A literary masterpiece from one of the great writers of our time: ‘Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart’ David Mitchell
‘Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new’
Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place.
As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.
‘Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new’
Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place.
As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.
Reviews
Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart
Le Guin's novel imagines how bridges can be built, chasms crossed. By the end, the book has changed us. Thus, the author not only demonstrates how to build worlds. She shows why we build worlds in the first place.
A jewel of a story
One of the best science fiction novels ever written
No single story did more to upend the genre's conventions
Genre cannot contain Ursula Le Guin: she is a genre in herself
A rich and complex story of friendship and love
As profuse and original in invention as The Lord of the Rings
Ursula Le Guin is a chemist of the heart
The exquisite prose . . . sings with every step. It is one thing to write a good story, or a great story. It is a whole other accomplishment, for an author of fiction, to write a true story
One of the most extraordinary examples of soft-core sf . . . reflects the author's formidable background in anthropology as well as her overriding ethical and artistic concerns
