Vale Ursula Le Guin.

[Palantir]

Oh No!

I've just learnt that one of the all time great fantasy authors has died.

 

Ursula K Le Guin bewitched my mind with the beautiful imagery and ideas of her Earthsea series.

Time and again I have re-read these wonderful stories and now the next re-read will have an extra poignancy.

 

The sadness of loss when a great creator leaves us is tempered by the magical idea that part of them will stay forever with us through their work.

[Brayon]

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end." - Ursula K Le Guin

[JamesSavik]

You guys beat me to it.

 

Here's NPR's article link:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/23/580109007/ursula-le-guin-whose-novels-plucked-truth-from-high-fantasy-dies-at-88

[Former Member]

Ursula Le Guin also explored gender and sexuality in books like The Left Hand of Darkness.

[Rigel]

I was always fascinated by the deep thought that went into her writing, probably not so surprising given that her parents, Alfred and Theodora Kroeber, were a couple of very famous anthropologists in California and she grew up with Ishi, the last Indian of his Yahi tribe, whom her parents studied.  Always Coming Home was a completely fictional anthropological textbook her parents would have been proud of, and its greatest joy may that it introduced me to a tense in English I had never previously encountered, about a tribe that "might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California." (future perfect conditional?)

 

--Rigel

[Former Member]

3 minutes ago, Rigel said:

…a tribe that "might be going to have lived a long, long time from now in Northern California." (future perfect conditional?)

Sounds kind of like a discussion Leonard and Sheldon once had on an early episode of The Big Bang Theory.  ;-)

[Defiance19]

She was the guest speaker at my cousin’s graduation at Mills College in ‘83.. She has a copy of that incredible speech. 

This however popped up on my Twitter feed today. 

[Parker Owens]

Thanks for posting this quote from a favorite author. 

[northie]

I use the singular 'they' all the time (I think my editor's just about accepted it now ... ). I'm glad to have such an august backer. I never got into her books despite reading sci-fi for much of my teen years.