glitterbomb47's review
5.0
Wow. Why did I wait so long to read this book? Recommended to any feminist sci-fi fans.
ehermetics's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
betweenchaosandshape's review
4.0
"But my people, she thought, know only how to deny. Born in the dark shadow of power misused, we set peace outside our world, a guiding and unattainable light. All we know to do is fight. Any peace one of us can make in our life is only a denial that the war is going on, a shadow of the shadow, a doubled unbelief."
"There are truths that are not useful. All knowledge is local, my friend has said. Is it true, where is it true, that that child had to die in that way? Is it true, where is it true, that she did not have to die in that way?"
"Nobody knew anything about any time when things had been different. Nobody knew there was any place where things might be different. We were enslaved by the present time. Erod had talked of change, indeed, but the owners were going to make the change, we were to be freed, just as we had been owned. In history I saw that any freedom has been made, not given."
"What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery."
"There are truths that are not useful. All knowledge is local, my friend has said. Is it true, where is it true, that that child had to die in that way? Is it true, where is it true, that she did not have to die in that way?"
"Nobody knew anything about any time when things had been different. Nobody knew there was any place where things might be different. We were enslaved by the present time. Erod had talked of change, indeed, but the owners were going to make the change, we were to be freed, just as we had been owned. In history I saw that any freedom has been made, not given."
"What is one man's and one woman's love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? A little thing. But a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens. If you lose the key, the door may never be unlocked. It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery."
yak_attak's review against another edition
4.0
A complex, in depth look at culture, class, and society in the wake of slavery, civil war, revolution, and the powers that emerge in the outcome. As with most short story collections it's a little uneven, the first and last stories being slightly weaker than the other 3 - but we're still dealing with Le Guin at the height of her powers, and even a weaker Le Guin short story is full of brilliant language, insight, and compassion for those in all walks of life.
dhabia's review
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.75
poachedeggs's review
3.0
Reading is hard for a grown person to learn, tired, at night, after work all day. It is much easier to let the net take one's mind over.
kitkathy24's review against another edition
3.0
Four novellas centered on the dual-planet system of Werel (the colonizer planet) and Yeowe (the enslaved planet). Yeowe fought a War of Liberation to push out the colonizers, and then they descended into intertribal factionalism and patriarchy normalized during the slavery era. While Werelian slaves fought for their freedom, Yeowan women fought for their liberation from Yeowan men.
Deals with nested hierarchical social systems: slave vs. master; woman vs. man; domestic slave vs. farmhand slave; independent slave (owned by a Corporation) vs. private slave (owned by a family); abolitionist vs. freed slave; free warrior caste vs. free owner caste; and the struggle of non-slaves trying to interact with slaves without coercion. Deals with the influence of religion on social structure, and of social structure on religion. Lots of thinking on consent. Each novella is intertwined, with one or two cameos of characters from the other stories. Timelines are a little unclear between them.
Werel and Yeowe are close enough to the history of the Earth (Terra, in the Ekumen), that their thinking feels familiar. Beautifully builds concepts of different worldviews (e.g., the Hainish) such that they feel truly alien.
I’ve read enough of the Hainish Cycle now that I feel comfortable saying that Le Guin frequently, if not always, pairs up the lead characters romantically by the end of the story. It was especially noticeable in Four Ways to Forgiveness, where each story is so short, and every character ends up paired. I appreciate that it serves the argument that love is what brings us together and heals us, but I disagree that romantic/sexual love is necessary for that. I don’t think it’s always as effective as it could be. I think Le Guin articulated forgiveness and emotional understanding more skillfully in The Left Hand of Darkness.
The final story, A Woman’s Liberation, is the most narratively straightforward. It deals with some interesting tensions—a slave woman’s view on her former master, who frees her and becomes and abolitionist; the difficulty of retraining a people out of old learned social patterns; the importance of education to a person’s internal liberation—but it ran a little long and seemed like “trauma porn” to me. Maybe I just find it to not be my taste.
I struggled with whether to rate this 3 or 4 stars. It’s Le Guin, so I may have just set my internal bar too high. On the other hand, it may be because Werel and Yeowe are so similar to our Western capitalistic social structures, and because I just read A People’s History of the United States — the horrors of the dual-planet system didn’t feel shocking to me, just like more of the same. Maybe if this was one of the first of her works I read, I’d have liked it more. Hard to say.
Deals with nested hierarchical social systems: slave vs. master; woman vs. man; domestic slave vs. farmhand slave; independent slave (owned by a Corporation) vs. private slave (owned by a family); abolitionist vs. freed slave; free warrior caste vs. free owner caste; and the struggle of non-slaves trying to interact with slaves without coercion. Deals with the influence of religion on social structure, and of social structure on religion. Lots of thinking on consent. Each novella is intertwined, with one or two cameos of characters from the other stories. Timelines are a little unclear between them.
Werel and Yeowe are close enough to the history of the Earth (Terra, in the Ekumen), that their thinking feels familiar. Beautifully builds concepts of different worldviews (e.g., the Hainish) such that they feel truly alien.
I’ve read enough of the Hainish Cycle now that I feel comfortable saying that Le Guin frequently, if not always, pairs up the lead characters romantically by the end of the story. It was especially noticeable in Four Ways to Forgiveness, where each story is so short, and every character ends up paired. I appreciate that it serves the argument that love is what brings us together and heals us, but I disagree that romantic/sexual love is necessary for that. I don’t think it’s always as effective as it could be. I think Le Guin articulated forgiveness and emotional understanding more skillfully in The Left Hand of Darkness.
The final story, A Woman’s Liberation, is the most narratively straightforward. It deals with some interesting tensions—a slave woman’s view on her former master, who frees her and becomes and abolitionist; the difficulty of retraining a people out of old learned social patterns; the importance of education to a person’s internal liberation—but it ran a little long and seemed like “trauma porn” to me. Maybe I just find it to not be my taste.
I struggled with whether to rate this 3 or 4 stars. It’s Le Guin, so I may have just set my internal bar too high. On the other hand, it may be because Werel and Yeowe are so similar to our Western capitalistic social structures, and because I just read A People’s History of the United States — the horrors of the dual-planet system didn’t feel shocking to me, just like more of the same. Maybe if this was one of the first of her works I read, I’d have liked it more. Hard to say.
elenajohansen's review
5.0
I loved it. I didn't realize when I picked it up I was about to read sci-fi liberally spiked with actual romance; romance has rarely been more than a passing subplot in all the Le Guin I've read, and certainly nothing like this has appeared in the Hainish Cycle works up to this point.
So, being a fan, I was surprised and pleasantly impressed with the depth of feeling in each novella, the importance given to love and personal connection, contrasted with the larger workings of culture and society that the Hainish Cycle usually focuses on near-exclusively.
I was charmed by the small ties between the novellas, even an occasional recurring character. The four stories are definitely distinct and carry slightly different tones, variations on the theme of forgiveness, but they're similar enough to feel like a unified whole at the end. (Which is a feat in and of itself.)
I thought when I read The Left Hand of Darkness I had seen the best of the cycle, and I still think maybe I have, but this runs an extremely close second.
So, being a fan, I was surprised and pleasantly impressed with the depth of feeling in each novella, the importance given to love and personal connection, contrasted with the larger workings of culture and society that the Hainish Cycle usually focuses on near-exclusively.
I was charmed by the small ties between the novellas, even an occasional recurring character. The four stories are definitely distinct and carry slightly different tones, variations on the theme of forgiveness, but they're similar enough to feel like a unified whole at the end. (Which is a feat in and of itself.)
I thought when I read The Left Hand of Darkness I had seen the best of the cycle, and I still think maybe I have, but this runs an extremely close second.