Not Ursula Le Guin's best sci fi story, but perhaps the one I will revisit the most. An early story in her Hainish cycle, multiple concepts and themes are brought up here which would get a full treatment in later stories, including The Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for Word is Forest. This book is not on the level of those, but it does not lose out from the comparison - Instead, this book feels written on a different level and in a different genre from those. This is Le Guin's Star Trek episode, launching into multiple sci fi favourites (societies with one clear gimmick, morality realigned based on surprising priorities, the place of technology in human life) with a shallow but enthusiastic hand. It's great fun, it knows precisely what it is, and it features the Moral Pig - 5 Stars!