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read Ursula K. Le Guin's Eye of the Heron, which has been on my shelf for a long time. Enjoyed it very much!
It reminds me of: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow; Le Guin's own "The Word for World Is Forest" and The Tombs of Atuan; and Jane Eyre. Passionate young people, communitarian/nonviolent ideology, and the struggle with encroaching power on a penal colony world that's populated by 2/3rds Brazilian mafia dons and 1/3 nonviolent peace activists from the 22nd century.
The final images and discussions of breaking away from the familiar and venturing onward into unknown places, when needed for the attainment of an ideal of peaceful individual freedom and self-actualization, with resulting loss of possessions and social safety net, but gain of self-confidence and inner quiet, resonated with me powerfully.
The xenobotany and xenobiology around the transported human colonists are delightful, as are the language- and cultural-level indicators of the colonists' varied Earth backgrounds.
And, I very much appreciated the well-reasoned trope inversion of the communitarian villagers having better-made goods and crafts than the corrupt, fashy City. Le Guin writes about inequality in trade, and you expect it to lean the one way, but it goes the other, and then you're delighted by how "of course" the surprise direction feels.
It reminds me of: The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow; Le Guin's own "The Word for World Is Forest" and The Tombs of Atuan; and Jane Eyre. Passionate young people, communitarian/nonviolent ideology, and the struggle with encroaching power on a penal colony world that's populated by 2/3rds Brazilian mafia dons and 1/3 nonviolent peace activists from the 22nd century.
The final images and discussions of breaking away from the familiar and venturing onward into unknown places, when needed for the attainment of an ideal of peaceful individual freedom and self-actualization, with resulting loss of possessions and social safety net, but gain of self-confidence and inner quiet, resonated with me powerfully.
The xenobotany and xenobiology around the transported human colonists are delightful, as are the language- and cultural-level indicators of the colonists' varied Earth backgrounds.
And, I very much appreciated the well-reasoned trope inversion of the communitarian villagers having better-made goods and crafts than the corrupt, fashy City. Le Guin writes about inequality in trade, and you expect it to lean the one way, but it goes the other, and then you're delighted by how "of course" the surprise direction feels.
