kev67
04-11-2015, 03:22 PM
I am glad to see she is still with us, although getting on a bit. I just listened to a radio programme about her. I don't know if you will be able to access this (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00j3xd5) outside the UK. She is definitely a woman with a big brain.
I read one of her books, The Left Hand of Darkness, which was very strange and very different. Unlike most sci-fi writers I have read before, she seemed pretty left wing. Most sci-fi writers from my youth seemed pretty much advocates of eugenics. Her science wasn't that bad neither. In tLHoD, it was made plain that the envoy came in a space ship that could not exceed the speed of light; so, for example, his parents had dead a long time ago. He had a communication device that worked instantaneously over light-years, but apparently it worked using a similar principle to gravity. I don't think this bears out scientifically, but at least the light-speed problem was addressed. Maybe some instantaneous communication device could be made to work using quantum dynamic effects. In tLHoD, the envoy protagonist turned out to be a black man, which surprised me for a book written in 1967. All the other characters were hermaphrodites. These characters were humans, so hermaphroditsm is rather unlikely, but at least the problem was addressed. The story was situated on a wintry planet, so I thought she had not heard of the greenhouse effect, but then she mentioned it.
I have not read any of her other books, and I was surprised to read she was considered a children's writer. Apparently her Earthsea books are about wizards.
I read one of her books, The Left Hand of Darkness, which was very strange and very different. Unlike most sci-fi writers I have read before, she seemed pretty left wing. Most sci-fi writers from my youth seemed pretty much advocates of eugenics. Her science wasn't that bad neither. In tLHoD, it was made plain that the envoy came in a space ship that could not exceed the speed of light; so, for example, his parents had dead a long time ago. He had a communication device that worked instantaneously over light-years, but apparently it worked using a similar principle to gravity. I don't think this bears out scientifically, but at least the light-speed problem was addressed. Maybe some instantaneous communication device could be made to work using quantum dynamic effects. In tLHoD, the envoy protagonist turned out to be a black man, which surprised me for a book written in 1967. All the other characters were hermaphrodites. These characters were humans, so hermaphroditsm is rather unlikely, but at least the problem was addressed. The story was situated on a wintry planet, so I thought she had not heard of the greenhouse effect, but then she mentioned it.
I have not read any of her other books, and I was surprised to read she was considered a children's writer. Apparently her Earthsea books are about wizards.