Wow…what a loss. I first read her original Earthsea trilogy when I was 12 years old. It was one of my favorite series of books. Interestingly, I see that she wrote A Wizard of Earthsea the year I was born.
I’ve been meaning to read her other books for literally decades now…
RIP, Ms. Le Guin… 
It is good that her brilliance was recognized inside and outside the field while she was still alive. I read “The Left Hand of Darlness” when it came out as an Ace Science Fiction Special, and it got the critical acclaim it deserved.
A great writer, and a great writer up to the end.
One of the three fan letters that I have ever written was to her, and she responded in an amazing and noble way. If I had to pick one author on earth, it would be her. Not only a great writer but a great person. Can’t think of anyone even remotely like her.
*The Dispossessed * is one of the reasons I’m an anarchist, as she dealt with its shortcomings as well as its positives.
Shit.
I am trying to clean up all the Nebula Awards I never got around to, so I’m right in the middle of reading Dispossessed for the first time.
Shit.
“You will die. You will not live forever. Nor will any man nor any thing. Nothing is immortal. But only to us is it given to know that we must die. And that is a great gift: the gift of selfhood. For we have only what we know we must lose, what we are willing to lose… That selfhood which is our torment, and our treasure, and our humanity, does not endure. It changes it is gone, a wave on the sea. Would you have the sea grow still and the tides cease, to save one wave, to save yourself?”
— Ursula le Guin, The Farthest Shore
Damn.
My mother read the Earthsea trilogy when she was young, and she gave them to me to read when I was a kid. When I was a teenager I discovered her sci-fi stuff, and I’ve been meaning to re-read The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed for some time now. I love how she remained politically active late in her life, up to and including writing a letter to the editor about the Bundy takeover of Malheur in 2016.
May none speak your True Name again, Ursula, and in walking away from Omelas may you find peace.
I was startled to see this on the Net this morning. Left Hand of Darkness was one of my early SF reads, and I read much of her stuff afterwards (although I never did get into her Earyhsea books). I was amazed to learn that the “K” in her name was for “Kroeber”, and that her anthropologist father was indeed the same man who was “Ishi’s” sponsor. You can’t get much closer to your work than that.
Also, the author of Ishi, Last of His Tribe is Ursula’s mom. I remember the book well.
A great talent, and a great loss.
Today I am sad.
Holy smoke! I have never read the book but, being friends with an expert flintknapper, am familiar with it. I had no idea.
I had only six years, not thirty, but when DesertWife died, this story read by LeGuin herself, sustained me.
In order of influence on myself, my favorite fantasy authors are J.R.R. Tolkien (Middle Earth), Ursula K. LeGuin (Earthsea), C.S. Lewis (Narnia), and Gene Wolfe (New Sun). Like the others, the world she describes therein deeply resonates with me. By reading her, she has greatly impacted my life. I don’t know what her goals for writing were, but I like to think that was one of them.
I’ve read much of her other work, too, although it’s been years. I should go back to reread them all. I should revisit her Earthsea sequels. I eagerly read Tehanu when it came out, but it had no magic for me. Likely because both the author and reader had changed over the years. But given she felt strongly enough to publish, I’ll try again.
What a brilliant author she was, and what pain there is in losing her.
Yours in brotherhood,
Shodan
I can’t take credit for remembering this quote – read it somewhere else this morning – but it’s so perfect as an epitaph:
She did her work well. I’m always struck, when I read Earthsea, about how slim the books are, and yet how they seem so much bigger within: she made every word do its work, and she had the most beautifully spare, lean prose style. Plus I like Richard Kadrey’s assessment that Ursula le Guin was “the cure for Heinlein”.
Agreed on all counts. I think I understand why folks like Heinlein, but he drives me up the goddamned wall, and for him but not Le Guin to be included in examples of the masters of SF is to my mind insane. She is in every respect a better writer and a wiser human.
I told my class today about her death, and about how the Earthsea books were to my mind superior to Harry Potter (jaws dropped). Someone asked me whether they had more pages than HP, and I said no, but realized they think that means they’re an easier read.
Her books made me first think of good literature like heavy bread: dense and chewy and a little bit at a time would fill you up far more than a mass of cotton candy. There’s room for both in the world and in my reading diet, but I treasure what Le Guin brings me.
In my mind, and from my experience, the most notable thing about Le Guin’s writing is this: the older (and presumably wiser) I grew, the more I appreciated it.
I love this passage so much. There’s nothing in that that a nine year old couldn’t read, and yet it says everything it needs to so perfectly.
A little more of the magic has gone out of the world.
Lucky are they that find Le Guin in their youth, that they may return to her in the fullness of life, and again when they are old.