Most Popular Books by Ursula K Le Guin

The first novel of Ursula K. Le Guin's must-read Earthsea Cycle. "The magic of Earthsea is primal; the lessons of Earthsea remain as potent, as wise, and as necessary as anyone could dream." (Neil Gaiman) Ged was the greatest sorcerer in Earthsea, but in his youth he was the reckless Sparrowhawk. In his hunger for power and knowledge, he tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tumultuous tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance. With stories as perennial and universally beloved as The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of The Rings—but also unlike anything but themselves—Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea novels are some of the most acclaimed and awarded works in literature. They have received accolades such as the National Book Award, a Newbery Honor, the Nebula Award, and many more honors, commemorating their enduring place in the hearts and minds of readers and the literary world alike. Join the millions of fantasy readers who have explored these lands. As The Guardian put it: "Ursula Le Guin's world of Earthsea is a tangled skein of tiny islands cast on a vast sea. The islands' names pull at my heart like no others: Roke, Perilane, Osskil .

[Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website][1]: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969) > One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. For more than 40 years I've been recommending this book to people who want to try science fiction for the first time, and it still serves very well for that. One of the things I like about it is how clearly it demonstrates that science fiction can have not only the usual virtues and pleasures of the novel, but also the startling and transformative power of the thought experiment. > In this case, the thought experiment is quickly revealed: "The king was pregnant," the book tells us early on, and after that we learn more and more about this planet named Winter, stuck in an ice age, where the humans are most of the time neither male nor female, but with the potential to become either. The man from Earth investigating this situation has a lot to learn, and so do we; and we learn it in the course of a thrilling adventure story, including a great "crossing of the ice". Le Guin's language is clear and clean, and has within it both the anthropological mindset of her father Alfred Kroeber, and the poetry of stories as magical things that her mother Theodora Kroeber found in native American tales. This worldly wisdom applied to the romance of other planets, and to human nature at its deepest, is Le Guin's particular gift to us, and something science fiction will always be proud of. Try it and see – you will never think about people in quite the same way again. [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-choice

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.

Arha's isolated existence as high priestess in the tombs of Atuan is jarred by a thief who seeks a special treasure.

“The Lathe of Heaven” ; 1971 ( Ursula Le Guin received the 1973 Locus Award for this story) George Orr has a gift – he is an effective dreamer: his dreams become reality when he wakes up. He is aware of his past and present, two or more sets of memories, although the people around him are only aware of the current reality. This science fiction story is set in Portland, Oregon, in/around the late 1990s - early 2000s. Orr begins to take drugs to suppress dreams but eventually he is sent to a psychotherapist, Dr. William Haber, who has developed an electronic machine, the Augmentor, which records the brain patterns of a person as they dream. When Haber realizes that he can use Orr's unique ability to change their world, the consequences are both beneficial and frightening, both locally and globally. Orr seeks out the help of a civil rights lawyer, Heather Lelache, who attends a treatment session, and sees Portland change before her very eyes as Orr awakens. In a strange turn of events, Heather helps Orr by putting him in a dream state where Orr can undo some of Haber's actions. The result – Aliens on the Moon land on Earth ! A special affinity exists between George Orr and the Aliens, who seem to understand his unique gift. Ultimately Haber decides to impose Orr's brain patterns on his own, so that he can bring about world-wide changes. Orr and Heather feel the chaos and a sense of a void as Haber dreams. Orr rushes back to Haber's office and turns off the Augmentor. The world returns to April 1998.

Mrs. Jane Tabby could not explain why all four of her children had wings. But it meant that her dreams for her kittens would some day come true. Thelma, Harriet, Roger, and James could fly away from the dangerous city slum and find a safer place to live. That day came. But who could have known what the four kittens would find in the woods...?

Young Memer takes on a pivotal role in freeing her war-torn homeland from its oppressive captors.

When young Gavir's sister is brutally killed, he escapes from slavery and sets out to explore the world and his own psychic abilities.

After being rescued by a flying cat, Alexander the cat decides to make good on a promise to do wonderful things.

With the aid of her magic wooden horse, a brave girl travels to the High House in the mountains to rescue her kidnapped brother from the trolls.

In this final episode of "The Earthsea Cycle", the widowed Tenar finds and nurses her aging friend, Sparrowhawk, a magician who has lost his powers.

A young prince joins forces with a master wizard on a journey to discover a cause and remedy for the loss of magic in Earthsea. Darkness Threatens to overtake Earthsea. As the world and its wizards are losing their magic, Ged -- powerful Archmage, wizard, and dragonlord -- embarks on a sailing journey with highborn young prince, Arren. They travel far beyond the realm of death to discover the cause of these evil disturbances and to restore magic to a land desperately thirsty for it.

Wishing to visit their mother, two winged cats leave their new country home to return to the city, where they discover a winged kitten in a building about to be demolished.

From a masterful writer of myth and fantasy, a beautiful reimagining of one of the most pivotal characters in Virgil's Aeneid

 

As the story goes, Virgil's hero fights to claim the king's daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to build an empire. Lavinia herself never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in a novel that takes us to the half-wild world of ancient Italy. Lavinia grows up knowing nothing but peace and freedom until her suitors arrive. Her mother wants her to marry handsome, ambitious Turnus. But omens and prophecies spoken by the sacred springs say she must marry a foreigner, that she will be the cause of a bitter war, and that her husband will not live long. When a fleet of Trojan ships sails up the Tiber, Lavinia decides to take her destiny into her own hands and tells us the story of her life—and her life's greatest love.

The misery of waiting for a connecting flight at an airport leads to the accidental discovery of alighting on other planes--not airplanes but planes of existence. Ursula Le Guin's premise frames a series of travel accounts by the tourist-narrator who describes bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own, and sometimes open puzzling doors into the alien.

Eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity. Here are stories that explore complex social interactions and troublesome issues of gender and sex; that define and defy notions of personal relationships and of society itself; that examine loyalty, survival, and introversion; that bring to light the vicissitudes of slavery and the meaning of transformation, religion, and history.