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From the Bookshelf of Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library…
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What Members Thought
There's not much to be said about this one that hasn't already been said. I thought this was a fascinating blend of dystopia and utopia, and I liked the way that it didn't simplify anything. Even the utopian society had its problems and issues, whereas the so-called dystopian society was acknowledged to have its strengths. The world-building and philosophy showed a ton of complexity, and I enjoyed it a lot. However, it's not an easy or fast-paced book, and I found myself often putting it down af
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The full title of Ursula K. Le Guin's award winning novel is The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. It's part of along tradition of ambiguous utopian novels that are thinly dressed critiques of contemporary society. In the case of The Dispossessed the two societies in question are the United States and the Soviet Union.
What makes Le Guin's utopia all the more ambiguous is her refusal to take sides. Both societies are flawed in a number of ways and yet both have supporters and detractors. Like s ...more
What makes Le Guin's utopia all the more ambiguous is her refusal to take sides. Both societies are flawed in a number of ways and yet both have supporters and detractors. Like s ...more
Le Guin from this period is hard to beat. I didn't love it quite as much as The Lathe of Heaven but it was close. She explores utopias in a fascinating way through the lens of the main character who has grown up on a desert-climate moon that is inhabited by an anarchist utopia commune. He is confronted with capitalists (as well as socialists and other cultures) on the planet to which his home is the moon as the first ever visitor there since the commune planet was created. Le Guin manages to ill
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I keep meaning to change my middle name to Shevek. But it costs like $300 in California! Otherwise I would. Actually I read this book BECAUSE I wanted to find a gender-neutral middle name.
Dec 06, 2007
Jennifer
rated it
it was amazing
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
favorites,
science-fiction
Sep 07, 2008
Dan
marked it as to-read
Jun 02, 2009
Dr M
rated it
really liked it
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
science-fiction,
political-fiction
Sep 20, 2010
M
marked it as to-read
Oct 02, 2010
Kelly
marked it as to-read
Feb 01, 2011
Kristen
marked it as to-read
Apr 12, 2014
Cairnraiser
marked it as to-read
Aug 26, 2018
Milad Ghezellu
marked it as to-read
