Rocannon's World

Rocannon is an ethnologist of mixed ancestry.  One of his parents was from Terra (Earth), the other from the planet Hain.  He is on the little-known planet Fomalhaut II as part of a scientific expedition from the League of All Worlds, studying the three known intelligent life forms on the planet.  His docked space ship, with everyone else aboard, had been destroyed -- presumably by forces from a rebel planet in the League.  Rocannon is the only survivor.

Rocannon is in the land of the Angyar, the dominant species on the planet, which appears to be at a medieval level of development.  A kind and tactful man, he has made close friends with leaders of the kingdom.  They become alarmed by a number of devastating attacks on towns and villages, attacks with no apparent rational goal and uncertain perpetrators.  Rocannon and Mogien, a young Lord of the Angyars, set off on an expedition to discover the source of the attacks.

Fomalhaut II is eight light years from the nearest League planet.  The League has ships that can travel at virtually the speed of light.  Even so, it would take eight years to bring another ship, although -- because of relativity -- it would seem only weeks or months to those aboard.  But Rocannon has lost the normal means of communication -- the ansible, which is an instantaneous form of communication not subject to the relativistic limits to which space travelers are subject -- which was destroyed with his space ship.  He's out of contact, and on his own.     

Sadly, I did not discover Ursula K. Le Guin's works until after her death in 2018.  I began by reading the first of her Earthsea cycle books, A Wizard of Earthsea, and was hooked.  I read all six, one after another, a year ago.  I followed up that series with two of her better known works, The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed.  I've written in this blog about all of these books.

The latter two books are part of what is called the Hainish cycle -- consisting of a number of novels and short stories.  The story of each book is self-contained, but they all assume a universe where human life first evolved on a planet called Hain.  Hain colonized a large number of planets, including Earth (which explains where we came from!).  Hain's civilization then declined, and the colonized planets lost contact with each other, or even a memory of each other and of their own origins.  The descendants on each planet remained humanoid in form and nature, with a certain amount of differentiation from planet to planet.  Their civilizations began advancing once again, and they gradually re-connected and formed the League. 

The book in which Le Guin describes the earliest stage in the confederation of Hain planets is The Dispossessed, but the earliest book actually written by Le Guin was Rocannon's World (1966).  I decided it was time to begin at the beginning.  I  just finished reading that novel.

As in the later books that I've read, Le Guin is as interested in constructing and describing a world in rich detail as she is in developing a plot (although Rocannon's World seems more plot-driven and conventional than some of her later works).  From the beginning, she mentions plants and animals, fragments of history, peculiarities of custom and ethnic life,  casually, without explanation -- as though the reader is already familiar with the world she has constructed.  (All -- or most -- becomes clear, of course, as the story continues.)

I have to mention the "windsteeds" -- the most common means of rapid transportation on the planet.  These are domesticated flying mammals which are trained to the saddle and are loyal to their tenders.  Think of Pegasus -- the flying horse.  Except, these are huge flying cats.  Rather than graze on grass overnight, they hunt out and eat small animals.  Their fur is soft, and they purr when stroked.  Le Guin -- a confessed cat-lover -- knows the way to our hearts!

Nothing in Le Guin's books is spoon fed to her readers.  We are asked to follow her story closely, never assuming that casual mention of a detail will have no importance later.  Le Guin assumes her readers are both curious and intelligent.  

The ending is both satisfying and poignant.  Her writing, although careful and austere, is not without emotional impact.