#the hainish cycle

[l3st1b0urn3s-707]

Following my hyperfixation with The left hand of darkness I read Winter's king by Ursula K. Le Guin, so let's talk about it!

It's a short story that takes place in Gethen (yay!). It's about king Argaven XVII so it takes place a few generations after TLHOD (since king Argaven XV was the ruler of Karhide in that novel). In this time the Ekumen has already settled in Gethen, and the planet is about to experience many political changes. Basically Argaven is kidnapped and her memories are altered, so now she'll have a journey trying to get them back and rule her country without any external influences, leaving her (at the time) baby daughter behind.

This story is particularly interesting because Gethen's people are reffered to with femenine pronouns instead of the generic masculine used in TLHOD.

You can find this story in The wind's twelve quarters, a collection of short stories by Le Guin, most of them being part of the Hainish cycle (which apparently is the universe where most of her sci-fi stories/books take place, and it's all about the ekumen and that stuff, it looks so interesting!).

Oh, and as a fun fact I also just discovered that there's another short story that takes place in Gethen called Coming of age in Karhide, which sounds so interesting!!! I swear, this woman's books are going to take my whole soul.

I also want to mention that I discovered this story through @evelasco-art 's gorgeous illustration of it, so go check their account out because they're trully talented!

[pathos-bathos]

Ursula K Le Guin I love you so much

[emerald-truth]

one thing about Ursula Le Guin is she's gonna put something in her story about leaving and returning, about exile, and the significance of a home

[diariodeunrincondemi]

When Ursula K. said "To break a promise is to deny the reality of the past; therefore it is to deny the hope of a real future" and also said "To deny the past is to deny the future. A man does not make his destiny: he accepts it or denies it"

[spookyabuki]

Hi all! I'm planning on starting a TTRPG campaign for a setting I made called Shadow Protocol. Right now, we have three players and I'm looking for two more.

If you're a fan of: • Alien • Blade Runner • Citizen Sleeper • Ghost in the Shell • The Hainish Cycle • Murderbot • Signalis • SOMA

You'll probably enjoy it! We don't have a set meeting time yet (though currently, we're all in American time zones I think). I also haven't decided what system we're going to use, though it's between Carbon 2185 and Neon City Overdrive. We'll be using Roll20 to meet.

Anyway, if you're interested, send me a DM and I can hook you up with the Discord invite!

Also please be cool. No racists, transphobes, etc. We'll probably be dealing with some at least semi-serious themes, so if that turns you off, this may not be the game for you.

(Art by AlexAntropov86)

[hawkesque]

what if i started to exclusively post about a loosely connected series of books that first came out in the 1960s and how they relate to my chosen program of study. would you guys be mad

[sparklywaistcoat]

Man, there are some stories by Ursula Le Guin where it is blindingly obvious that she was raised by anthropologists.

[theeclecticlibrary]

[homospockual]

“the day before the revolution,” ursula k. le guin

[beachgothgay]

Just finished The Word For World Is Forest and I sobbed. Please read the Hainish "cycle" they're such beautiful books.

[kettricken]

Planet of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Sanrio

[a-ramblinrose]

“I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination.”

― Ursula K. LeGuin, The Left Hand of Darkness

[wykart]

Me when I have to program using Ansible at my job

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2024

#1 - The Day Before the Revolution, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Rating: 5/5 stars

I challenged myself to read all the novels of the Hainish Cycle several years ago, and did, but I certainly haven't read all the associated short stories and novellas, so I finally went back for one I'd missed. I was worried that it had been so long since reading The Dispossessed, which I didn't even like that much compared to much of Le Guin's other work, that I would have some sort of difficulty with this.

I didn't. It doesn't rely on much of its most closely related novel in the cycle at all--just that an anarchic revolution happened and that a woman named Odo founded the ideals of the culture that emerged. Because this is a brief window into Odo's life as an old woman on the cusp of that revolution.

For such a short piece of work, this can be interpreted as being about a great many things. Aging and ageism, certainly. Grief, too, because Laia Odo continued to try to define herself, at least internally, as the lover of a man who, at that point, was long dead. There's a sort of frustrated futility in Laia as well, that some things don't change no matter how aware she is that she has changed society with her actions, and that her legacy doesn't mean anything to her now as an old woman, because hero worship isn't a replacement for love.

It's deeply and beautifully sad, and I loved it.

[devoutjunk]

The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin

[shojoboy]

if they fucked in that tent that book would have been a solid 5/5 but your getting a 4.8 from me ursula. so think abt that