madteaparty Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I love the stuff she says and writes about things; I can’t read science fiction though. Is there a gateway book? I’ve read the interviews. Thank you! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Do you mean something with no aliens or spaceships or dragons or magic or anything? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 She wrote some non-scifi fiction; it's largely not as good as her genre stuff by a mile, although Searoad is pretty good (short stories about the Oregon coast). It lacks majesty, of course. She wrote some books about writing and I think her most recent book must have some politics/straight sociopolitical writing - those blog posts are gone now and there's a link to the book in their place. Can you not tolerate any scifi/fantasy or is it certain kinds that you don't like more than others? She wrote across the genre, to a degree. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maize Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 What is it about science fiction and/or fantasy that you don't like? That might help us figure out more approachable options. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 What is it about science fiction and/or fantasy that you don't like? That might help us figure out more approachable options.It’s just not something I enjoy. I make myself read all sorts of stuff (like Hegel now in the hope that it will start to make sense if I look at it annually for as long as I live 😂) but I don’t want another academic exercise ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted January 25, 2018 Author Share Posted January 25, 2018 Do you mean something with no aliens or spaceships or dragons or magic or anything?Magic is fine. I love fairytales. Space does nothing for me ;) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Great, the Earthsea trilogy has no space at all. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bibiche Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I'd try The Left Hand of Darkness. I am not a fan of science fiction either, but I quite enjoyed that book. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Most of her more overtly political fiction (although not so political that I don't love them, even though we have different politics) are more space-y, but generally people don't spend a lot of time in spaceships and there's not much in the way of spaceships fighting each other or whatever, a la Star Wars. Her stuff that involves space is usually just set up as an avenue to talk about people/aliens who are significantly different from humans in some way, or to explore the ways in which humans/human-like people who have been separated for millenniaxmillennia differ and how they resolve those differences when they come into contact again. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Yes, The Left Hand of Darkness is a good example - the main character is one type of human-like person, essentially similar to us, and he arrives on a planet to establish relations with the people of that planet, who are different in the way Le Guin wants to explore (in this case, they don't have a fixed gender/biological sex). A spaceship exists but it's not really much of the action - although the idea of it (the idea of a group of people Not Like Us Waiting Out There To Interact With Us) is a central idea. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kiana Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Great, the Earthsea trilogy has no space at all. This is what I came in to recommend. I love these books. One of my role-playing characters is named from this trilogy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tanaqui Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Science fiction is a very broad category. Is it only space operas you don't like? If so, you might still like The Dispossessed (there is space travel, but that's not the point of the book and our main character only goes from his moon to the orbited planet) or Lathe of Heaven (trippy, is all I can say). Earthsea is, of course, all fantasy, as is her Gifts trilogy. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Earthsea books (more than three!) have no space - they are fantasy (magic, dragons). Orsinian Tales (book of short stories) are set on Earth in a fictional Eastern-European country in the realistic past. There is also a novel set in Orsinia (Malafrena), but I have to say it's the one thing she's written I wouldn't highly recommend. I love the short stories, though. Searoad is another collection of short stories set in a town in Oregon, mostly I think in the 20th century, realistic fiction. I do have to say that most of her science fiction has nothing at all to do with space. It's set in the future on planets that are not Earth, but inhabited by humans that have different social, cultural and political customs. She uses these scenarios to imagine what would be different if... (say, gender is not a thing and everyone is just a person, and what would someone from our society make of one like that - that's Left Hand of Darkness), or reflect back on ourselves (say, what would a society that is truly non-hierarchical and holds everything in common actually be like? And what would someone from a society like that think about one more like ours - that's The Dispossessed). Space travel exists but mostly off-screen; the novels are not usually set in space or involve much if any time on spacecraft or worrying about it. Those two books are her most famous, and well worth reading. She also wrote a book which she dubbed 'an archaeology of the future' (Always Coming Home), in which an archaeologist from our times inexplicably is studying a post-apocalyptic but idealistic/utopian society set somewhere in the Pacific northwest. I did like it, but it's a very slow and rather dense read; I don't know that I'd recommend it to anyone as an entry point to her work! 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Yes, The Left Hand of Darkness is a good example - the main character is one type of human-like person, essentially similar to us, and he arrives on a planet to establish relations with the people of that planet, who are different in the way Le Guin wants to explore (in this case, they don't have a fixed gender/biological sex). A spaceship exists but it's not really much of the action - although the idea of it (the idea of a group of people Not Like Us Waiting Out There To Interact With Us) is a central idea. The main character is not just human-like; he is a human from Earth. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalsummer Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 The main character is not just human-like; he is a human from Earth. Ah, I thought he might be! (in remembering it) but then I thought, maybe not, hard to say. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim in Appalachia Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I would say Searoad or Lavinia, or maybe The Lathe of Heaven Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 Ah, I thought he might be! (in remembering it) but then I thought, maybe not, hard to say. It's very explicitly said that he was born and raised on Earth. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted January 25, 2018 Share Posted January 25, 2018 I would say Searoad or Lavinia, or maybe The Lathe of Heaven Ooo, I forgot Lavinia! A retelling of the Anaeid from her point of view. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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