Comments on: Isn’t that “Le WIN”?

By: rivenwanderer

rivenwanderer — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 20:13:18 +0000

Not a super well-known book of hers, but Very Far Away From Anywhere Else was a huge sanity boost during high school–a book about nerds! talking about life! and also probably the reason I went to MIT. So even if she hadn’t written many other lovely and important books (of which I’ve read many, but look forward to reading more), I can look to that single book of hers as one of the pivot points of my life so far. (Hm, I should reread it again. I guess I’m afraid that it’ll feel less important now that I’m out of my adolescence.)

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:17:16 +0000

Kargish expats FTW :)

By: fannie

fannie — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:37:30 +0000

Hello, just discovered this amazing blog and was pleased to see an article about one of my favorite authors. I really like The Left Hand of Darkness and, most recently, read The Birthday of the World. Le Guin definitely inspired my geekiness as she was the first sci fi author I read where I learned that sci fi didn't have to always be about doods.

By: Victoria Janssen

Victoria Janssen — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:23:06 +0000

Here’s my post from yesterday: http://victoriajanssen.blogspot.com/2009/10/happy-birthday-ursula.html

By: textjunkie

textjunkie — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:50:42 +0000

I was never really an Earthsea fan (came to them too late, I think), but Le Guin is one of my top favorite writers of all time. Left Hand of Darkness was amazing, and all of the Hainish novels are incredible! I’m not sure I can say she inspired me as a geek femininist in any way, but as a writer I *wish* I had half her brilliance.

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 13:01:25 +0000

<3 Azver. <3 <3 <3.

And I want to be Tenar when I grow up.

By: Mary

Mary — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:59:55 +0000

I was inclined to say that the books closest to my heart (The Dispossessed, The Left Hand of Darkness) have informed my citizenship more than my geek feminism, but one is part of the other. The Earthsea novels don't mean as much to me emotionally, but I wouldn't want to live in the world where there's never been stories about Ged, Tenar, Irian and Azver.

By: Jokerine

Jokerine — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 07:51:15 +0000

My ninthgrad High School teacher gave us The Wizard of Earthsea to read, needless to say we did not discuss Geds assumed skincolor and the one in the book and that the coverpicture was a bad reflection of the description. I bought the other two soon after and a few month later The Dispossessed, which is my favorite LeGuin book. It has greatly shaped the way I view my wants and needs and what I want from politics. I have read it about a gazillion times. And my Laptop is named Shevek.

Happy Birthday Ursula, you are an inspiration to many.

By: Dorothea Salo

Dorothea Salo — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:41:15 +0000

If I try to articulate everything that LeGuin’s books have made me think about, I would simply wind up flailing uselessly.

So let’s leave it at this: Tehanu is my favorite travel book. “On the High Marsh” is so perfect and so beautiful — particularly its last three or four paragraphs — that it makes me cry. I am deeply fond of the sly subversion in “Sur” and “The Pathways of Desire.” Live readings of “Intracom” leave me helpless with laughter. And as a sometime serious student of linguistics, I appreciate LeGuin’s steady, thoughtful regard for the underpinnings of human language.

Er. That was useless flailing, wasn’t it? Oh, well. Happy Birthday, Ursula K. LeGuin!

By: Magnetic Crow

Magnetic Crow — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:11:49 +0000

Online Literary Magazine ‘Fantasy Magazine’ is wishing her a happy birthday too :)
LeGuin has been so incredibly inspiring to me… I picked up ‘A Wizard of Earthsea’ when I was 7, and that was really the beginning for me. As a reader, as a geek, as an aspirant fantasy artist. Over the years, I have read and been moved by many of the works from her outstanding oeuvre. Still, it’s hard not to dwell on how her work really jumpstarted my life.