2. Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin may very well be one of the most intellectual writers in all of science fiction. That’s really saying something for a genre that frequently loves to ponder philosophical and moral issues for chapters at a time, if not for entire books and television shows.
Le Guin’s work is definitely of the “soft” sci-fi variety, with its focus on cultures and relationships between intelligent beings. She’s certainly qualified to do so. Her father was Alfred Kroeber, an esteemed American anthropologist who worked closely with the University of California, Berkeley and conducted research with the native peoples of the American West and Southwest. Her mother, Theodora, was also an accomplished social scientist and writer.
It’s easy enough to think that young Ursula, growing up around anthropologists and writers, was primed to create work that looked at human behavior with exquisite attention. That certainly seems to be the case when you read works like The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) or The Dispossessed (1974).
Sociology and anthropology aren’t the only themes in Le Guin’s writing, however. She also shows strong opinions on environmentalism, politics, gender, sexuality, and religion. In The Dispossessed, protagonist Shevek first lives on Anarres, a smaller planet in a double planetary system. Anarresti society is anarchist and generally egalitarian, a necessary development for the harsh planet on which it’s taken root.
However, Shevek, a brilliant mathematician, feels stifled by some of the tenets of his society. He essentially defects to Urras, the larger planet in the system. There, people work under a more familiar capitalistic and patriarchal societies. The tension between the two worlds and within Shevek himself forms the bulk of this thoughtful, arresting novel.