Wasn't sure whether to give this a four or three star rating. The most recent addition to the Hainish Cycle novels is delivered with Le Guin’s masterful sparsity of language, no more descriptive prose than necessary, allowing the reader to create their own imagery in their mind, but delivered with the great elegance one can expect from one of the finest science fiction / fantasy writers. At times I found the metaphorical transposition of the China/Tibet situation, at the core of this book, just a little too literal. That said, the characters are touchingly portrayed and the author gives fragments of information about the key protagonists and events that draw together in an emotional catharsis but leaving enough unsaid for the reader to speculate about the ultimate conclusions of events.

This would not be the first book I would recommend for a newcommer to the Hainish cycle (try the Word for World is Forrest, City of Illusions, or the Left Hand of Darkness) but I enjoyed it immensely.