Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published in 1995 as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe, two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners” and “assets,” together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution. In “Betrayals” a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,” a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,” which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberation” is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,” in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war… I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.”

Unwilling to accept that his anarchist world must be separated from the rest of the civilized universe, Shevek, a brilliant physicist, risks his life by traveling to the utopian mother planet of Urras. Won Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1974. Won Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1975. Nominated for John W Campbell Memorial Award in 1975

The award-winning masterpiece by one of today’s most honored writers! The Word for World is Forest When the inhabitants of a peaceful world are conquered by the bloodthirsty yumens, their existence is irrevocably altered. Forced into servitude, the Athsheans find themselves at the mercy of their brutal masters. Desperation causes the Athsheans, led by Selver, to retaliate against their captors, abandoning their strictures against violence. But in defending their lives, they have endangered the very foundations of their society. For every blow against the invaders is a blow to the humanity of the Athsheans. And once the killing starts, there is no turning back. At the publisher’s request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied

Copyright 1966, by Ace Books, Inc. Part of this novel appeared in Amazing Stories, Sept. 1964, as a short story, and is copyright, 1964, by Ziff-Davis Publications Inc. Scanned & proofed by Binwiped 10/12/02 released in #bookz by MollyKate We once wrote that while only a few women wrote science-fiction they made up in quality what they lacked in numbers. Certainly among the ranks of the most highly esteemed artisans of fantasy fiction will be found the names of Andre Norton, Leigh Brackett, C. L. Moore, Margaret St. Clair, and Marion Zimmer Bradley. Rocannon's World introduces the first book by another of that select group, Ursula K. Le Guin. Mrs. Le Guin lives in Portland, Oregon, and has made her first sales to the magazines. That she has talent will be evident on reading, for the s-f reader will find in this vivid interplanetary fantasy elements reminiscent not only of the soaring imagery of the above-mentioned but hints of the fantasy of the Tolkien or Merritt type. This may seem extravagant praise for a beginner, but we hope that the reader will sense this for himself and wait, hopefully, for her next novel. D. A. W

He was a fully grown man, alone in a dense forest, with no trail to show where he had come from and no memory to tell who—or what he was. His eyes were not human eyes. The forest people took him in and raised him almost as a child, teaching him to speak, training him in forest lore, giving him all the knowledge they had. В But they could not solve the riddle of his past, and at last he had to set out on a quest to Es Toch, the City of the Shing, the Liars of Earth, the Enemy of Mankind. There he would find out the truth about himself…and a universe of danger. An Ace Book. All Rights Reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. Scanned & proofed by Binwiped 10/11/02 v1, then released in #bookz by MollyKate, downloaded from http://torrents.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=463754 and after that imported to fb2 by soshial (20.05.2008)

WINNER OF THE HUGO AWARD AND THE NEBULA AWARD FOR BEST SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL OF THE YEAR 1969 URSULA KROEBER LE GUIN, daughter of A. L. Kroeber (anthropologist) and Theodora Kroeber (author), was born in Berkeley, California in 1929. She attended college at Radcliffe and Columbia, and married C. A. LeGuin in Paris in 1951. The LeGuins and their three children live in Portland, Oregon. Ursula LeGuin's previous novels include ROCANNON'S WORLD, PLANET OF EXILE and CITY OF ILLUSIONS, and THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, all published by Ace Books. Like THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS, each novel is complete in itself, but they are all part of a greater, growing mosaic of far-future history that is consistent from novel to novel. With the awarding of the 1975 Hugo and Nebula awards to The Dispossessed, Ursula K. Le Guin became the first author to win both awards twice for novels. scanned & proofed by Binwiped 10/11/02 v1, formatting updated, missing pages scanned and restored, the whole compared to the 14th ACE print run of June, 1977 by MollyKate for #bookz, (26.10.2002); then released in #bookz by MollyKate, downloaded from http://torrents.ru/forum/viewtopic.php?t=463754 and after that imported to fb2 by soshial (20.05.2008)

Earthling Sutty has been living a solitary, well-protected life in Dovza City on the planet Aka as an official Observer for the interstellar Ekumen. Insisting on all citizens being pure "producer-consumers," the tightly controlled capitalist government of Aka — the Corporation — is systematically destroying all vestiges of the ancient ways: "The Time of Cleansing" is the chilling term used to describe this era. Books are burned, the old language and calligraphy are outlawed, and those caught trying to keep any part of the past alive are punished and then reeducated. Frustrated in her attempts to study the linguistics and literature of Aka's cultural past, Sutty is sent upriver to the backwoods town of Okzat-Ozkat. Here she is slowly charmed by the old-world mountain people, whose still waters, she gradually realizes, run very deep. But whether their ways constitute a religion, ancient traditions, philosophy, or passive, political resistance, Sutty is not sure. Delving ever deeper into her hosts' culture, Sutty finds herself on a parallel spiritual quest, as well