Product Description

The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous communication. It is the life work of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the arid anarchist world of Anarres. But Shevek's work is being stifled by jealous colleagues, so he travels to Anarres's sister-planet Urras, hoping to find more liberty and tolerance there. But he soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #36897 in Books
• Published on: 1999-08-12
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Most of Le Guin's science fiction is set in a human galaxy where the distance of time and space imposed by relativity is mitigated by instantaneous transmission of information through a gadget called the ansible. The Dispossessed, famous for being Ken Livingstone's favourite science fiction novel, was the book in which she told us of Shevek, the ansible's inventor, and the ironies of his career. Shevek is a loyal citizen of a poor anarchist world, Anarres, which finds frills like research hard to afford; he travels to the neighbouring world of Urras, to find that unbridled capitalism is not much fun either. "Nio Esseia, a city of four million souls, lifted its delicate glittering towers across the green marshes of the Estuary as if it were built of mist and sunlight...Was all Nio Esseia this? Huge shining boxes of stone and glass, immense, ornate, enormous packages, empty, empty." At once one of the greatest of SF novels about political ideas and idealism, and a stunning novel of character, The Dispossessed has at its centre Shevek, scientist and near-saint, a flawed human being whom we come to know as we know few characters in modern science fiction. --Roz Kaveney

About the Author
SALES POINTS * #16 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written * Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards *'Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power. She sets up enormous challenges and meets them fully; she invites, as Tolkien does, total belief' Observer * 'To be read again and again' -- The Times

Customer Reviews

Soft SF meets Libretarian Socialism
As a relative newbie to the world of SF I thought it'd be easier for someone else to pick the best and greats of science fiction. Thank God for the SF Masterworks series! Previous to reading The Dispossessed I picked up Behold The Man (Michael Moorcock), Dying Inside (Robert Silverberg), The Stars, My Destination (Alfred Bester) and am currently working my way through Ringworld (Larry Niven). But I simply cannot get The Dispossessed out of my head – Ringworld seems positively amateur compared to it (and Ringworld’s considered a classic as well!). I don’t recommend reading ‘great’ novels back to back; I did that with Joe Haldeman’s Forever War and Forever Peace and can’t remember a thing about the second one!

Whilst I needed tremendous concentration reading Ursula Le Guin’s dense, descriptive prose I stuck at it (I confess to having awfully low concentration when reading). I was well rewarded. The story is of Shevek, a physicist whose theory and science I found to be more of a vehicle to tell a story of differing utopias (or is that dystopia?) Many reviewers have compared the two worlds offered (Annares and Urras) to Cold War-influenced versions of America and Soviet Russia. I disagree with this. I found it much more believable if one took Shevek’s Annares as more of a hippie commune of the late 1960’s rather than an ideal paradise envisaged by Lenin whilst Urras acts more of a (slightly benevolent) host community than an ideological enemy.

What really has stayed with me through the reading Ringworld is the choice that Le Guin presents at the end of the novel. Is repressive, class-driven A-Io the place you would rather call home or is Annares where there is no formal government yet is staid and strangely enough incredibly intolerant (as demonstrated through Sheveks’s scientist colleagues who refuse to allow him to conduct research he thinks necessary) a better example? Normally I would choose the capitalist-pig option because I would want the mere opportunity to be rich – I might never get it but I’d know that I always had the chance. However on Urras I could exist in a sparse environment where work directives mean I could be separated from my family for a long time but it would be a place with no crime, in particular theft, and have a far larger sense of well-being. I have never read a novel that has actually made me think that the other way of living which has been constantly berated in the Western press over the years had actual merit behind it.

A book that presents its two cases very well. (Just let it sink in!)

The Dispossessed
There are few books which have had such a profound effect on me. I am also a student of the humanities, Philosophy to be precise, and this book is simply awe-inspiring. I first read this many years ago when I was an undergraduate. Having just re-read this, I decided to share my thoughts and try to get others to give it a whirl.

Along with "Tractatus Logico Philosophicus" this book has to be a front runner for one of the greatest works of art I have ever come across. LeGuin writes with style, grace, delicacy, and superbly communicates the difficulty of a community so far removed, as to be considered alien.

There's something for everyone here, but for me this was all about the direct restriction of thought via the restriction of language. On Anarres, where certain concepts have been obliterated, we find an intrigueing fascination with incarceration, something so foreign, so unimaginable it becomes a experiment of children... a simple play-thing to try and glean understanding. What other mysterious concepts are there on Urras which Anarres has forsaken?

For a review of the story, you can read Amazon's snip above which is pefectly fine. As far as being a diffucult read, I wouldn't agree. It is most certainly thought-provoking, but suitable for all ages, and ultimately self-rewarding if you can appreciate the depth this book reaches. Surely one of LeGuins greatest works, if not also one of humanity's. A must read.

A book everyone should read while they are young
Like other reviewers, I first read this book when I was young, and it has an lasting influence in the way one thinks. Le Guin's writing has a certain wistful loneliness; this is well demonstrated by the book's main character, which I think lends the narrative great power. Like many great works of art, different people will take different things from it. Le Guin may seem to sympathise with the anarchistic, idealistic society she portrays, but she is able with very few words to portray powerfully the violence, coercion, and brutal loss of individuality within that same society. Anarchism is an obviously easy target for this sort of thing, but the lessons apply to all political credos, as she demonstrates. Her character is, in the end, on his own, as we all are, and his final actions illustrate the fear, exultation, and sadness involved in rejecting social coercion.

Anyway, you may not agree. Make your own mind up. Read it.