When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters.
Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.
Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back.
Reviews
A funny, humane, heartbreaking story about colonialism
A prescient novella about an interstellar logging colony, written by perhaps our greatest practitioner of "literary sci-fi"
Le Guin writes in quiet, straightforward sentences about people who feel they are being torn apart by massive forces in society - technological, political, economic - and who fight courageously to remain whole'
Its relevance hasn't decreased in our time of climate catastrophe and gun violence
Le Guin's most pleasing efforts are spent on the Athshean culture: a non-technological forest society with an interesting division of sexual roles and an intense development of the capacity for dreaming
It's a compact tale, a masterclass by a powerful writer who fashions a lean narrative where others might have produced a much larger, bloated tome, and yet for all the brevity Le Guin delivers not just a narrative but a believable alien world and society in short yet compelling scenes.
The slender book is fairly simplistic, but it's still compelling and thought-provoking.
