Sara's reading log

I am a book hoarder and reader. My main genre is SF, but I also love magic realism, fantasy and general fiction. Favorite authors are Iain M. Banks, Ursula K. LeGuin, Haruki Murakami, José Saramago, Isaac Asimov, Ben Aaronovitch and more. My rating system is based on five stars. I rate books based on my expectations and what a books aims to be. This means that the brilliant 'Fahrenheit 451' gets five stars because I thought it would be good, people said it was good, and it was good, but 'A Closed and Common Orbit' also gets five stars because in its series, in its style, I really enjoyed it and was not disappointed.

Het oog van de reiger by Ursula K. Le Guin

  • Started on: 2011-11-24
  • Finished on: 2011-11-27
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

This year one of the writers I have ‘discovered’ in my mission to read more old science fiction is Ursula Le Guin. Her books can be fantasy or science fiction, and usually a mixture of both.
This story takes us to Victoria, an Earth like planet. There are two groups of humans on the planets, the ruling group, once exiled from Earth for being too violent and warmongering, and the peaceful group, exiled because they were part of a passive resistance group marching from Russia to Vancouver. When the peaceful group want to move on to a new piece of land it soon comes out that while the peaceful group thinks they are on even ground with the ‘Bosses’, the ‘Bosses’ feel they rule over them. This leads to conflict where the peaceful resistance is put to the test.
In the middle of all this is Luz, the daughter of one of the ‘Bosses’. She has the privileged life, but feels wrong about all that is happening. She has to choose how to live her life, and live with the consequences.
There was not much science fiction, almost all of it was ideology, passive resistance against forcible enforcement. The story was ok, but not what I expected or liked. I have read more enjoyable stories by Le Guin. This one gets three out of five stars.

  • Started on: 2011-11-24
  • Finished on: 2011-11-27
  • Read in: Dutch
  • Rating: ***–
  • Genre(s): Fantasy

This year one of the writers I have ‘discovered’ in my mission to read more old science fiction is Ursula Le Guin. Her books can be fantasy or science fiction, and usually a mixture of both.
This story takes us to Victoria, an Earth like planet. There are two groups of humans on the planets, the ruling group, once exiled from Earth for being too violent and warmongering, and the peaceful group, exiled because they were part of a passive resistance group marching from Russia to Vancouver. When the peaceful group want to move on to a new piece of land it soon comes out that while the peaceful group thinks they are on even ground with the ‘Bosses’, the ‘Bosses’ feel they rule over them. This leads to conflict where the peaceful resistance is put to the test.
In the middle of all this is Luz, the daughter of one of the ‘Bosses’. She has the privileged life, but feels wrong about all that is happening. She has to choose how to live her life, and live with the consequences.
There was not much science fiction, almost all of it was ideology, passive resistance against forcible enforcement. The story was ok, but not what I expected or liked. I have read more enjoyable stories by Le Guin. This one gets three out of five stars.