October 21, 2009 marks the 80th writer of fantasy writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Her Earthsea series – A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore and Tehanu — was a gateway drug for many a fantasy reader at an early age. So many happy returns to her, and may there be many more!
For me favorite Le Guin works include The Lathe of Heaven (and a nice BBC production of it that appeared in the late 80s, early 90s). I love the keen anthropological eye Le Guin brings to her writing, particularly The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, and I’ve seen them used in political science and gender studies classrooms with happy results. In her collection The Compass Rose, the story of the acacia seeds always makes me cry and exult at the same time, while Changing Planes gives anything Italo Calvino has written a run for its money.
So what do you want to say to Le Guin on her birthday? What are the Le Guin books that you particularly love and why? What do you look forward to next in her writing? What others authors might you recommend for Le Guin lovers?
Clint – Indeed. And really, I can’t even imagine what...
1 • Cat Rambo said:
October 21st, 2009 at 12:55 pm, permalink
Here’s to many more birthdays!
2 • Mihai (Dark Wolf) said:
October 21st, 2009 at 12:58 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday! May all your wishes come true and may she enjoy many, many more!
3 • Tamara Vining said:
October 21st, 2009 at 1:03 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday, Ursula K. Le Guin! Thanks for being born!
4 • Sean Berry said:
October 21st, 2009 at 1:05 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday, Ursula. Yours were definitely starter books for me (“the first one’s free, here, borrow this one”), and now I’ve got a 50+ title a year habit (and overfull, overspilling bookcases, as so many of us do), and it’s to your credit.
Thank you for writing, and slaving over galleys, and copyedits, and proofs, and staring at blank pages for the rest of us, who get to appreciate the results.
5 • Lurgus said:
October 21st, 2009 at 1:10 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday indeed! The Dispossessed is one of my favourite books and when i told my friend to read it she told me she had liked it so much that she cried when she finished it because she didn’t want the story to end. I am looking forward to introducind my son to the Earthsea books.
6 • L. Grabenstetter said:
October 21st, 2009 at 1:30 pm, permalink
The Happiest of Birthdays to Ms. LeGuin!
Picking up ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’ as a youngster is one of the best things that ever happened to me. I directly credit her with my subsequent voracious appetite for books.
Whenever I want something beautiful, moving, and surprising, I hunt down more of her books.
Here’s to many more years of Ursula, and her incredible literary contributions!
7 • Laura Wren said:
October 21st, 2009 at 1:45 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday, Ms. LeGuin. I hope you see many more, and I hope they are filled with the joy and wonder your books have brought me.
8 • Evan Jensen said:
October 21st, 2009 at 3:37 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday, Miss Le Guin! Thank you for an abundance of astounding insights and moving stories.
9 • John H. Ginsberg-Stevens said:
October 21st, 2009 at 4:40 pm, permalink
Le Guin’s writing has been a major inspiration for me. I love to read her thoughts on the creative process as much as her fiction. For me, the gateway books were The Word For World is Forest and The Left Hand of Darkness. I discovered the Earthsea books shortly thereafter. All of them blew my little teenage mind at the time with their superb writing and the ideas they contained within their stories.
Folks should go over to the Book View Cafe also to wish her a Happy Birthday: http://blog.bookviewcafe.com/2009/10/21/happy-birthday-ursula-k-le-guin/. And then go read her comic Dangermouse!
10 • Richard Parks said:
October 21st, 2009 at 5:06 pm, permalink
Your work helped to show me just how good f/sf could be. Many happy returns!
11 • Todd Vandemark said:
October 21st, 2009 at 5:21 pm, permalink
Your work influenced me as a kid, teen, college student, and now as an upstart writer, mid life. Happy Birthday and many more!
12 • Jorge Luis Pagan said:
October 21st, 2009 at 5:40 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday Miss LeGuin ! Wizard of Earthsea was the FIRST fantasy I read when I was 6 years old. I’ve been in love with the genre ever since.
13 • Jason D. Wittman said:
October 21st, 2009 at 10:30 pm, permalink
Happy Birthday, Ms. LeGuin. You are one of my inspirations at a writer. (Though I’ll be lucky if my writing turns out half as good as yours.)
And do keep reminding Margaret Atwood that she really does write science fiction. If there’s anyone out there who can convince her of that, it’s you.
Jason D. Wittman
14 • kt said:
October 22nd, 2009 at 9:48 am, permalink
Happy birthday to you!
15 • Meg Stout said:
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:08 pm, permalink
Happy, happy birthday!
My husband does us the courtesy of reading aloud whenever we are traveling in the car, and he’s most recently been reading A Wizard of Earthsea to our daughter and me. Still and always a wonderful treat to read/hear your words.
16 • Shweta Narayan said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 4:12 am, permalink
Found this late, but I’d like to say –
Happy Belated Birthday and may you have many more, Ms. Le Guin! You’ve been an inspiration to me since I first went “Huh, A Wizard of Earthsea,” that sounds fun in my school library.
17 • Lisa Poh said:
October 23rd, 2009 at 10:24 am, permalink
Happy Birthday, Ms Le Guin.
I grew up on classic literature, and never touched anything mainstream. Then one day, in a used bookstore, I picked up “The Wizard of Earthsea”. There was no going back for me after that. You are such a blessing
.
18 • Deb said:
October 30th, 2009 at 7:34 pm, permalink
Her books were a gateway into speculative fantasy for me. I first read the Left Hand of Darkness, and then The Lathe of Heaven, followed by the EarthSea series in College. She helped shape my impressions and opinions of life and fiction. Happy Birthday!