kangeiko

A distant planet is home to two interconnected human colonies: the hierarchical City, founded by convicts exiled from Earth, and the egalitarian Town, founded by a group of pacifists. They have little in common besides having been removed from Earth because authorities there found them inconvenient, and they have very different visions for their shared planet's future. The City sees itself as the legitimate planetary government (they were there first and they perceive the Town as weak and worthy only of exploitation) while the Town sees itself as the City's equal and expects to resolve issues through nonviolent dialogue. Our protagonist is Luz, the daughter of a powerful City leader. As she learns more about the Town and her father's plans for it, Luz sees a deadly conflict brewing and finds herself caught in the middle.

Le Guin was quoted as saying that this book "might be" part of the Hainish Cycle. I'm not sure the timeline quite fits (not that she ever sweated the timeline) but the themes certainly do. My impression on re-reading is that this one does a lot of things that The Word for World Is Forest tried to do, but better—and it does some of the things that The Dispossessed already did, with less detail but with some insightful additional angles.

( cut for length )

I really like this book, and I definitely got more out of it as an adult, especially in the context of Le Guin's earlier work. I don't hear it mentioned very often when people talk about her, but I think there's more here to chew on than I first realized.