The word for world is forest

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Ursula K. Le Guin: The word for world is forest (1977, Gollancz)

128 pages

English language

Published Aug. 13, 1977 by Gollancz.

ISBN:
978-0-05-750232-0
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5 stars (3 reviews)

Centuries in the future, Terrans have established a logging colony & military base named “New Tahiti” on a tree-covered planet whose small, green-furred, big-eyed inhabitants have a culture centered on lucid dreaming. Terran greed spirals around native innocence & wisdom, overturning the ancient society.

Humans have learned interstellar travel from the Hainish (the origin-planet of all humanoid races, including Athsheans). Various planets have been expanding independently, but during the novel it’s learned that the League of All Worlds has been formed. News arrives via an ansible, a new discovery. Previously they had been cut off, 27 light years from home.

The story occurs after The Dispossessed, where both the ansible & the League of Worlds are unrealised. Also well before Planet of Exile, where human settlers have learned to coexist. The 24th century has been suggested.

Terran colonists take over the planet locals call Athshe, meaning “forest,” rather than “dirt,” …

19 editions

trees

5 stars

it's a fairly short and straightforward story about resistance to colonization, but embedded in it is a kind of complicated discussion about the legitimacy of violence. It seems like it was in part a commentary on the Vietnam War (which is even alluded to at one point).

Don Davidson is one of the more thoroughly unpleasant viewpoint characters I've read; fortunately he is meant to be villainous, & at any rate it's only from his point of view for about a third of the book. His motivation, worldview & actions are disturbing but accurate for a certain sort of man.

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4 stars