The Telling by Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guinis an iconic voice whose books, like Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World is Forest, made people rethink their assumptions of the society they lived in. She is intimidatingly intellectual but writes characters who are real and full of heart. She is a personal role model of mine, so it’s difficult to write a less-than-glowing review about The Telling, a late entry into Le Guin’s HAINISH CYCLE stories.

This slim novel is more of a philosophical study of the nature of fundamentalism than a complete story. Sutty is an Indo-Canadian language scholar who comes to the planet Aka to study its languages and literature. Space travel takes decades in planetary time; by the time Sutty arrives, sixty years after she left, she discovers a planet that has experienced a cultural revolution. E... Read More