The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia in Building a SciFi/Fantasy Library

Jan 11, 2018 Tani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: scifi, female-author, 2018-novels, sff-2018, sff-ladies-2018, sff-bingo-2018

There's not much to be said about this one that hasn't already been said. I thought this was a fascinating blend of dystopia and utopia, and I liked the way that it didn't simplify anything. Even the utopian society had its problems and issues, whereas the so-called dystopian society was acknowledged to have its strengths. The world-building and philosophy showed a ton of complexity, and I enjoyed it a lot. However, it's not an easy or fast-paced book, and I found myself often putting it down af ...more

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Apr 17, 2008 Sarah Sammis rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-in-2008, released, scifi

The full title of Ursula K. Le Guin's award winning novel is The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia. It's part of along tradition of ambiguous utopian novels that are thinly dressed critiques of contemporary society. In the case of The Dispossessed the two societies in question are the United States and the Soviet Union.

What makes Le Guin's utopia all the more ambiguous is her refusal to take sides. Both societies are flawed in a number of ways and yet both have supporters and detractors. Like s ...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Peter rated it really liked it

Shelves: sciencefiction

Le Guin from this period is hard to beat. I didn't love it quite as much as The Lathe of Heaven but it was close. She explores utopias in a fascinating way through the lens of the main character who has grown up on a desert-climate moon that is inhabited by an anarchist utopia commune. He is confronted with capitalists (as well as socialists and other cultures) on the planet to which his home is the moon as the first ever visitor there since the commune planet was created. Le Guin manages to ill ...more

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Jan 16, 2008 Colette rated it liked it

I keep meaning to change my middle name to Shevek. But it costs like $300 in California! Otherwise I would. Actually I read this book BECAUSE I wanted to find a gender-neutral middle name.

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