Name: The Word for World is Forest
ISBN: 9781399607797

The Word for World is Forest

Centuries in the future, Terrans have established a logging colony & military base named “New Tahiti” on a tree-covered planet whose small, green-furred, big-eyed inhabitants have a culture centered on lucid dreaming. Terran greed spirals around native innocence & wisdom, overturning the ancient society. Humans have learned interstellar travel from the Hainish (the origin-planet of all humanoid races, including Athsheans). Various planets have been expanding independently, but during the novel it’s learned that the League of All Worlds has been formed. News arrives via an ansible, a new discovery. Previously they had been cut off, 27 light years from home. The story occurs after The Dispossessed, where both the ansible & the League of Worlds are unrealised. Also well before Planet of Exile, where human settlers have learned to coexist. The 24th century has been suggested. Terran colonists take over the planet locals call Athshe, meaning “forest,” rather than “dirt,” like their home planet Terra. They follow the 19th century model of colonization: felling trees, planting farms, digging mines & enslaving indigenous peoples. The natives are unequipped to comprehend this. They’re a subsistence race who rely on the forests & have no cultural precedent for tyranny, slavery or war. The invaders take their land without resistance until one fatal act sets rebellion in motion & changes the people of both worlds forever.

What Hacker News says

ergsefApr 2025

"The Word for World is Forest" and "The Left Hand of Darkness" are probably my two favorites "sci-fi" Le Guin books, highly recommend them.

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namanyaygAug 2023

I read this book myself a few weeks ago. Ursula's work is great, it's strange that I never heard about her before.

I also finished another of her works, "The Word for World is Forest", just last week. This one is more about human nature. It is again brilliant, I could not put it down, and I highly recommend it especially to those already familiar with her writing.

I'll probably be picking up more of her books after I finish "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vinge.

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SymbioteJan 2023

It's a poor summary anyway.

The Dispossessed describes an anarchist society on the impoverished moon of a verdant planet, and a scientist's struggle to reconcile his anarchism with his wish to further his research, which requires more resources than the anarchist society can provide. It is one of my favourite books.

I also don't remember distant communication being relevant for The Word for World is Forest. That's far more about the conflict between the natives and the colonizers, and passive vs. aggressive societies.

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hgibbsOct 2022

Earthsea is great. Ursula also wrote a lot of amazing science fiction: left hand of darkness, the dispossessed, the lathe of heaven, the word for world is forest etc. All are worth reading.

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sdepablosJan 2021

Agree with both, but in the case of Le Guin I clearly prefer the Hainish Cycle, with classics as The Left Hand of Darkness, The Disposesed or The Word for World is Forest

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yesbabyyesMar 2017

Fundamentally changed are so big words but these were pretty cool:

- Douglas Hofstadter's GEB: An Eternal Golden Braid

- Debt: The First 5,000 Years by David Graeber

- Ursula K. LeGuin's The Word for World is Forest

- Propaganda by Edward Bernays

- Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond

- Empires: The Logic of World Domination from Ancient Rome to the United States by Herfried Münkler

- Smedley D. Butler's War is a Racket (more of an exposé)

- In Praise of Idleness by Bertrand Russell (ditto)

- Neuromancer by William Gibson