This is the second novel I’ve read in Le Guin’s ‘Hainish’ cycle, which is a loosely connected series of novels that features some of the same locales or concepts, but are plot and character-wise, not reliant on one another.

As always, Le Guin’s masterful hand at crafting fictional cultures and developing nuanced and detailed political situations around them is on full display here. Even more outright political in nature than the Left Hand of Darkness, The Dispossessed concerns such topics as individualism and collectivism, materialism, economics, war, academia, gender and identity politics, all in a relatable way of writing that feels not only incredibly researched, but in a way that feels like it’s coming from personal experience with and genuine observance of said societal structures and concepts… and the idea that a truly perfect Utopia isn’t exactly possible— that some level of sacrifice is needed to achieve the closest thing to Utopian that is possible.

Without the need for typical sci-fi conventions and imagery, Le Guin, perhaps more than any other acclaimed author in the genre, really knows how to exploit the strengths of the genre in the way that it can be a very convincing glimpse into fictional realities, but not in a way that feels like mere ‘worldbuilding’ fiction , like a lot of fantasy and sci-fi can very easily veer into.