom as her masterpieces. For the latter volume, Le Guin won both the Hugo and Nebula awards for best novel , becoming the first woman to do so. Several more works set in Earthsea or the Hainish universe followed; others included books set in

7616-507: The late 1950s, but the time she spent caring for her children constrained her writing schedule. She would continue writing and publishing for nearly 60 years. She also worked as an editor, and taught undergraduate classes. She served on the editorial boards of the journals Paradoxa and Science Fiction Studies , in addition to writing literary criticism herself. She taught courses at Tulane University , Bennington College , and Stanford University , among others. In May 1983, she delivered

7728-551: The latter two were set in the fictional country of Orsinia, the stories were realistic fiction rather than fantasy or science fiction. The Language of the Night , a collection of essays, was released in 1979, and Le Guin also published Wild Angels , a volume of poetry, in 1975. Between 1979, when she published Malafrena , and 1994, when the collection A Fisherman of the Inland Sea was released, Le Guin wrote primarily for

7840-433: The misogyny and hierarchy present in the authoritarian society of Urras is absent among the anarchists, who base their social structure on cooperation and individual liberty. The Eye of the Heron , published a few years after The Dispossessed , was described as continuing Le Guin's exploration of human freedom, through a conflict between two societies of opposing philosophies: a town inhabited by descendants of pacifists, and

7952-426: The name ansible out of an old book somewhere". In an answer on the question-and-answer website Quora , Card explained why he chose to reuse the word "ansible" for an FTL communication device instead of developing a new in-universe name for one: "In an ftl universe, you have several levels. I've you can travel hyperfast, but no radio signal can outstrip your ship. Therefore you have to carry the mail with you. It's like

8064-465: The name "U. K. Le Guin". She later wrote that it was the first and only time she had experienced prejudice against her as a woman writer from an editor or publisher, and reflected that "it seemed so silly, so grotesque, that I failed to see that it was also important." In subsequent printings, the story was published under her full name. Le Guin's next two books brought her sudden and widespread critical acclaim. A Wizard of Earthsea , published in 1968,

8176-412: The natural environment; in the novel, the natives of the planet of Athshe have adapted their way of life to the ecology of the planet. The colonizing human society, in contrast, is depicted as destructive and uncaring; in depicting it, Le Guin also critiqued colonialism and imperialism , driven partly by her disapproval for U.S. intervention in the Vietnam War . Advent Rising Advent Rising

8288-609: The period, including her first published story, were later anthologized in the 1975 collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters . The fiction of the period 1966 to 1974, which also included The Lathe of Heaven , the Hugo Award-winning " The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas " and the Nebula Award-winning " The Day Before the Revolution ", constitutes Le Guin's best-known body of work. Le Guin published

8400-455: The planet Edumea below. On the planet, Gideon aids the Marines in their battle against the Seekers, but soon learns that the planet will shortly be destroyed by a meteor shower. The planet is evacuated, and Gideon accepts an invitation from the Aurelians to board their ship. After learning that humans have untapped mystical powers, he begins training with the Aurelians. As Gideon is training,

8512-460: The portrayal of heterosexuality as the norm on Gethen. Le Guin's portrayal of gender in Earthsea was also described as perpetuating the notion of a male-dominated world; according to the Encyclopedia of Science Fiction , "Le Guin saw men as the actors and doers in the [world], while women remain the still centre, the well from which they drink". Le Guin initially defended her writing; in

8624-405: The power and status of the female protagonist Tenar are the inverse of what they were in the earlier book, which was also focused on her and Ged. During this later period she commented that she considered The Eye of the Heron , published in 1978, to be her first work genuinely centered on a woman. Le Guin explores coming of age , and moral development more broadly, in many of her writings. This

8736-476: The prince Arren, respectively. A Wizard of Earthsea is frequently described as a Bildungsroman , in which Ged's coming of age is intertwined with the physical journey he undertakes through the novel. To Mike Cadden the book was a convincing tale "to a reader as young and possibly as headstrong as Ged, and therefore sympathetic to him". Reviewers have described the ending of the novel, wherein Ged finally accepts

8848-423: The protagonist, escorting a group of human ambassadors from a space station to a meeting with an alien race called the Aurelians. At the meeting, the Aurelians tell the humans that they view them as gods and then warn them of another race of aliens called the Seekers who intend to destroy all humanity. Shortly thereafter, the space station is attacked by the Seekers. Gideon manages to board an escape pod and lands on

8960-506: The science fiction fanzine and newsletter Ansible (magazine) Orson Scott Card , in his 1977 novelette and 1985 novel Ender's Game and its sequels , used the term "ansible" as an unofficial name for the Philotic Parallax Instantaneous Communicator, a machine capable of communicating across infinite distances with no time delay. In Ender's Game , Colonel Graff states that "somebody dredged

9072-802: The setting Le Guin chose for a number of her works. Several of her protagonists are anthropologists or ethnologists exploring a world alien to them. This is particularly true in the stories set in the Hainish universe , an alternative reality in which humans did not evolve on Earth, but on Hain. The Hainish subsequently colonized many planets, before losing contact with them, giving rise to varied but related biology and social structure. Examples include Rocannon in Rocannon's World and Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness . Other characters, such as Shevek in The Dispossessed , become cultural observers in

9184-467: The shadow as a part of himself, as a rite of passage . Scholar Jeanne Walker writes that the rite of passage at the end was an analogue for the entire plot of A Wizard of Earthsea , and that the plot itself plays the role of a rite of passage for an adolescent reader. Each volume of Annals of the Western Shore also describes the coming of age of its protagonists, and features explorations of being enslaved to one's own power. The process of growing up

9296-466: The shadow in A Wizard of Earthsea is seen as the Shadow archetype from Jungian psychology, representing Ged's pride, fear, and desire for power. Le Guin discussed her interpretation of this archetype, and her interest in the dark and repressed parts of the psyche, in a 1974 lecture. She stated elsewhere that she had never read Jung before writing the first Earthsea books. Other archetypes, including

9408-596: The ship is attacked by the Seekers. Gideon and some of the Aurelians evacuate to the Seeker vessel, though it is on a crash course with the Aurelian homeworld. Gideon and the remaining Aurelians find the planet overrun by Seekers. After liberating the planet, they travel to the Galactic Council to seek their help in combating the Seeker assault on humanity. When the Council calls the Seekers to explain themselves,

9520-701: The siblings all became interested in reading while they were young. The Kroeber family had a number of visitors, including well-known academics such as Robert Oppenheimer ; Le Guin would later use Oppenheimer as the model for Shevek, the physicist protagonist of The Dispossessed . The family divided its time between a summer home in the Napa Valley , and a house in Berkeley during the academic year. Le Guin's reading included science fiction and fantasy: she and her siblings frequently read issues of Thrilling Wonder Stories and Astounding Science Fiction . She

9632-417: The story " Alpha Ralpha Boulevard ", and it just made me go, "Wow! This stuff is so beautiful, and so strange, and I want to do something like that." —Ursula K. Le Guin Le Guin read both classic and speculative fiction widely in her youth. She later said that science fiction did not have much impact on her until she read the works of Theodore Sturgeon and Cordwainer Smith , and that she had sneered at

9744-441: The twin planets of Urras and Anarres , features a planned anarchist society depicted as an "ambiguous utopia". The society, created by settlers from Urras, is materially poorer than the wealthy society of Urras, but more ethically and morally advanced. Unlike classical utopias, the society of Anarres is portrayed as neither perfect nor static; the protagonist Shevek finds himself traveling to Urras to pursue his research. Nonetheless,

9856-447: The way things were between Europe and America before the laying of the successful transatlantic cable. But once it was laid, messages could be sent long before a ship could make the passage. That is like the ansible universe in which Ursula K. LeGuin‘s early Hainish novels. Since I needed to use exactly that rule set, why not use the word — an excellent word — which I apply in the same way we all say “robot,” an invented word that has entered

9968-451: The world aren't white. Why in the future would we assume they are?" Her 1985 book Always Coming Home , described as "her great experiment", included a story told from the perspective of a young protagonist, but also included poems, rough drawings of plants and animals, myths, and anthropological reports from the matriarchal society of the Kesh, a fictional people living in the Napa valley after

10080-439: The world of Earthsea . These stories were largely ignored by critics. Ace Books released Rocannon's World , Le Guin's first published novel, in 1966. Two more Hainish novels, Planet of Exile and City of Illusions were published in 1966 and 1967, respectively, and the three books together would come to be known as the Hainish trilogy. The first two were each published as half of an "Ace Double": two novels bound into

10192-402: The writing of women or other groups under-represented in the genre. Le Guin suggested the term "social science fiction" for some of her writing, while pointing out that many of her stories were not science fiction at all. She argued that the term "soft science fiction" was divisive, and implied a narrow view of what constitutes valid science fiction. The influence of anthropology can be seen in

10304-522: Was Ishi in Two Worlds (1961), a biographical volume about Ishi , an Indigenous American who had been studied by Alfred Kroeber. Ishi was the last known member of the Yahi tribe after the rest of its members died or (mostly) were killed by white colonizers. Le Guin had three older brothers: Karl , who became a literary scholar, Theodore, and Clifton. The family had a large book collection, and

10416-505: Was "An die Musik", in 1961; both were set in her fictional country of Orsinia . Between 1951 and 1961 she also wrote five novels, all set in Orsinia, which were rejected by publishers on the grounds that they were inaccessible. Some of her poetry from this period was published in 1975 in the volume Wild Angels . Le Guin turned her attention to science fiction after a lengthy period of receiving rejections from publishers, knowing that there

10528-413: Was "neither a matriarchy nor a patriarchy: men and women just are". "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas", a parable depicting a society in which widespread wealth, happiness, and security, comes at the cost of the continued misery of a single child, has also been read as a critique of contemporary American society. The Word for World is Forest explored the manner in which the structure of society affects

10640-610: Was a Hainish universe story exploring themes of gender and sexuality on a fictional planet where humans have no fixed sex. The book was Le Guin's first to address feminist issues, and according to scholar Donna White, it "stunned the science fiction critics"; it won both the Hugo and the Nebula Awards for best novel, making Le Guin the first woman to win these awards, and a number of other accolades. A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness have been described by critic Harold Bloom as Le Guin's masterpieces. She won

10752-429: Was a fantasy novel written initially for teenagers. Le Guin had not planned to write for young adults, but was asked to write a novel targeted at this group by the editor of Parnassus Press, who saw it as a market with great potential. A coming of age story set in the fictional archipelago of Earthsea, the book received a positive reception in both the U.S. and Britain. Her next novel, The Left Hand of Darkness ,

10864-578: Was a market for writing that could be readily classified as such. Her first professional publication was the short story "April in Paris" in 1962 in Fantastic Science Fiction , and seven other stories followed in the next few years, in Fantastic or Amazing Stories . Among them were " The Dowry of Angyar ", which introduced the fictional Hainish universe , and " The Rule of Names " and " The Word of Unbinding ", which introduced

10976-563: Was an American author. She is best known for her works of speculative fiction , including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe , and the Earthsea fantasy series. Her work was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories , in addition to poetry, literary criticism , translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called

11088-437: Was best suited as a medium for describing coming of age, because exploring the subconscious was difficult using the language of "rational daily life". The first three Earthsea novels together follow Ged from youth to old age, and each of them also follow the coming of age of a different character. A Wizard of Earthsea focuses on Ged's adolescence, while The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore explore that of Tenar and

11200-463: Was described as a "significant exploration of womanhood". Le Guin's attitude towards gender and feminism evolved considerably over time. Although The Left Hand of Darkness was seen as a landmark exploration of gender, it also received criticism for not going far enough. Reviewers pointed to its usage of masculine gender pronouns to describe its androgynous characters, the lack of androgynous characters portrayed in stereotypical feminine roles, and

11312-618: Was done by Tommy Tallarico and Emmanuel Fratianni . Advent Rising was the first in a planned trilogy which also saw the development of a game that would take place alongside Advent Rising , called Advent Shadow for the PSP . Despite a large advertising campaign including promotion in cinemas, the game's retail performance fell far short of expectations. By the end of 2005, Majesco had completely revised its business plan to focus towards handheld games and canceled plans for future Advent Rising games. A five-issue spin-off comic book series

11424-498: Was enormously influential in the field of speculative fiction, and has been the subject of intense critical attention. She received numerous accolades, including eight Hugos , six Nebulas , and twenty-five Locus Awards , and in 2003 became the second woman honored as a Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America . The U.S. Library of Congress named her a Living Legend in 2000, and in 2014, she won

11536-740: Was fond of myths and legends, particularly Norse mythology , and of Native American legends that her father would narrate. Other authors she enjoyed were Lord Dunsany and Lewis Padgett . Le Guin also developed an early interest in writing; she wrote a short story when she was nine, and submitted her first short story to Astounding Science Fiction when she was eleven. The piece was rejected, and she did not submit anything else for another ten years. Le Guin attended Berkeley High School . She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Renaissance French and Italian literature from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1951, and graduated as

11648-463: Was getting out of high school, we were laying the foundation for Advent . I drew the first several hours of what would ultimately become the game as a comic book." The release of the Advent Rising game was supported by a promotional one-shot comic book produced by DC Comics . The comic was written by Lee Hammock and drawn by Billy Dallas Patton as a direct tie-in to the action of the game. It

11760-584: Was inserted free of charge within a handful of comic books published by DC. Another comic book, this time a series, grew out of the partnership between Majesco Entertainment and 360ep, a young entertainment properties management concern founded by former Marvel Comics CEO Bill Jemas . The new comic series, Advent Rising: Rock the Planet , was written by Rob Worley , with layouts by Arthur Dela Cruz, pencils by Cliff Richards, inks by Dennis Crisostomo, colors by Cris Delara, and letters by Simon Bowland. The comic

11872-563: Was likely she had had a heart attack . Private memorial services for her were held in Portland. A public memorial service, which included speeches by the writers Margaret Atwood , Molly Gloss , and Walidah Imarisha , was held in Portland on June 13, 2018. I think hard times are coming when we will be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now and can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies. We will need writers who can remember freedom. Poets, visionaries – the realists of

11984-431: Was portrayed as a society without war, as a result of this absence of fixed gender characteristics, and also without sexuality as a continuous factor in social relationships. Gethenian culture was explored in the novel through the eyes of a Terran , whose masculinity proves a barrier to cross-cultural communication. Outside the Hainish Cycle, Le Guin's use of a female protagonist in The Tombs of Atuan , published in 1971,

12096-479: Was produced and ran from October 2005 to November 2006. Plans for novel tie-ins by Orson Scott Card never came to fruition. In June 2006, Donald Mustard posted a statement on the website of his new venture, Chair Entertainment , stating that he "would be happy to finish the Advent series if the opportunity presented itself", but confirmed he does not currently hold the rights to do. The game begins with Gideon Wyeth;

12208-406: Was produced with oversight by Mustard and Jemas. This new series begins the franchise some ten years before the events of the game. It follows the adventures of Gideon, Ethan, and Olivia in their formative, teenage years. The first issue was published on October 26, 2005. The fifth and final issue was released on November 22, 2006. Advent Shadow was an action-adventure game originally planned for

12320-475: Was released in 2002 in the collection The Birthday of the World and Other Stories , along with the novella Paradises Lost . The volume examined unconventional ideas about gender, as well as anarchist themes. Other collections included Changing Planes , also released in 2002, while the anthologies included The Unreal and the Real (2012), and The Hainish Novels and Stories , a two-volume set of works from

12432-506: Was set on the same planet as The Left Hand of Darkness . It was described by scholar Sandra Lindow as "so transgressively sexual and so morally courageous" that Le Guin "could not have written it in the '60s". In the same year she published the story suite Four Ways to Forgiveness , and followed it up with " Old Music and the Slave Women ", a fifth, connected, story in 1999. All five of the stories explored freedom and rebellion within

12544-655: Was unusual for the time of its publication. This was in marked contrast to the structure of (primarily male-authored) traditional science fiction, which was straightforward and linear. The novel was framed as part of a report sent to the Ekumen by the protagonist Genly Ai after his time on the planet Gethen, thus suggesting that Ai was selecting and ordering the material, consisting of personal narration, diary extracts, Gethenian myths, and ethnological reports. Earthsea also employed an unconventional narrative form described by scholar Mike Cadden as "free indirect discourse", in which

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