Reviews
Excellent characterization and meaningful ideas make this one of the most important [science fiction] novels of the last several years., "Written with thought, care--even love." -- Times Literary Supplement (London) "Excellent characterization and meaningful ideas make this one of the most important [science fiction] novels of the last several years." -- Library Journal "This novel, by a celebrated Hungarian poet, depicts the world of his childhood...The narrator, a young boy whose family is shunned-it was once wealthy and is suspected of being Jewish-endures beatings, hunger, and taunts with the fatalism of someone who has never known anything else." -- New Yorker "Le Guin's characters, sepecially Shevek and his family, are complex and haunting, and her writing is remarkable for its sinewy grace." -- Time magazine "Engrossing . . . Ursula Le Guin is more than just a writer of adult fantasy and science fiction . . . she is a philosopher; an explorer in the landscapes of the mind." -- Cincinnati Enquirer "A seamless creation: every thing is made up, nothing seems arbitrary...Le Guin's book [is] written in her solid, no-nonsense prose." -- New York Times Book Review "Brilliantly conceived and stunningly executed . . . The setting is science fiction, but the tradition is humanistic, reducing life to its essentials and examining human beings in a real world." -- Chicago Daily News "The novel flashes back and forth . . . and delicately develops both the strengths and weaknesses of the two social systems, the contrasting textures of the two kinds of social experience . . . All through, this impresses with small but incalculably right choices which add up solidly and confirm Ms. Le Guin as one of our finest projectionists of brave old and other worlds." -- Kirkus Reviews, The novel flashes back and forth . . . and delicately develops both the strengths and weaknesses of the two social systems, the contrasting textures of the two kinds of social experience . . . All through, this impresses with small but incalculably right choices which add up solidly and confirm Ms. Le Guin as one of our finest projectionists of brave old and other worlds., This novel, by a celebrated Hungarian poet, depicts the world of his childhood…The narrator, a young boy whose family is shunned-it was once wealthy and is suspected of being Jewish-endures beatings, hunger, and taunts with the fatalism of someone who has never known anything else., Le Guin's characters, sepecially Shevek and his family, are complex and haunting, and her writing is remarkable for its sinewy grace., "Written with thought, care--even love." -- Times Literary Supplement (London) "Excellent characterization and meaningful ideas make this one of the most important [science fiction] novels of the last several years." -- Library Journal "Le Guin's characters, sepecially Shevek and his family, are complex and haunting, and her writing is remarkable for its sinewy grace." -- Time magazine "Engrossing . . . Ursula Le Guin is more than just a writer of adult fantasy and science fiction . . . she is a philosopher; an explorer in the landscapes of the mind." -- Cincinnati Enquirer "A seamless creation: every thing is made up, nothing seems arbitrary...Le Guin's book [is] written in her solid, no-nonsense prose." -- New York Times Book Review "Brilliantly conceived and stunningly executed . . . The setting is science fiction, but the tradition is humanistic, reducing life to its essentials and examining human beings in a real world." -- Chicago Daily News "The novel flashes back and forth . . . and delicately develops both the strengths and weaknesses of the two social systems, the contrasting textures of the two kinds of social experience . . . All through, this impresses with small but incalculably right choices which add up solidly and confirm Ms. Le Guin as one of our finest projectionists of brave old and other worlds." -- Kirkus Reviews, Engrossing . . . Ursula Le Guin is more than just a writer of adult fantasy and science fiction . . . she is a philosopher; an explorer in the landscapes of the mind., A seamless creation: every thing is made up, nothing seems arbitrary...Le Guin's book [is] written in her solid, no-nonsense prose., Brilliantly conceived and stunningly executed . . . The setting is science fiction, but the tradition is humanistic, reducing life to its essentials and examining human beings in a real world.