Ursula K. Le Guin: The Hainish Novels and Stories: A Library of America Boxed Set (Library of America, 296-297) Hardcover – September 5, 2017

Overview:This first volume is easily one of the finest books I've ever read. Nothing between these pages outright failed for me, and the progression from Rocannon's World through to the Dispossessed was a journey I'll never forget. I highly recommend reading it from start to finish without long pauses between novels and stories.Rocannon's World:This is my first longer work by Le Guin to read, and honestly, I'm glad I waited. My prediction is that context is everything. Had I stumbled across this in a magazine as a young man, shoved between more standard stories, I'd have probably found it meandering and overly pastoral. Within the context of my current self-taught master class on Le Guin, I found it fascinating and delightful.I loved the writing, the references, the slow and steady pace, and the feeling of loneliness, loss, melancholy, and exile, yet perseverance.Planet of Exile:I read this immediately after Rocannon's World, and while I liked that one better than Planet of Exile, I felt more in tune with Le Guin's soft and beautiful style in this one. There is something extremely different here than in other books of a similar type. Most books published these days, especially in fantasy and SF, focus on a detailed world and plot, have often thin archetypal characters, and obvious YA-esque themes. In Planet of Exile, I felt the themes almost took the front stage, with the plot and characters there almost as fable-like vehicles. That isn't to say the characters are thin or archetypal, they aren't. Nothing about this felt familiar to me at all. I was always captivated and held.However, those looking for a climactic finish in a more narrative driven sense would be disappointed. In fact, readers concerned with strong narrative should probably look elsewhere. Personally, I felt the quiet and arguably joyous conclusion fitting.And despite the obvious 'winter is coming' connection, I'd still be surprised if GRRM hadn't read this at some point in the past. There are more than a few similarities (page-count and completion not being one of them...)City of Illusions:Rocannon's World - Planet of Exile - and now City of Illusions. I've really enjoyed them all. Wonderful to read, as the prose is like a slow mindful walk through a beautiful but sometimes harsh countryside. And in fact, the majority of this third Hainish novel IS an actual walk through a beautiful but harsh countryside.Of the three, this is the one that gave me the most pause. It's pace, though steady and lovely, is slow. I was teetering towards a feeling of 'okay, let's get going'... but, that's years of reading bad books having ill trained me for Le Guin's expertise. This book absolutely has to be this way. It's the classic show, don't tell adage being utilized when most writer's would've taken a short-cut. One must make the long walk along with Falk, observe what he observes, and live in his footsteps, for the end of the novel to truly deliver.Le Guin states that this novel had a villain problem and I believe she is right. But it didn't detract from my enjoyment, nor did this limitation stand out to me while reading.Left Hand of Darkness:One must be in the right frame of mind for much of Le Guin. These novels are focused on the journey, and rely on the reader to stick with it despite it sometimes feeling irrelevant, cold, distant, etc. Those descriptions are accurate, by the way. City of Illusions and Left Hand of Darkness are cold and distant, and can feel plodding, almost joylessly picaresque. But, both also pay off. At least for me they did. The characters learn things about themselves and each other that they otherwise could not have learned.Genly Ai, the main character, enters into a situation in which he is quietly superior, moderately judgmental, debatably unwilling to adapt in some ways, and overly self-important. Yet, he is also ignorant and smugly proud of his own admissions. His liaison on Gethen is Estraven, who shares many of those same traits, or seems to anyway. And then, blow after blow, Genly learns that he knows nothing. The man he is at the end is rich with ignorance and loss where the man at the beginning is flush with naivety. Sure, other characters in other novels grow and learn and have arcs or whatever, but here its more of a complete transformation. It's an undoing.And frankly, a little undoing would be good for all of us right now. Set aside all our 'facts' and 'opinions' and things we incontrovertibly 'know', and just say to ourselves, like Estraven does when looking out at the ice upon his likely demise, "I'm glad I have lived to see this."The DispossessedThe Dispossessed, in comparison to the previous five Hainish entries, for me, was the most difficult to get into, and ultimately the most rewarding. In a bold stroke of genius, it is the most literary but also the most science-fictional. Many SF novels/stories these days don't even really need the SF, it's just window dressing or a cool setting. This story though couldn't be told without the SF. And yet, it is a story about a man's journey away from and return home. It is a character study through and through.I do wonder how I would have enjoyed this not only out of the context of the other five novels, but also had I read them over the course of many years as opposed to back to back. I feel each one ups the ante of the last, takes on more complexity, and ultimately prepares the reader for the next level. I feel like a casual reader stepping into this or Left Hand of Darkness may struggle with the slow and difficult beginnings.My favorite part about both the Dispossessed and Left Hand of Darkness lies with the characters' imperfections. Shevek is persuasive and intelligent and also full of contradictions and failures of self-awareness. He struggles and fails time and time again against the mechanisms in place around him, and while he does (greatly) impact the world(s) for the better, his personal journey is what matters.The method used to tell Shevek's contrasting experiences on Anarres and Urrus is initially challenging, but essential. Like the other novels, patience and trust pay dividends to readers that stay with it.The stories:These were excellent as well. Winter's King was my least favorite, and reading the 1969 version didn't change this. Vaster Than Empires and More Slow is a stand alone story with some Philip K. Dick style moments. While this was the most 'standard' of the stories, it was very enjoyable. The Day Before the Revolution I loved, and it was at this moment, reading this story, that I realized what an amazing volume of work this was. Coming of Age in Karhide 'fleshes' out some details from Left Hand of Darkness and kemmering. Also a great addition.The essays:Surprisingly, the essays did little for me. The ground covered in them is better covered in the novels themselves. While they weren't bad, they just didn't open anything up or make me think differently about what I had read in any way.That said, there's not a page in this volume that warrants skipping.This second volume is weaker than the first but still well worth the read. Part of this has to do with how Le Guin chose to write her Hainish cycle. Volume one ends with the knockout punches of Left Hand of Darkness and the Dispossessed (and some knockout punch stories), while this one opens with the weakest and most heavy handed of the novels in The Word for World is Forest.The individual stories here are excellent though, but Le Guin is a slow burn read, and these long stories may pose some difficulties for casual readers (as if casual readers would be tackling volume 2 of the Hainish Novels and Stories). I found them to be very enjoyable, but often taxing on my intellectual stamina. Taking notes helped.Unchosen Love introduces the 'sedoretu' of Planet O and continues with Mountain Way; my two favorite stories in this volume. If Le Guin were alive today, I'd write her a letter beginning for an O novel. (Not to be confused with Oprah, though an O novel would almost certainly get an O seal of approval.) The sedoretu are complicated, believable, somehow functional, and an absolute joy to read about.Forgiveness Day is wonderful, and the 5 stories in Four Ways to Forgiveness (yes, one was added) are all very good as well, but very political. I don't necessarily mean political in terms of references to here on Earth (though certainly there's some commentary on our human behaviors), but political within the actual stories themselves. They are, ultimately, stories about a way of life being overthrown, and are handled in a very realistic manner.The final piece, The Telling, didn't hold up to the earlier novels. While Word for World is Forest had an adventure element to it that made it 'fun', the Telling is a very serious novel with very important and fascinating ideas, but I felt disconnected from the protagonist, and as such, the novel felt more like an exercise in invented sociology.I still wholeheartedly recommend reading these two volumes, and reading them together.

Found this by accident. I have been a collector of SCI FI for a long while, and love the older novels andthe authors that made sci fi great.It is unusual to find a whole series on one volume(s) and saw this and immediately got it. This is two books in a slip case. The paper is almost bible-thin, and writing small. It is a page marker built in. It is well done. At the price, I could not be denied and bought it.This is a fantastic deal, by a fantastic author, and one of the greatest series in sci fi. One of the best adds to my collection to date.

We lost Ursula K. Le Guin this week, which makes this fine edition of her most famous and popular works seem all the more precious. I have decades-old paperback and sci-fi book club editions of many of these novels and stories, some so thumbed and yellow that they are falling to pieces. Having them gathered in this welcome, handsome, quality binding with a hard slipcase and printed on acid free paper frees space on my bookshelves. And I won't have to worry about pages falling out for decades to come as I revisit them.Her writing is fluid, rhythmic, and poetic, rife with finely crafted and thought provoking beautiful sentences and paragraphs.In my humble opinion these volumes are a very good value.

Any one of these books is an incredible flight of imagination and demonstration of best qualities of the human spirit. That they're all together in a box set, and that the printing is such hugh quality, make it a treause. Easily one of the pieces in my library I'm most proud of. Just buy them now!

I haven't read any of the stories yet, so my review will focus on the physical properties of this edition.I usually don't like omnibuses very much unless the series includes short stories. And since there are over a dozen short stories in the Hainish "series," I really appreciate having them all collected in two convenient volumes along with the Hainish novels. The books themselves are high-quality and will last many years on my shelf without a problem.As others have mentioned, the books are a little smaller than I had imagined them to be. The pages are very thin, like those of a Bible. Volume One is 1095 pages long, but it's only about an inch and a half thick. Volume Two is a bit smaller at 789 pages, so I'm not sure why the description lists the page count as 2100.The only real downside for me is that the slipcase is actually much nicer looking than the book covers, which are themselves rather bland and uninteresting. But that's not a big deal. I'm more interested in what's between the covers than what's on them.Hope this helps anyone who's considering getting these

Ursula le Guin is a classic writer who's books I really appreciate.

So far I am really happy with the purchase. I didn't notice the dimensions before ordering, and I am a little bit disappointed that they are a little smaller than normal hardbound books.

I love the books and the presentation box, I bought for myself but it would make a lovely gift for any reader.