PS Cottier

A wonderful writer just passed away in Portland, Oregon. I’ll never forget puzzling over new views of gender in The Left Hand of Darkness when I was about 10; long before I heard the word ‘gender’. Ursula K. Le Guin introduced me to a disturbing and surprising new world.

Fantasy and many science fiction books seem to have been fed a diet of steroids recently. They seem to grow bigger with each year, as if strength and length were the same thing. But in her often compact books, Ursula K. Le Guin broke down the unnecessary and intellectually inexcusable divisions between ‘serious’ literature and speculative fiction, with thoughtful complexity and beautiful prose.

Her books will live on for a very long time.