City of Illusions

City of Illusion is where Le Guin both gets her teeth into the live high voltage wire of science fiction (to steal a phrase from Bruce Sterling) and fully comes into herself, and the major themes that will drive the rest of her fiction.

On Terra, in the far future, a man with golden eyes and no memories wanders into the Forest House. The people there take him in, introduce him to their elegant appropriate technology way of life, teach him to speak and hunt, and warn him of the terrible fate that has befallen man. Centuries ago, alien invaders calling themselves the Shing arrived with the power to mind-lie, to deceive while in telepathic communication which is otherwise impossible. The Shing broke human power and erased human history in a show more web of lies, leaving only their ultimate law: Reverence for life.

The amnesiac man character, called Falk by his rescuers, sets out toward Es Toch, the city of the Shing, in search of the truth about himself. His journey takes him across the Great Inland River and the plains, and with many strange and sometimes dangerous encounters: a mad Taoist hermit, the brutal herding tribe of the Basnasska, and then in the company of a woman named Estrel, continues onwards.

He arrives at Es Toch to be betrayed by Estrel, who is the Shing's agent. The Shing are all liars, but in their web of lies might be some truth. Falk is one of two survivors of an expedition from Werel. He was the navigator, a mathematician named Ramarren. The Shing claim that they are men who set themselves up as peacekeepers, that the League of All Worlds tore itself apart, and there was no invasion. The only other survivor of the Werel expedition is a boy named Har Orry, who knows nothing significant. The Shing offer Falk the restoration of his prior memories, at the cost of the current self.

Knowing this is a trap, and knowing that he can trust no one and yet must keep the location of Werel secret, Falk accepts. He manages to deceive the deceivers and triumphs, making his escape.

The writing is gorgeous, a sensuous journey through the varied terrain and the cultures of the conquered America. The Shing are shifty, masterful, cold and deadly. Taoism appears again and again, both as text and subtext, and in one of the better insights, Le Guin describes how laws bar against the urges a society most feels in itself. The Shing forbid murder and permit everything else, a sign of the deep murderousness at the heart of their imperium.

The first two books of this series were fine; nothing exceptional. City of Illusions redeems the whole series, like the sun breaking through clouds. show less

This is one of LeGuin's finest works. It is a cerebral puzzle of a story, part Wizard of Oz, part Man Who Fell to Earth. Set in a future Earth where mankind has been colonized and degraded by a parasitic alien race called the Shing, the book tells the story of Earth's last hope, a man who is only half human. LeGuin's style and themes are profoundly distinct. She is a genre writer that transcends her genre so completely you forget she is a genre writer.

It's interesting to read this series starting with Rocannon's world, Le Guin's first novel, and contains a fairly conventional central conceit, and read this third installment in this loose series and see how much the prolific writer progressed in just a year of publishing. City of Illusions is well placed in the series in combining two elements of the previous novels; the hero's journey of Falk, and the mysteriously alien interacting with the comparatively primitive. This is then combined with the unique twist of City of Illusions, and the dance the author plays with both the protaganist and the reader with the interplay between truth and deceit. This is of course uncomfortable to read, especially compared to the straightforwardness of show more the previous novesl, but I almost wish she'd gone the full nine yards and left the story ambiguous with its relation to the greater universe and of the relationship between the reasder and the books. As it stands it is a great addition to the cycle, as usual, Le Guin's ability to establish charaters so quickly and effectively while curating this facsinating sci-fi/fantasy world is what elevates her as one of the great writers of her genre. show less

Reading Ursula Le Guin is like watching Star Wars!

Forgive me, I know it is not appropriate, but bear with me and I will show the similarity I have in mind.

If you were born in a previous millennium, you were likely to watch the Star Wars starting with an Episode 4. You followed this with an Ok Episode 5 and finally with a great Episode 6. Like me, you were likely disappointed when Episodes 1 through 3 came out. This was quite below the bar set by the original series.

If, like me, you stumbled upon works of Ursula Le Guin in this millennium, you likely started with her number 4 in the Hainish cycle, The Left Hand of Darkness. It must have blown your mind (otherwise why would you be reading this?). Number 5 was quite OK but then number 6, show more The Dispossessed, was incredible again!

You get the numerical similarity, right? But we are not done yet.
If, like me, you decided you needed to read the entire Hainish cycle, you must have been disappointed with numbers 1 and 2 , Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile. You lowered your expectations for number 3. Yet, this is where the real convergence in my silly analogy happens.

Episode 3 of the Star Wars was different from 1 and 2. It was dark, it was ominous, it was atmospheric again. It told a story about the lie winning over the truth.

Finally, in the novel number 3 of the Hainish cycle, this book, City of Illusions, Le Guin finds her true style. The story flows beautifully but the story is only secondary to the questions and the main question is the same as the one in Episode 3 of Star Wars. Do you lie or do you tell the truth? The lie can win you the war but without the truth you can not understand those you want to rule. And without this understanding the war you win turns into the war you inevitably lose.

Just ask those Russians fighting in Ukraine... show less

Originally published at FanLit
http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/city-of-illusions/

“You go to the place of the lie to find out the truth?”

Ursula K. Le Guin’s HAINISH CYCLE continues with City of Illusions, which I liked better than its predecessors, Rocannon’s World and Planet of Exile. City of Illusions takes place on Earth sometimes in the far future after an alien invasion has killed off most of the people and has completely changed the Earth’s ecology, infrastructure, and geopolitical arrangement. There’s a large capital city run by an alien race called the Shing, but most of the humans are spread out and divided into small clusters in the hinterlands which have gone back to their natural state after Earth’s show more cities were destroyed. While there are futuristic technologies in the capital, the rest of the people live off the land without technological help and with only occasional glimpses of the advanced society that their ancestors knew before it decayed.

To prevent takeovers, the Shing do not allow the people to organize or even to communicate over long distances. If anyone attempts anything that threatens the government, they are arrested and, since the Shing do not allow the taking of human lives, they are “razed,” meaning their memories are wiped out. To keep humans subjugated, the Shing also use their powers to cast illusions and to lie with their minds, which is why their capitol city is called the City of Illusions.

Our story begins as a man with cat-like eyes wakes up in the wilderness and doesn’t know who or where he is. In fact, he doesn’t know anything — his mind is blank. His only potential clue is a gold ring he wears which tells him that he once belonged somewhere. When a wilderness family takes him in, they name him Falk and teach him how to be a man again (if he ever was a man — his eyes suggest at least some non-human genes). After several years, Falk decides to set out for the City of Illusions to find out who he is. Along the way he meets other types of people, experiences different cultures, and has some scary adventures. By the time he gets to the city, he has made a new life for himself, has made friends, has fallen in love, and has learned a lot about the world he lives in, but not any clues about himself.

When Falk meets the Shing in the City of Illusions, he discovers who he is, but he learns that he must choose between his old mostly unknown life and the new life he has been living for several years. He also learns that the aliens have a different story about what happened to Earth than the stories he has previously heard. It’s not easy to separate truth from lies or to know who can be trusted. Falk has some major dilemmas to resolve and some major choices to make.

The setting of City of Illusions — America’s ruined cities being gradually overtaken by forests — is appealing (reminds me of Gene Wolfe’s NEW SUN books) and so is Falk (especially when we find out who he is) who is developed better than the protagonists in the previous HAINISH CYCLE novels. It helps that Falk doesn’t need a backstory, so we’re not really expecting much there. Unfortunately, none of the other characters are particularly engaging and the villains seem inconsistent (e.g., their insistence that life is sacred doesn’t fit with their other beliefs and actions), but I enjoyed Falk’s travels and dilemmas nonetheless and I liked the ambiguous ending and how this story fills in some information we were left wondering about at the end of Planet of Exile. City of Illusions is short and fast-paced with Le Guin’s usual economy of words which I’ve always admired and which becomes more appreciated the more epic fantasy I read.

I listened to Blackstone Audio’s excellent production narrated by Stefan Rudnicki. City of Illusions refers to events that occurred in Planet of Exile and is sort of a sequel. It’s not necessary, but it’d be helpful to read that book first. show less

A science fiction novel published in 1967 and early in the career of acclaimed author Ursula K Le Guin. The novel received little critical attention when published and I picked it up only because of its publication date ( my own category of science fiction novels from 1967). I thoroughly enjoyed the read and it took me back in time to the excitement of reading science fiction as a teenager.

The story starts with a humanoid figure crawling through a forest and finally coming across a clearing whereupon it stands up on two legs and is noticed by a young woman (Parth) working in the fields. Parth goes over to him and leads him into the small community; they call him Falk and Zove a father figure of the community with the help of Parth help show more to educate him. Falk's mind has been wiped clean, but his intelligence enables him to learn the ways of the community and become a useful member. He learns that the world is made up of small communities separated by immense forests and that the inhabitants have been subjugated by the Shing an alien species. The scattered communities are left to their own devices as long as they do not band together and threaten the aliens. After a four year period Falk feels the need to travel, to visit the city of Es-Toch which people of the forest commune have heard speak. The first part of the book describes Falk's adventures as his path westwards leads him to various other settlements and many hostile encounters. He meets Estrel a woman captured by a nomad tribe on the great plains. They escape together and she leads him to Es-Toch the home of the Shing and where Falk feels he will meet his destiny. The second part of the book details Falk's struggles against the Shing who were responsible for wiping his mind and who now hold open the option of restoring his other self.

The novel therefore falls into two distinct parts, the first a dangerous journey through a hostile environment, which is America after the Alien conquest and the second part is Falk's mind games with the aliens themselves. They are both voyages of discovery for Falk and the reader and the mystery of Falk is revealed carefully by Le Guin. There is mystery and imagination throughout, although the final battle with the aliens is perhaps oversimplified to ensure the reader is not left behind. Le Guin's writing is a cut above much of the pulp science fiction of the era and she handles the adventure story well enough. She imparts that sense of wonder that keeps the pages turning and the resolution is satisfying. Themes of identification and truth telling in City of Illusions add another layer and so a 4 star read. show less

An interesting and somewhat melancholy rumination on alienation (literally), more about vibes and character than plot, but with enough narrative to keep me engrossed. LeGuin is a master!