Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume

These are the three backbone novels of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Series, and sweet jeebis they're pleasant to read! In each one Le Guin serves up a little bit of the shooting of the lazer guns, a little bit of the falling in love and getting busy, and a bucket full of the existential crisis of figuring out what it means to be human and how can people from different planets all be human together. I like feeling like I'm thinking about something important while I read about spaceships that can melt planets. I blame the paint chips. There are also baddass winged cats. And marauding barbarians. Le Guin is my hero.

Rocannon's World:
When all the other members of his ethnographic survey are killed, Gaverel Rocannon is stranded on the planet Fomalhaut II. The weapons that were used in the attack could only have come from an alien military faction. To stop them Rocannon must get a message back to the League of All Worlds. But on this planet the only equipment that can span the distance between the stars quickly enough to deliver the message in time could only be located on the enemy’s base. So Rocannon and his hosts from what The Abridged Handy Pocket Guide to Intelligent Life-forms describes as a “clan-descent society,” with a “feudal-heroic culture,” set out on a quest to find and infiltrate the base in the forgotten lands to their south. show more Will it be swords, lances, and griffins against helicopter gunships and faster than light bombers?

Planet of Exile:
The native girl Rolery, born out of season and impetuous, finds herself strangely attracted to Jakob Agat Altetta, the dark leader of the farborn, even though her people consider the farborn to be inhuman practitioners of witchcraft, and so rude that they would look you directly in the eyes. The attraction is mutual, and it leads to bitter misfortune and near disaster just when the two peoples should unite against a common enemy.

City of Illusions:
Five years ago a man without memory or language stumbled out of the wilds of the forest. At least he had the body of man, but his yellow eyes were like those of a cat. In Zove’s household the family debated what he was and what to do with him. Was he a spy, an agent of their enemy the Shing, or possibly an alien, even though, “No being from the Other Worlds that once were know has walked on Earth for twelve hundred years.” They let him live and learn, and now he’s about to journey across a continent to the city of the Shing, the masters of the “mind-lie” that defeated the League of All Worlds and enslaved humanity, to uncover the truth about himself.

These first three of Le Guin’s science fiction novels were published in 1966 and 1967. Each is set on a different planet. The backstory to all three stories, each set about a millennium apart, is the rise and fall of an interstellar human, or perhaps humanoid civilization. During this time humanity gains and develops the skill of telepathy. More in the forefront of the stories is the clash between cultures, the interstellar and the native, and in final one, City of Illusions, between human and the truly alien.

The three, taken together as in this edition, are two heroic quests framing a siege. If all this sounds more like the themes found in heroic fantasy rather than in science fiction to you, you have the author’s agreement. Eleven years after its first publication, in an introduction to the 1977 edition of Rocannon's World (reproduced in The Language of the Night, the author writes, "...of course fantasy and science fiction are different, just as red and blue ; different; they have different frequencies; if you mix them (on paper—I work on paper) you get purple, something else again. Rocannon's World is definitely purple." show less

I did not expect Le Guin's early entries in the Hainish cycle to be as interlinked as they are (at least, as interlinked as may be given the vast amounts of time and space that occurs between each of them), considering that I started with The Dispossessed, Left Hand, and The Word for World, in that order, none of which have the same kind of thematic and situational throughline that these three novels have.

Of the three, I enjoyed Rocannon's World the most, I think, given its more traditional hero's journey with fantastical elements based on a science fiction premise, much in the same vein as Robert Heinlein's Glory Road. It may be something in the simplicity of the narrative, with a hint of the larger intergalactic struggle, both of show more which build in intensity to the climax, that I enjoyed most. Planet of Exile was interesting as a story of two dying and incompatible cultures, one old and the other new(ish), coming together so that both can survive, even though their combination means that each will be lost and become something new. A similar scenario at the individual level presents itself as the ultimate struggle in City of Illusions (which is inaptly named, though not opaquely so), wherin the main character has to reconcile himself -- or himselves, rather -- through losses and resorations of memory, the lies and misleading truths of those around him, and the ultimate responsibility he has for the survival of the civilization that struggled so hard to endure in Planet of Exile. As one might expect, Le Guin threads all these stories with elements of the dualism and (communal) anarchism for which she is so well known.

While none of the novels in this volume supplants The Left Hand of Darkness as my favorite of the Cycle, they are all worth reading for their own sakes. I highly recommend reading them in a volume like this one that collects all three, given that they are more connected than the other novels of the Hainish Cycle (at least, that I have read so far). show less

Le Guin's first three Hainish novels collected in one spellbinding volume. For such short novels (the longest, City of Illusions, is barely 150 pages) Le Guin packs a hell of a lot of story, ideas and emotion into them. There is no feeling of a writer "finding her voice" here. These stories spring to life fully formed.

In Rocannon's World the sole survivor of a planetary survey mission must go on a quest to warn other worlds of the secret invasion by a deadly enemy. It's a simple enough trope - a group of people travelling across vast distances to do/find/fight something. But Le Guin fills the story with such pathos, especially at the end, that it is quite moving.

In Planet of Exile group of human colonists, abandoned to their own devices show more when the League of Worlds collapsed, must help a group of native hilfs (High Intelligence Lifeforms) fight off a marauding army of savages. Again the story is shot through with loss, and a real fight for survival. This is probably my favourite of the three.

In City of Illusions a man is found in the forests of Earth, naked and mindless and is nursed back to health and sanity. But he has no memory of his previous life. He must then go on a journey to the city of Es Toch, home of the alien Shing, who have conquered Man and destroyed the League of Worlds. But who is the man, where did he come from? The most convoluted of the three novels here, Le Guin packs the story with plot and, despite threatening to spiral out of control towards the end, manages to tie all the story strands up, the man, Falk, achieving some kind of victory.

The common denominator here is the brilliant prose. This is SF that is a pleasure to read, fully formed characters, logical plot development and weighty ideas. If you haven't read any Le Guin, or only know her Earthsea books, try some of her Science Fiction. This is the ideal place to start. Wonderful stuff. show less

There are 3 novellas or very short novels in this collection. The first is Rocannon's World about a scientist from a group called The League of All Worlds who is in the process of making second contact with a civilization on the planet when he realizes he has been cut off from the rest of the League, which can only mean that war has broken out and that The Enemy have come to this planet. The only thing he can try to do is break into the enemy's base to use their communication device to warn The League that the Enemy have come. The story becomes a fairly straightforward '70s adventure story, but I appreciated the little details here. Careful attention is placed on the anthropological details. I appreciated the way Rocannon's name is show more spelled when a native is pronouncing it versus how people from off-world spell it. The League has an interesting approach to these worlds, in that they do not want to interfere with the natural development of the people on these planets and don't introduce technology that could sway them in a particular direction. This story, and well, all of the stories to some extent could be considered space fantasy, because the civilization on this planet that Rocannon is involved in, uses swords and armor, ride flying cats, and believe prophecy more than science. But on his journey, Rocannon basically assimilates into the native culture, but his name become's legendary in the greater League culture. The second story is called Planet of Exile, and it was a bit shorter, about 100 pages in the edition I read. The story involves another group of League scientists trying to survive on a remote planet where the seasons are incredibly long, and an invading group from the Northern part of the planet is threatening to destroy their settlement along with another native group who is slightly allied with the League scientists. Again, the League scientists don't use technology from the League and are also cut off from communicating with the rest of the League. This story is crucial for the last book, because it shows how the League group and the natives are able to merge and survive instead of staying separate and dying out. The story was more brutal with its depictions of violence and war, distrust, and stereotyping. But it ended on a hopeful note. The third story, City of Illusions was very interesting, especially the last 20 or so pages. The story follows a man with no memory as he travels the continent of North America in an attempt to find the truth of who he is and what happened to him. He appears to be from off-world, but during his journey he becomes an Earthling in his heart. We meet the Enemy, the Shing, in this story and the true conflict between the two groups is very interesting to me. The Shing believe in Reverence For Life, and preach not killing any life. They have figured out how to lie using Mindspeech, a form of telepathy that all of the main characters have been able to use to some extent. The difference being that normally, you cannot lie when using it. You are sharing pure thought, intention, and emotion directly from your mind to another's mind, and lying is impossible, but the Shing have figured out a way to transmit falsehoods, and so they are able to take over, despite their smaller numbers, because they convince everyone that there is no war, there is no enemy, just rebels from the League, and that they, with their reverence for life doctrine, are better at being the leaders and unifying everyone. But their process for doing this is to limit the technology that people develop or use, and using a device to destroy a person's personality and memory, but keeping them alive, because they have the superior reverence for life. How the main character learned about this and overcame the enemy was very interesting and thought-provoking. All of the stories were interesting, but the third one was the best and more mature novel. I'm looking forward to diving further into the Hainish cycle. show less

Three early novels of the Hainish Cycle collected in one volume.

The science fiction novels of Ursula K. Le Guin, often collectively called the "Hainish Cycle," are not intended to be a series in the conventional sense. They are meant to stand alone and be read that way. But collecting three of her earliest novels into one volume gives the reader the opportunity to read these as a series, revealing connecting themes and making for a very satisfying way to experience Le Guin's futuristic universe. The stories in themselves are ripping adventures, as well, with two quest tales bracketing a story of war.

The three novels take place thousands of years apart, at pivotal points in the conquest of a galactic empire called the League of All show more Worlds, which includes Earth, by aliens from a distant galaxy. Each novel also sows the seeds for the future evolution of humanity, which will enable them to defeat their conquerors and establish a new galactic alliance.

***There are some slight spoilers ahead.***

In the first novel, Rocannon's World, a ship from the League of All Worlds is visiting a planet where several intelligent species have been found. The humans are studying the aliens for possible inclusion in the League. One of them is Rocannon, who is staying at the home of one of the natives when his ship and all his shipmates are destroyed by an unknown enemy. Rocannon deduces that this is the Enemy that has been foretold, alien conquerors from a distant galaxy, against which the League has been formed to resist. On his ship was a device called an "ansible," that enabled communication at faster-than-light speeds, with which he could have warned his home planet. He figures that the enemy aliens also has an ansible, and sets out with a few companions, riding big flying cats, on a quest to reach their base in the south of the planet and send the warning so that the secret base may be destroyed. It is a hazardous journey, and along the way, Rocannon encounters natives with telepathic ability, which is called "mindspeak," and which he begins to learn.

The second novel, Planet of Exile, is set thousands of years later on another planet called Werel, which has been colonized by humans from the League planets. They have lost all contact with their home planets and have been stranded on Werel for generations. They have built a walled city on the seaside and holed up there, keeping themselves apart from the intelligent natives, who think they are witches because they can mindspeak and possess technology. Gradually, their numbers have been dwindling, due to the alienness of the planet where they have settled; they are being rejected as a foreign body.

Werel has a very long orbit around its sun, which makes each season last for a lifetime. A person born in fall may never know spring. As Planet of Exile opens, winter is near, and a great wave of people are emigrating south, destroying everything in their path. The colonists join with the nearby natives to resist them. At the same time, the colonists discover that they are adapting to their new environment after all, which means that humanity won't die out on Werel.

The third novel, City of Illusions, was my favorite of the three, although all of them are terrific reads. City of Illusions is set on a future Earth, a thousand years after the time of Planet of Exile. A man wakens in the forest with no memory of who he is or where he came from. He only knows that he looks different from the people who discover him. Gradually, he learns that the few remaining people of Earth live under the rule of a conquering enemy called the Shing; both the people and the Shing practice telepathy. The man sets out on a quest to reach the capital city of the Shing and find out who he is. What he discovers about himself sows the seeds for an eventual rebellion against the conquering aliens. This novel was so compelling and exciting that I really wanted there to be a sequel.

There is not one, really, although the next novel to take place chronologically is Le Guin's most famous science fiction novel, The Left Hand of Darkness. But that is set on another planet and after another thousand years or so has passed. Interestingly, her other most famous sci-fi work, The Dispossessed, takes place before Rocannon's World does, just before the ansible is invented, although she wrote and published it much later.

Le Guin's imagined worlds are a fantastic blend of advanced technology and high fantasy, combining faster-than-light space travel, magical powers in the form of telepathy and incredible beasts like the flying cats of Rocannon's World. Her worlds and her people are richly imagined and wonderfully detailed, and her writing is pitch-perfect: fast moving but still philosophical when it needs to be. I have never disliked one of her novels, and the three collected in this volume are no exception to that rule. show less

Perhaps the best word to sum up this collection is "poignant." All three of the novels from Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish universe have an element of loss, starting with "Rocannon's World." Two storylines are woven together here, on a planet that has a medieval feel with its hierarchies and impoverished ruling class. One storyline is that of an impoverished wife of an impoverished lord who takes an interstellar journey to retrieve her family's inheritance and returns years later with her heirloom necklace. The other involves the namesake of this book, Rocannon, who is preparing to return to his ship and shipmates only to find his spaceport blown apart.

The second book, "Planet of Exile," deals with more primitive peoples on this world, show more living near the exiles from Terra who are unable to return to their homeland. Time on this planet is much different than on Terra, due to the rotation of the planet with its moon. Le Guin's skill in anthropology is shown to its fullest when explaining how peoples' culture adapts when a moon phase is 400 days long.

Finally, in "City of Illusions," we journey with Falk whose memories only begin when he is a man stumbling through a forest and into a small settlement. Who he was as a child, where he came from, are all blanks for him. As he journeys from this settlement after a number of years, he finds out he is on Terra and the technology of the past, the learnings of the past, are all forbidden so as not to raise the interest of the Shing. And in this story we learn that the League of All Worlds is dissolved, also because of the Shing. At the end of Falk's journey he meets the Shing and discovers not just his past but also his planet and his own starship's disaster. show less