Rocannon's World is a science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, her debut novel. Published in 1966, it appeared as an Ace Double novel alongside Avram Davidson's The Kar-Chee Reign. The novel is one of several of Le Guin's works that take place in the same universe and have relationships among characters and history, works that readers have termed the Hainish Cycle.
The novel's protagonist, "League of All Worlds" ethnographer Gaveral Rocannon, returns to the planet Fomalhaut II after its quarantine to lead a further advanced survey of its "higher intelligence life forms" (or "hilfs"). As the novel opens, a rebel faction of the League violently attacks Rocannon's ship, taking the lives of all of his colleagues—and, in foretelling an invasion, endangers the future of the planet's sentient species. Rocannon engages with three of these species, including the following:
- the tall, feudal, aristocratic Angyar
- two shorter, comparably intelligent species:
- the troglodyte technologists and makers, the Gdemiar
- the nontechnological, colonially telepathic Fiia.
The purpose is to battle both harsh planetary elements and other sentients to accomplish a quest—to beckon the distant League to block the invasion.
In developing the story, Le Guin introduces the term ansible as a key technology (and plot element) that allows instantaneous communication across vast distances. This term was later used more widely in science fiction, including by novelist Orson Scott Card and others.
Plot summary
Prologue: The Necklace
The novel opens with a prologue occurring many years prior to its main action, entitled "The Necklace" (from an earlier published stand-alone story, "The Dowry of Angyar").
Finally, after traveling halfway across the globe and suffering much loss and bereavement, the party reaches the enemy's stronghold, set in a land unknown to Rocannon and the Angyar, and occupied by distant relatives of the Angyar. Rocannon reverts from the effective role of a Bronze Age hero, into which he had been increasingly pushed during most of the book, and returns to his role as the resourceful operative of an interstellar civilization. He uses his mindspeech abilities to formulate a plan and successfully infiltrate the enemy base, entering one of the faster-than-light (FTL) ships. This he uses to send a communication, using its ansible, to alert his command, at the nearest base of the League of All Worlds, relaying to them the nature and layout of the base, and its planetary location.
Rocannon escapes via windsteed, although unsure until the last moment that his message has been received, and that he can and has succeeded in putting enough distance between himself and the base to survive. Shortly thereafter, Rocannon experiences the flash of light indicative that the base has been destroyed—the League has responded to his message with an unmanned Faster-Than-Light (FTL) ship, to destroy the enemy installation. Because of his new telepathic ability, Rocannon feels the shock of the deaths of a thousand men, occurring in that moment.
After the completion of his quest, Rocannon retires with the Angyar of the south continent, surrounded by sympathetic people, including the woman he would marry. When rescuers from the League arrive nine years later, they find that he has died. He could not know that as a result of his saving communication, the planet has been named after him.
Literary significance and criticism
Rocannon's World along with its two sequels combine emerging British New Wave science fiction sentiments with established American genre imagery and Le Guin's signature anthropological interests into a tale of loss, companionship, isolation, redemption and love.
Science fiction scholar Andy Sawyer points out that Rocannon's World, along with Planet of Exile and City of Illusions exhibits Le Guin's struggle as an emerging writer to arrive at a plausible, uniquely memorable and straightforward locale for her stories. The tropes in Rocannon's World adhere closely to those of high fantasy, with Clayfolk resembling Dwarves and the Fiia resembling Elves, especially in their dialogue. Additionally, Rocannon's World is noted to be a lightly disguised fantasy in which the legendary characters are easily interpreted by the readers as characters from the real world's future.
Polish literature scholar discussed the work in the context of the concepts of otherness and anthropocentrism.
Robert Silverberg described the novel as "superior space opera, good vivid fun ... short, briskly told, inventive and literate."
Publication history
Rocannon's World was initially published with no introduction, but Le Guin wrote an introduction for Harper & Row's 1977 hardcover edition. Rocannon's World was also issued in a 1978 book club omnibus along with Planet of Exile and City of Illusions in a volume called Three Hainish Novels and in a 1996 volume with the same novels titled Worlds of Exile and Illusion.
Further reading
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