Rocannon’s World by Ursula K. le Guin

Boasting the worst title of any book in Ursula K. Le Guin’s entire oeuvre, Rocannon’s World was her debut novel and published in 1966.

Arguably less complex than some of the other Hainish Cycle stories, this novel has a pretty simple quest-type narrative, though the contexts and settings of it offer the impressive and evocative world-building you’d (I’d) expect from Le Guin – this may be a debut, but it isn’t juvenilia…

The eponymous Rocannon is a scientist who’s part of a exploratory expedition (working on behalf of a massive galactic empire) sent to the planet Fomalhaut II to study and survey the world and the [potential] High Intelligence Life Forms (“HILFs”) living upon it. Unfortunately – right at the start of the novel proper (there’s a scene-setting Prologue, which is also included as a short story in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters) – everyone else Rocannon is working with dies, as their spaceship is bombed after they’ve gathered to prepare for a final meeting before heading back to the administrative centre of the universe. This shock bombing on this undeveloped planet means only one thing: that there is a rebel base and a rebel army somewhere on the planet!

Enlisting the help of the local HILFs he’s befriended during his research, Rocannon goes on a long quest/journey to the rumoured location of what could be the rebel base, as he certain they”ll have an ansible (faster than light speed messaging equipment) which he could use to contact the people on his side in the war, and alert them to the location of this base so they could destroy it and/or rescue him.

Although messages can be sent instantaneously across the universe using this special machine, and there are weapons that may be deployed through the same wormhole-like channels, too, physical matter cannot be transported at great speed, so Rocannon is a minimum of seven full years away from any other physical presence from his society. He is alone on this planet, and even if he does send a message, he will be alone for a long time. His trip to the base is not to save himself, but an effort to save the people fighting on his side in the war…

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Rocannon meets multiple groups of HILFs – as well as some very sinister non-intelligent life forms (essentially giant bees) – as he traverses the planet, mostly by giant flying cat. This mode of transport is fun, sure, but does feel a tad more whimsical than I’d expect from Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle.

Similarly to the other early novels from that cycle I’ve read (Planet of Exile and City of Illusions), there is an almost fantastical vibe on Fomalhaut II, with the non-advanced civilisations (i.e. the ones not in formal communion with the Empire that Rocannon works for) at a medieval point of technological development. Le Guin has fun here inventing multiple species of HILF and various societies within the species, and there are clear differences and intentional environment-based overlaps between them all.

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Rocannon’s World is an adventure story, then, featuring a playful and adventurous trek across an alien planet. The different life forms have competing worldviews, interests, abilities and expectations, and some of them even possess telepathy.

Telepathy becomes a central plot point at the end, but its importance rises in a slow, drip-drip way, so this doesn’t feel like a deus ex machina type giving up on the plot, it feels like a satisfying and engaging little twist. No, not a twist – it feels like an enjoyable and justifiable turn.

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Though the text nods towards some discussion of colonialism, Empire expansion and the ways in which interventions from large powers manipulate and negatively affect the lives, lifestyles and societies of poorer and less “developed” societies, the allegories and politics are not as sharp or as pointed as in Le Guin’s later work (e.g. the incomparable The Word for World is Forest, one of the best things I’ve ever read). The world-building here, though, is as complex and evocative as those subsequent texts.

Le Guin arrived at this initial novelistic point in her career with real literary power, and her interest in anthropology and skill at societal description firmly established. This is a satisfying text within her oeuvre and doesn’t feel like a test-run first novel, as many debut novels do (or at least did, before novelists were expected to write their best novel first, which I’m told is the situation now).

So yes, I enjoy Rocannon’s World, I enjoyed it a lot.

A quick breezy, easy, read that I mainly read between two and four a.m on a couple of nights when my baby had a liiiiiittle bit of sleep regression and needed to be held (without sleeping) in the middle of the night. A baby on my chest and a Le Guin in my hand – not a bad way to spend the small hours!