The Dispossessed

Ursula Le Guin

1974

The humanities had a couple of problems; there was an alien fleet on its way - it could be seen even though it would not arrive for centuries yet - intentions unknown, but presumed to be no good. The other was a lot more pressing - the need to communicate between their scattered worlds for their ships were limited to sub light velocities and the distances between the stars meant that lightwave communications took centuries to travel between them. The humanities would find it difficult to stand against their enemy should this situation continue much longer.

Anarres, the desert planet of the Tau Ceti system, had long been the prison planet of it's more lush sister world of Urras so when a group of anarchists nearly overthrew the government, it was natural to give them this world.

Now, centuries later, a stable society had evolved. One where everyone was expected to do work that benefited the society as a whole but Shevek, whilst trying to live up to this ideal, found his interest in Higher Mathematics becoming more and more the centre of his work, bringing himself in to conflict with the leaders, the leaders decried by their society, of his own people.

But when one of his papers is found to hold the secret of FTL interstellar communications, Shevek is showered with requests to travel to the centres of civilisation. Feeling hemmed in by his colleagues on Anarres Shevek finally accepts a request to travel to Urras but the situation is no better there as he finds himself caught up in the intrigues of both governments and revolutionary parties while all he wants to do is continue his studies.

The Dispossessed is one of Ursula Le Guin's 'Ekumen' books, all set in this Universe. It is sometimes subtitled 'An Ambiguous Utopia' and the reasoning behind this is fairly clear; Annares, Shevek's homeland, is an Anarchy, but he is unable to fit in - although eager to conform(!) to the guiding tenets of the founding revolutionaries, Shevek finds his desire, his need, to work on his mathematics taking over his life. It is this need that forces him to travel to Urras and and it's leading state A-Io, which is nominally Capitalist though there is a large servant class that seems rather at odds with this supposed advanced culture. Another society where all is not as it seems as Shevek finds out when he is caught up in a near revolution.

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This is part of the Science Fiction Masterworks series.

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