A review by akallabeth
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin

challenging hopeful reflective slow-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

deservedly a classic, what else is there to say? the fact that this is so compelling and engaging while being at least 70% political treatise and philosophical debate is a marvel. while not quite as emotionally intense as the left hand of darkness (a book that made me cry), the characters still feel and act like real people, something you should not take for granted when it comes to classic scifi. and for all the meaty sociopolitical debate, i actually don't think the language in this book is overly dense or impenetrable. ms le guin your brain was unimaginably massive. thanks for the books. 

 A thin, small, middle-aged man beside Trepil began speaking, at first so softly, in a voice hoarsened by the dust-cough, that few of them heard him. He was a visiting delegate from the Southwest miners' syndicate, not expected to speak on this matter. "... what men deserve," he was saying. "For we each of us deserve everything, every luxury that was ever piled high in the tombs of the dead Kings, and we each of us deserve nothing, not a mouthful of bread in hunger. Have we not eaten while another starved? Will you punish us for that? Will you reward us for the virtue of starving while others ate? No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think."