This is a book that you should read.

[Hierophant]

Why have you not read this book yet?

[Brad Reddekopp]

There are very many books that I would like to read but will probably never get to. Tell me why this book should be one of the ones that I do read while many great works remain neglected.

[Hierophant]

Actually, it's recognized as one of the great works of science-fiction, and it's the best book I have ever read in my life.
(to be fair, I don't read a lot of fiction, so I'm biased)

[Brad Reddekopp]

I haven't actually read Ursula LeGuin. I'm familiar with the name, of course.

[Hierophant]

Are you?

[tism]

Looks like a good recommendation. I will look for it sometime.

Although, the stuff about FTL communication is a pet-peeve of mine... How prevalent is it as a plot device in this story?

[Hierophant]

It doesn't really have any relevance to the story, except at the very end where it is an important element. But you gotta understand, this is about science centuries beyond ours, where the Theory of Relativity is but a distant memory.

[Hierophant]

Although I posted this in the mutualist section, to be fair, the anarchist society is more anarcho-syndicalist than mutualist, so it might not be favoured by some. I didn't have a problem with it.

[tism]

where the Theory of Relativity is but a distant memory.

Blasphemy!

Well, the problem I have with FTL used in literature is that it kills causality, which makes everything else go as well, making FTL like a great huge deus ex machina. I find difficulty maintaining the whole suspension of disbelief, then, even if the other fantasy stuff is not all that far-fetched.

Not saying that the book is necessarily bad, though. I would have to read it first.

[Hierophant]

Well, the concept of time is also different than in Relativity.

[Noor]

I have the book (thanks Franc!) but I'm waiting until I settle down this summer to get to it.

[Tmaq]

I read it years ago. It's very good.

It put LeGuin on the map, if I remember right (but I probably didn't).

Don't trust the communist utopia too much, Franc - every society would work great if every member was totally sold on the prevailing ethical system...and stayed sold.

The "back and forth through time" structure of the story is awesome - but I don't recall time actually being different in that story, and the FTL doesn't hardly matter; its about two societies on each planet of a binary pair - as if our moon was inhabitable. One is a market economy, one a propertyless commie fantasy. The backstory is that all the communists got fed up and left the nice watery planet to go live on the deserty one and prove their utopian ideas.

The major plausibility comes from the ability of citizens to move between them, avoiding the issue of promulgation and indoctrination, it doesn't come from her deeply considered economic structures. But that's hardly a criticism, because the question in the heart of the reader about the two options isn't supposed to be settled by it.

-Tom