Ursula K. Le Guin was one of our most imaginative writers, a radical thinker, and a feminist icon. The interviews collected here span 40 years of her pioneering and prolific career.

When she began writing in the 1960s, Ursula K. Le Guin was as much of a literary outsider as one can be: she was a woman writing in a landscape dominated by men, she wrote genre at a time where it was dismissed as non-literary, and she lived out West, far from fashionable east coast literary circles. The interviews collected here—covering everything from her Berkeley childhood to her process of world-building; from her earliest experiments with genre to envisioning the end of capitalism—highlight that unique perspective, which conjured some of the most prescient and lasting books in modern literature.

The award-winning masterpiece by one of today's most honored writers!

When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters.

Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.

Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home is a major work of the imagination from one of America's most respected writers. More than five years in creation, it is a novel unlike any other.

A rich and complex interweaving of story and fable, poem, artwork, and music, it totally immerses the reader in the culture of the Kesh, a peaceful people of the far future who inhabit a place called the Valley on the Northern Pacific Coast. The author makes the inhabitants of the valley as familiar, as immediate, as wholly human as our own friends or family.

Spiraling outward from the dramatic life story of a woman called Stone Telling, Le Guin's Always Coming Home interweaves wry wit, deep insight and extraordinary compassion into a compelling unity of vision.

"Aqueles que abandonam Omelas" é ambientado numa cidade onde a felicidade de todos depende da infelicidade de uma criança, presa na sujeira, escuridão e miséria. Até quando isso pode durar?

Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. he will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Anarres, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change.

Featuring a new introduction by Ken Liu, this revised edition of Ursula K. Le Guin’s first full-length collection of essays covers her background as a writer and educator, on fantasy and science fiction, on writing, and on the future of literary science fiction.
“We like to think we live in daylight, but half the world is always dark; and fantasy, like poetry, speaks to the language of the night.” —Ursula K. Le Guin
Le Guin’s sharp and witty voice is on full display in this collection of twenty-four essays, revised by the author a decade after its initial publication in 1979. The collection covers a wide range of topics and Le Guin’s origins as a writer, her advocacy for science fiction and fantasy as mediums for true literary exploration, the writing of her own major works such as A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, and her role as a public intellectual and educator. The book and each thematic section are brilliantly introduced and contextualized by Susan Wood, a professor at the University of British Columbia and a literary editor and feminist activist during the 1960s and ’70s.
A fascinating, intimate look into the exceptional mind of Le Guin whose insights remain as relevant and resonant today as when they were first published.

◎本書榮獲
〈賽亟黎星球情事〉獲小詹姆斯．提普翠獎
〈荒山之道〉獲軌跡獎、小詹姆斯．提普翠獎
〈孤絕至上〉獲星雲獎
〈世界誕生之日〉獲軌跡獎
假如我們有異星同胞，我們會照見怎樣不同的人生？
「地海」系列、《黑暗的左手》重量級作家
八個思索生命開始與終結、個體與群體、冒險與流浪、愛與恨、性與欲的人生詩篇
打破我們對自身人性想像的侷限，真正進入無限可能的宇宙
在瀚星世界中，人類移民太空已有很長的歷史，許多殖民星球已發展出與祖星瀚星或地球大為不同的社會文化制度，甚至連生理結構也演化出異變。星際聯盟「伊庫盟」致力探索散步宇宙各處的人類移民社會，在學者與使者的努力下，忠實記錄人類文明的種種可能面貌：
在格森星的雙性同體人類社會中，孩子轉大人，首次面對自身生理的巨大變化與勃發的陌生情慾－－那會是什麼樣的成年儀式？
賽亟黎星社會的性別制度是另一種相當倒反的關係，女男生活嚴格分隔，女性擔起整個社會的運作大任，男性除了各式體能競賽與表演之外，僅有提供性愛與生育的功能。當外星文化終於介入，這層嚴格的分際與規範是否受到衝擊？
如果一個社會徹底崇尚孤絕、獨立，致力避免以任何形式介入個人生命，會是什麼景況？一位來自瀚星的人類學家母親，帶著一對子女試圖融入這樣的社會，以期進行深入的調查研究，卻沒有想到這個獨特的孤絕文化對她的兒女各自造成什麼影響。這是一種文明退化閉鎖現象，還是性靈發展至極端的一種可能？
一艘移民太空船已航行宇宙長達五個世代。船上的移民無時無刻不為未來可能的登陸做準備，一切設施、制度、生活方式、教育方向都導向這個目標；然而，不同的聲音慢慢形成。新生代完全在人工環境中成長、學習、生活，「母星」只是種種知識的綜合體或模擬影像。這群人如何選擇、創造自己的未來？心目中的新故鄉、新樂園究竟何在？
八個異星紀事，帶我們航向宇宙最深處，也讓我們在離家最遠的地方返回最真實、最多樣的自我。
美國科奇幻代表作家娥蘇拉．勒瑰恩，充分運用科幻類型的無限想像特性，將人類社會型態發展的諸多可能，充分地演繹表達在這八個雋永的故事之中。勒瑰恩最擅長的乃以擬人類學田野觀察筆記與記錄側寫，將想像虛構的社會文化風貌，及其底下的現實人性問題，深刻地呈現出來，且毫無斧鑿痕跡，即便說教也說得趣味與餘韻十足。可以說，勒瑰恩從《黑暗的左手》與《地海巫師》開始至今所想要藉由文學去挖掘、思索、探討的諸多複雜議題，本書中的八個故事不僅是文字風格還是形式結構上，都堪稱典範。
「勒瑰恩的作品總是帶領我們超越對性別認知的尋常侷限，這部小說集也不例外。」
－－《紐約客》雜誌
「她是少數幾位能成功從科幻類型作家一躍成為重要作家的人。」
－－華盛頓郵報
「她筆下的人物性格豐富令人難忘，她的文筆更是以優雅不失強勁而著稱。」
－－時代雜誌
「勒瑰恩是位極為睿智且機智的作家，高明的說書人，幽默與力道堪比馬克吐溫。」
－－波士頓環球報
「再一次，勒瑰恩力道十足的作品證明：科幻小說不必然是逃避現實的東西，性別研究不一定都是尖澀刺耳的聲音，娛樂也不盡然是無腦的內容。」
－－洋蔥雜誌
「一道純粹的星光。」
－－科克斯評論
「勒瑰恩在本書所完成的，只能以「美」來形容。她探索了種種關係：我們可能對彼此感到陌生，甚至有如外星異客，但仍相愛。讀著讀著我甚至不知不覺流下淚來，我只知道我深深受到感動。」
－－牙買加裔加拿大科幻小說家、《午夜盜賊》作者／娜洛．霍普金森
「這是最偉大的科幻小說大師所寫的八篇睿智美妙的故事所集結而成的小說集，優美，深刻，令人著迷。」
－－美國科幻小說名家／羅伯．席維柏格

Ged, the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, was called Sparrowhawk in his reckless youth.

Hungry for power and knowledge, Sparrowhawk tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION—WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY DAVID MITCHELL AND A NEW AFTERWORD BY CHARLIE JANE ANDERS

Ursula K. Le Guin’s groundbreaking work of science fiction—winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards.

A lone human ambassador is sent to the icebound planet of Winter, a world without sexual prejudice, where the inhabitants’ gender is fluid. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the strange, intriguing culture he encounters...

Embracing the aspects of psychology, society, and human emotion on an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of intellectual science fiction.