Paperback, 382 pages
Castellano language
Published Aug. 15, 1983 by Minotauro.
La historia ocurre en el planeta doble Urras / Anarres. Los habitantes de Anarres son los descendientes de exiliados de Urras a causa de su participación en una revolución anarquista doscientos años antes de los sucesos que se relatan en el libro. Su régimen político es una especie de anarquismo taoísta, en un mundo extremadamente pobre en recursos. Los habitantes de Urras, por el contrario, han desarrollado una cultura urbana capitalista en un mundo que no impone tantos rigores para la supervivencia.
El protagonista, Shevek, es un científico anarquista que pretende desarrollar una teoría que permita la construcción de un ansible: un dispositivo de comunicación interestelar que supere las limitaciones de la física relativista y la velocidad de la luz. Shevek decide embarcarse en un arriesgado viaje hacia Urras con el objetivo de contactar con otros matemáticos y físicos que puedan hacer realidad las implicaciones prácticas de la misma.
Leguin’s social study on anarchism and capitalism is as entertaining as it is instructive.
Content warning Spoliers
I love Ursula but this has been my least liked book of hers so I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5. I enjoyed the heavy intellectual ideas. I enjoyed the romance. I was utterly destroyed that she made this main character who I had thoroughly liked, out of nowhere sexually assault a woman because he experiences alcohol for the first time in his life. The way it's written is really fucking blaming the woman victim character while our main character dude just gets to brush it off and go on with his life as the hero and doesn't even think about this incident for even one goddamn second for the rest of the book. I know Ursula took some serious thoughts about feminism later in life and made some apologies and changes in her writing with the Earthsea series which I thought was wonderful. I really wish she had taken the time to go back and edit or at least write an apology about this. It fucking sucks. The rest of the story is great. This one scene should be deleted. It's fucking horrible. And no it's totally not believable that creating an anarchist communist society would suddenly erase rape and that rape is just an invention of capitalism and greed. Yea no. I can't bite down on that idea at all. The other heavy ideas make sense but only up to a point and then it's just like trying to say capitalism causes humans to rape. Like no fuck you. Rapists are psychopaths. They are the same as murderers. They are born with it in their brain. They cannot feel empathy. They are predators. Society can't make them do it or not do it. They exist in every society through all time. They can't be fixed either. And a man who is absolutely loving to his true love, his little daughters will not just suddenly sexually assault a woman because he got exposed to capitalism and alcohol and "went crazy." Fucking bullshit rape apology sexist bullshit. And then feel absolutely no remorse about it? Cmon!!
Good:
Speculative fiction at its finest.
Great society & world building, shown through a lens of a single life.
Two timelines nicely intertwine & support each other.
The scenes of hardship & revolution resonate deeply.
* Evokes the feeling of classic Sci-Fi without any problematic elements often associated with it.
Bad: ∅
For a depiction of a similar theme check out John Kessel's [b:The Moon and the Other|30753686|The Moon and the Other|John Kessel|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1491126501l/30753686.SY75.jpg|51302140].
very deep personal relationship with this book
Still exactly as great as it used to be.
