But now word has come that a group of barbaric nomads, the Gaal, has organized into a mass army and is marching on both the farborn and the local natives, killing everyone in their path. So every season lasts for 15 years, and Winter is coming ― which is truly brutal everyone just hunkers down and survives on the food they’ve been able to store. The unique thing about Werel is that one of its years is equivalent to 60 normal Earth years. Their peoples have been separated for so long that the farborn can’t successfully have children with the natives, who they call hilfs (highly intelligent life forms). There’s cautious trading and relations between the more recent arrivals, but also deep suspicion of the “farborn” by the natives, with their blue-black skins and technology that the natives don’t comprehend. These humans have been on the planet far longer, seeded by the Hainish galactic civilization countless millennia ago. Werel also contains other tribes of humans in a primitive, superstitious pre-wheel society.
They’re holding on to as much technology as they are able, but are slowly losing ground. Stranded ever since, and having lost all communications with galactic society, this group is slowly dying out, unable to thrive in Werel’s environment (among other things, the rate of spontaneous abortion and stillbirths is extremely high). We’re on the backwater planet Werel, where a human colony from Earth landed some 600 years ago, dropped off by a starship than then left them to fight an unnamed enemy of humanity. Final review, first posted on Fantasy Literature: The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.Ī pretty strong 3 stars, but I've dropped off of my initial 3.5 star (rounded up) rating. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. She was known for her treatment of gender ( The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems ( The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls.
Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc.
0 kommentar(er)
