George R.R. Martin bids a fond farewell to Ursula K. Le Guin

(Photo Credit: Gorthian. License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.)

Science fiction/fantasy author Ursula K. Le Guin died earlier this week. She was 88.

A groundbreaking author of immense talent and a generous spirit, Le Guin’s passing is a blow to the science fiction/fantasy community. Fellow author George R.R. Martin wrote about her passing on his Not a Blog. “I was very saddened to hear of the death of Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the great SF and fantasy writers of the past half century. Over the years, I had the honor of meeting Le Guin a few times, but I cannot claim to really have known her as a person. Our encounters, such as they were, were all at conventions or Nebula banquets or writer’s workshops, and they were all brief and forgettable. But I certainly knew her work… as anyone who calls themselves an SF fan surely must.”

A daughter of anthropologists, Le Guin was fascinated by the functioning of human society, politics and culture. She wrote dozens of award-winning novels and short stories in addition to essays, poetry and children’s books. She received multiple Nebula Awards, Locus Awards and World Fantasy Awards. She was named a Grandmaster of Science Fiction in 2003 (one of only a few female authors to be given this prestigious title) and was honored with The National Book Foundation Medal for Contribution to American Letters in 2014. Martin talked about her impact on himself and the publishing world:

"She was one of the giants. A gifted storyteller, dedicated to her art, she influenced a whole generation of writers who came after her, including me. THE LEFT HAND OF DARKNESS ranks as one of the best science fiction novels ever written, in my estimation, and THE DISPOSSESSED and THE LATHE OF HEAVEN were splendid works as well. The original Earthsea trilogy occupies a similar lofty position in the fantasy pantheon (though it was badly served by its television adaptation)."

Many of LeGuin’s works were labeled as science fiction, although she didn’t like it when literature was pigeonholed into genres and categories. The New York Times described her as “America’s greatest living science-fiction writer,” but she vastly preferred the designation of an “American novelist.”

On a personal note, I’d like to add that I became a huge sci-fi/fantasy fan in junior high as a direct result of reading Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Le Guin’s A Wizard of Earthsea trilogy. Earthsea astounded me with the depth of its worldbuilding and imagination. Martin sums things up:

"The Golden Age of Science Fiction is usually reckoned to have been the Campbell Era at ASTOUNDING, and its Big Three were Heinlein, Asimov, and Van Vogt. Yet as important as that era was, for me the true Golden Age will always be the late 60s and early 70s, when the Big Three were Roger Zelazny, Samuel R. Delany, and Ursula K. Le Guin. We shall never see their like again."

So long, Mrs. Le Guin, and thank you.