tags: Ursula K. Le Guin
2001
August
- 2001 Aug 8
- Lunacy
OK, so my mind isn’t quite back together yet, but I’m getting there. Really.
· Read more… - 2001 Aug 15
- Metaphysics on a Gloomy Day
The fruits of meditation. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
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September
- 2001 Sep 2
- Wizard's School
Ursula K Le Guin. The Wizard of Earthsea. We are living in a postmodern world where everything has already been created, so everything is de facto derivative….
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2006
May
- 2006 May 15
- in the beginning, in the middle, and in the end was the word
Ursula K. Le Guin, in her fantasy world of Earthsea, comes up with a brilliant system of magic, one predicated on, essentially, words.
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2007
July
- 2007 Jul 26
- scattered thoughts (spoilers!)
It’s ironic, really. While I have thoroughly enjoyed the Harry Potter series for the past 7 years (I was gifted the first three books in 2000), I never really held it in high regard, especially in terms of literary merit. To me, it was the fantasy equivalent of a romance novel: lots of fun to read, but not something you would read again. As I’ve mentioned before, the only books that I’ve managed to read more than once have been The Lord of the Rings, The Last Unicorn, and The Wizard of Earthsea. (Actually, digging around in my memory, there are a few more: some of Madeline L’Engle’s books, in particular A Wrinkle in Time, A Wind in the Door, A Swiftly Tilting Planet, and Many Waters; and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy
· Read more…trilogyseries by Douglas Adams.)
September
- 2007 Sep 4
- whispers of the gods
On panspermia and ancient aliens (at least in science fiction.)
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2012
July
- 2012 Jul 14
- systems of magic
Ever since I heard of Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law—any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic—I've often found myself thinking of how magic would end up being studied in a post-scientific revolution civilization. I know a lot of fantasy authors don't like making their systems of magic explicit, because it inevitably makes it magic less magical (and not making it explicit is also incidentally in line with Tolkien's thoughts on how magic should work: internally logically consistent the way logic in fairy tales and dreams are internally consistent, no matter how weird.)
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2013
April
- 2013 Apr 17
- Middle-Earth vs. Earthsea
Both J.R.R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin call their respective fantasy universes Eä/Éa. Coincidence?
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2014
November
- 2014 Nov 22
- equilibrium
Only in silence the word
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only in dark the light,
only in dying life:
bright the hawk's flight
on the empty sky
—Ursula K. Le Guin The Wizard of Earthsea
2015
November
- 2015 Nov 12
- Panspermia
Panspermia—the idea that the life started off-planet and managed to seed the Earth—is a recurrent trope in science fiction.
· Read more… - 2015 Nov 14
- The Opposite of Civilization is War
The people who promote the "clash of civilizations" paradigm are predictable and unsurprising. They say that accommodation and multiculturalism don't work at all, and while they may not say it out loud, their only solution seems to be genocide.
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