Hainish Cycle

2 primary works • 4 total works

Planet of Exile

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Published 1 January 1966

The Earth colony of Landin has been stranded on Werel for ten years - and each of Werel's years is over 60 terrestrial years! After so long an exile, the lonely and dwindling human settlement is beginning to feel the strain.

Every winter - a season that lasts a decade and a half - the Earthmen have neighbours: the humanoid hilfs, a nomadic people who only settle down for the cruel cold spell. The hilfs fear the Earthmen, whom they think of as witches, and call the farborns. But both peoples have common enemies: the hordes of ravaging barbarians called gaals, and eerie preying snow ghouls.

Can the hilfs and the farborns overcome their mutual suspicions and join forces? Or will they both be annihilated?

City of Illusions

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Published 4 October 1973

Each volume in the "Modern Women Writers" series offers a complete fictional work by a contemporary female writer, which reflects a different culture and set of experiences. The books contain extensive study material and assignments at a range of levels for GCSE English and English literature courses. In addition to pre-reading activities and notes, the novels contain a reading log with ideas for group and individual assignments to help pupils comprehend the text. This is the story of a journey of discovery - a story full of riddles, allegories and echoes of ancient cultures; of Utopia, a fantastic city. It is a story of the discovery of many alien cultures in a "far-future Earth", of identity and self-knowledge by Falk, the central character, and of what is essentially human and civilizing in us all. The text is also suitable for adult students taking English examinations and for overseas students.

The Telling

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Published 1 January 2000

There have been eighty requests to send an Observer into the hinterlands of the planet Aka to study the natives. Much to everyone's surprise, the eighty first request is granted, and Observer Sutty is sent upriver to Okzat Ozkat, a small city in the foothills of Rangma, to talk to the remnants in hiding of a cult practising a banned religion. On Aka, everything that was written in the old scripts has been destroyed; modern aural literature is all written to Corporation specifications. The Corporation expects Sutty to report back so the non standardised folk stories and songs can be wiped out and the people 're educated'. But Sutty herself is in for an education she never imagined.

The Dispossessed

by Ursula K. Le Guin

Published 1 January 1974

One of the very best must-read novels of all time - with a new introduction by Roddy Doyle

'A well told tale signifying a good deal; one to be read again and again' THE TIMES

'The book I wish I had written ... It's so far away from my own imagination, I'd love to sit at my desk one day and discover that I could think and write like Ursula Le Guin' Roddy Doyle

'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power' OBSERVER

The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous communication. It is the life work of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the arid anarchist world of Anarres.

But Shevek's work is being stifled by jealous colleagues, so he travels to Anarres's sister-planet Urras, hoping to find more liberty and tolerance there. But he soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.