It should not surprise anyone that I choose the giant cephalopod over his other works as a first read. I don’t think it’s considered his best or anything, but I like it. There are some passages of astonishing writing where he describes the city using nautical and oceanic language and it’s so powerful. I don’t remember a ton about it but I remember someone folding up a cash register like a piece of paper and nobody acts particularly surprised about it. Anyone who reads Mieville has to have a high tolerance for that sort of thing.
Le Guin is IMO the greatest American fantasist, and one of the greatest American authors.
With that username, I expect you to say that. 
Edited to add context: The Left Hand of Darkness.
Yep! At first that post began, “It will surprise nobody that I think…” but I posted it simultaneously with @Spice_Weasel’s post that began, “It should not surprise anyone that I choose…” and I got insecure about looking like I was copying her text and edited mine, because I’m a goober.
I have a recording of the lady herself reading “Gwillan’s Harp” – one of my favorites of hers, a story of loss that I played time and again when my wife died. Here it is on YouTube, 14 minutes. The watery music ends after 90 seconds.
That is beautiful. Thank you.
Try me.
I used to love it. Rereads every year, searching out all the supplementary writings, that kind of thing. Still have the classic Cauty poster on my wall as I type this. Went to the premier of the first Jackson movie in Hobbit cosplay.
Nowadays, I can’t overlook the racism, classism, and the damn sausage fest of it all.
I think quite frankly Pratchett spoiled me for Tolkien.
True, that.
However, by that time Merry and Pippin were gone off, so they needed some comic relief. I mean, JRRT wrote them in as comic relief. But I do agree, Gimli - other than his grumbling- should not be the comic relief.
See, that is why JRRT was the very best at world building.
Yeah, I was sent that book to review. I was torn- the author is clearly some sort of genius, but I didnt like the book at all. Speculative Fiction is not a genre I enjoy.
I found a used copy on Amazon for $3, so I will give it a try- thanks.
I liked it, but the sequels didnt hold up- imho.
The books were great. The movies sucked.
Adding stuff like Aragorn’s weird walkabout that didn’t happen in the books, and omitting everything that happened at Isengard at the end of Book III, starting with Merry and Pippin greeting Theoden & Co. - really?! That’s the climax of Book III, and it happens offstage, we’re just told later that Isengard has fallen, or however they put it. And the siege of Gondor - in the movie, the Lord of the Nazgul had creatures that dwarfed the walls of Gondor, I remember thinking they could just step into the city the way you and I step over a curb. It made the confrontation between Gandalf and the Nazgul lord at the gate look like, well, why is this even happening?!
And that’s the crazy stuff I still remember after having only watched each movie once, back when they were in the theaters. I’m sure there was plenty more that I had problems with at the time. (I’m sure I made my feelings known here at the Dope, but I’m too lazy to search for it right now.)
Seriously, I don’t understand the love of Peter Jackson’s LOTR movies. To me, they just meant that it would be at least a generation before someone did them right.
But without Bombadil, we wouldn’t have had Tim Benzedrine in Bored of the Rings!
Tim, Tim Benzedrine,
Hash! Boo! Valvoline!
Clean! Clean! Clean for Gene!
First, second, neutral, park,
hie thee hence, you leafy narc!
You sure seem to have read a lot of it.
Have you ever seen the extended versions, or only the theatrical versions?
I watched them each in movie theaters at the time of their original release.
Put me down for the exact opposite in every way.
I can see how/why some people love the books. I can also see why I don’t.
If this is unacceptable have your seconds call on my seconds and we’ll settle this with a good old salmon-slapping contest.
Salmon?! Why, no true gentleman duels with salmon!
Gonna give you a haddock, I am!
Have you priced duel-quality haddock these days? Impossible. Large-mouth bass? That’s only a letter off from one of us (he typed innocently.)
Some excuse that is! Why, I bet you don’t even know what to take for a haddock!
I’m one of those who have read LOTR over a dozen times… though most of that was between the ages of 13 and 30.
It’s one of the books that is the most important to me, but I will agree with some of the ‘dislikes’ in this thread. I have had read-throughs where I’ve clung to every word, but other times where I just had no patience for elvish balladry, or where I skip much of the journey between Bree and Rivendell, or when Sam and Frodo are trekking south (there’s a lot of The Two Towers that I find myself glossing over on re-reads). But, at this point I don’t find my interest or lack thereof in specific sections to be an indictment of the book itself. It gives me what I’m looking for on each read, and if this time I don’t care about Tom Bombadil, it doesn’t mean that when I last read it I didn’t find that character moving.
I think the book delivers a compelling set of philosophies about how to endure in the face of un-avoidable loss, and that is what continues to move me.
That said, I’ll also echo that A Wizard of Earthsea and its subsequent books are stunning (including Tehanu, published 20 years after the first three). Where Tolkiens characters can be single-mindedly stoic, LeGuin’s are imbued with a much broader range of human emotion. And, while Tolkien’s world building is detailed, evocative, and verbose, hers is stark in contrast, but the relative simplicity of the prose is equally powerful, if not more so.
I’ve stopped recommending LotR to folks for various reasons, but continue to push Earthsea on anyone who seems even vaguely interested.
For the record, Tolkien did not invent modern fantasy, or even high fantasy.
He did popularize it and many people follow things he created/popularized (noble elves, quests being all male, etc.) but he hardly created it.
I’m probably alone, but the only book of Le Guin’s I like is The Tombs of Atuan.