Dystopian futures are a dime a dozen in SF, and while there are some brilliant exceptions (MaddAddam) most of them are unoriginal variations on 1984, and various kinds of nuclear apocalypses. LeGuin, however is one of the few writers who defies the happy utopias are all alike dictum, with her wealth of diverse worlds and societies, most of which seem to have things figured (or at least have a much better handle on how to be a society than we in the real world do).

Of course if I'm listing why you should read LeGuin, I could go on with the laundry list of poetic prose, wonderful world building, nuanced cultures, representatively diverse protagonists, well developed characters which is refreshing in well researched and coherent SciFi ... all of this suffused with humour.

I also love the fact that there's no set order to read the books in Hainish cycle, because they're all interlinked and you really have to re-read everything in a few(several?, all?) different orders to fully glean everything, makes it all feel so much more like real history or mythology, than well ordered trilogies, and series. Though this collection stands out pretty well as a stand-alone anthology by itself.