The Dispossessed has been described by political thinker Andre Gorz as 'The most striking description I know of the seductions-and snares-of self-managed communist or, in other words, anarchist society.' To date, however, the radical social, cultural, and political ramifications of Le Guin's multiple award-winning novel remain woefully under explored. Editors Laurence Davis and Peter Stillman right this state of affairs in the first ever collection of original essays devoted to Le...

Ursula K. Le Guin is the one modern science fiction author who truly needs no introduction. In the half century since The Left Hand of Darkness, her works have changed not only the face but the tone and the agenda of SF, introducing themes of gender, race, socialism, and anarchism, all the while thrilling readers with trips to strange (and strangely familiar) new worlds. She is our exemplar of what fantastic literature can and should be about.Her Nebula winner The Wild...

The Daughter of Odren is a short fantasy story of betrayal and revenge set in the world of Earthsea, in which Weed, the daughter of Lord Garnet, waits for the day she will have her father back.For fourteen years, Weed, as she is called, the daughter of Lord Garnet, has brought offerings to the standing stone. Alone in a shallow valley, she implores the stone not to forget her. To remember who he is and the life he led. To wait until the day he will be avenged.Now t...

“Le Guin is a writer of enormous intelligence and wit, a master storyteller with the humor and force of a Twain. . . . The Birthday of the World is prime new Le Guin. Like a tour of other countries, these splendid and necessary stories will send you back home with new eyes.” —Boston GlobeUrsula K. Le Guin has enthralled readers with her imagination, clarity, and moral vision. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the Nationa...

Winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and Arthur C. Clarke AwardsThis record-breaking novel following a warship trapped in a human body on a quest for revenge is a must-read for fans of Ursula K. Le Guin and James S. A. Corey.**"THRILLING, MOVING AND AWE-INSPIRING." —**GuardianOn a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing her quest. Once, she was the Justice of Toren—a colossal st...

Karl Popper 1902-1994The political history of the twentieth century has been full of savage 'certainties'. A similar idea of history warranted the callous savageries of both Marxism and Fascism. They shared a faith in what Karl Popper called 'Historicism': the belief that the future could be predicted and that man had to align himself with its bloody progress.Totalitarianism, Popper maintained, was based on ideas implicit in Western philosophy, from Plato to Hegel and Marx....

Originally published in 1970, The Urban Revolution marked Henri Lefebvre’s first sustained critique of urban society, a work in which he pioneered the use of semiotic, structuralist, and poststructuralist methodologies in analyzing the development of the urban environment. Although it is widely considered a foundational book in contemporary thinking about the city, The Urban Revolution has never been translated into English—until now. This first English edition, deftly translated by Robert...

Contemporary visions of the future have been shaped by hopes and fears about the effects of human technology and global capitalism on the natural world. In an era of climate change, mass extinction, and oil shortage, such visions have become increasingly catastrophic, even apocalyptic. Exploring the close relationship between science fiction, ecology, and environmentalism, the essays in Green Planets consider how science fiction writers have been working through this crisis. Beginning with...

The degrading environment of the planet is something that touches everyone. This 2011 book offers an introductory overview of literary and cultural criticism that concerns environmental crisis in some form. Both as a way of reading texts and as a theoretical approach to culture more generally, 'ecocriticism' is a varied and fast-changing set of practices which challenges inherited thinking and practice in the reading of literature and culture. This introduction defines what ecocriticism is...

Having earned an international reputation with his booker-prize-winning novel, The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro is fast emerging as an important cultural figure of our times.In this guide to Ishiguro’s varied and often experimental work, Wai-chew Sim presents:a biographical survey of Ishiguro’s literary career, and an introduction to his novels, plays and short storiesan accessible overview of the contexts and many interpretations of...

Carl Freedman traces the fundamental and mostly unexamined relationships between the discourses of science fiction and critical theory, arguing that science fiction is (or ought to be) a privileged genre for critical theory. He asserts that it is no accident that the upsurge of academic interest in science fiction since the 1970s coincides with the heyday of literary theory, and that likewise science fiction is one of the most theoretically informed areas of the literary profession. Extend...

Since the publication of Thomas More's genre-defining work Utopia in 1516, the field of utopian literature has evolved into an ever-expanding domain. This Companion presents an extensive historical survey of the development of utopianism, from the publication of Utopia to today's dark and despairing tendency towards dystopian pessimism, epitomised by works such as George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Chapters address the difficult definition of th...