Ursula K. Le Guin - Rocannons World

We once wrote that while only a few women wrotescience-fiction they made up in quality what they lacked in numbers. Certainly among the ranks of the most highlyesteemed artisans of fantasy fiction will be found the names of Andre Norton,Leigh Brackett, C. L. Moore, Margaret St. Clair, and Marion ZimmerBradley. Rocannons Worldintroduces the first book by another of that select group, Ursula K. Le Guin.

Mrs. Le Guin lives in Portland, Oregon, and has made herfirst sales to the magazines. That shehas talent will be evident on reading, for the s-f reader will find in thisvivid interplanetary fantasy elements reminiscent not only of the soaringimagery of the above-mentioned but hints of the fantasy of the Tolkien orMerritt type. This may seem extravagantpraise for a beginner, but we hope that the reader will sense this for himselfand wait, hopefully, for her next novel.

How can youtell the legend from the fact onthese worlds that lie so many years away?planets without names, called bytheir people simply The World, planets without history, where the past is thematter of myth, and a returning explorer finds his own doings of a few yearsback have become the gestures of a god. Unreason darkens that gap of timebridged by our lightspeed ships, and in the darkness uncertainty anddisproportion grow like weeds.

In tryingto tell the story of a man, an ordinary League scientist, who went to such anameless half-known world not many years ago, one feels like an archeologistamid millennial ruins, now struggling through choked tangles of leaf, flower,branch and vine to the sudden bright geometry of a wheel or a polishedcornerstone, and now entering some commonplace, sunlit doorway to find insideit the darkness, the impossible flicker of a flame, the glitter of a jewel, thehalf-glimpsed movement of a womans arm.

How can youtell fact from legend, truth from truth?

ThroughRocannons story the jewel, the blue glitter seen briefly, returns. With it letus begin, here:

Galactic Area 8, No. 62:FOMALHAUT II.

High-Intelligence Life Forms:Species Contacted:

Species I.

A)Gdemiar (singular Gdem): Highly intelligent, fully hominoid nocturnaltroglodytes, 120-135 cm. in height, light skin, dark head-hair. When contactedthese cave-dwellers possessed a rigidly stratified oligarchic urban societymodified by partial colonial telephathy, and a technologically oriented EarlySteel culture. Technology enhanced to Industrial, Point C, during LeagueMission of 252-254. In 254 an Automatic Drive ship (to-from New South Georgia)was presented to oligarchs of the Kiriensea Area corn-munity. Status C-Prime.

B) Fa(singular Fian): Highly intelligent, fully hominoid, diurnal, av. ca. 130 cm.in height, observed individuals generally light in skin and hair. Brief con~tacts indicated village and nomadic communal societies, partial colonialtelepathy, also some indication of short-range TK. The race appearsa-technological and evasive, with minimal and fluid culture-patterns. Currentlyuntaxable. Status E-Query.

Species11.

Liuar(singular Liu): Highly intelligent, fully hominoid, diurnal, av. height above170 cm., this species possesses a fortress/village, clan-descent society, ablocked technology (Bronze), and feudal-heroic culture. Note horizontal socialcleavage into 2 pseudo-races: (a: Olgyior, midmen, light-skinnedand dark-haired; (b: Angyar, lords, very tall, dark-skinned,yellow-haired

Thatsher, said Rocannon, looking up from the Abridged Handy Pocket Guide toIntelligent Life-forms at the very tall, dark-skinned, yellow-haired womanwho stood halfway down the long museum hall. She stood still and erect, crownedwith bright hair, gazing at something in a display case. Around her fidgetedfour uneasy and unattractive dwarves.

Ididnt know Fomalhaut II had all those people besides the trogs, saidKetho, the curator.

Ididnt either. There are even some Unconfirmed species listed here,that they never contacted. Sounds liketime for a more thorough survey missionto the place. Well, now at least we know what she is.

Iwish there were some way of knowing who she is

She was ofan ancient family, a descendant of the first kings of the Angyar, and for allher poverty her hair shone with the pure, steadfast gold of her inheritance.The little people, the Fa, bowed when she passed them, even when she was abarefoot child running in the fields, the light and fiery comet of her hairbrightening the troubled winds of Kirien.

She wasstill very young when Durhal of Hallan saw her, courted her, and carried heraway from the ruined towers and windy halls of her childhood to his own highhome. In Hallan on the mountainside there was no comfort either, thoughsplendor endured. The windows were unglassed, the stone floors bare; incoldyear one might wake to see the nights snow in long, low drifts beneatheach window. Durhals bride stood with narrow bare feet on the snowy floor,braiding up the fire of her hah: and laughing at her young husband in thesilver mirror that hung in their room. That mirror, and his mothersbridal-gown sewn with a thousand tiny crystals, were all his wealth. Some ofhis lesser kinfolk of Hallan still possessed wardrobes of brocaded clothing,furniture of gilded wood, silver harness for their steeds, armor andsilver-mounted swords, jewels and jewelry-and on these last Durhals bridelooked enviously, glancing back at a gemmed coronet or a golden brooch evenwhen the wearer of the ornament stood aside to let her pass, deferent to herbirth and marriage-rank.

Fourth fromthe High Seat of Hallan Revel sat Durhal and his bride Semley, so close toHallanlord that the old man often poured wine for Semley with his own hand, andspoke of hunting with his nephew and heir Durhal, looking on the young pairwith a grim, unhopeful love. Hope came hard to the Angyar of Hallan and all theWestern Lands, since the Starlords had appeared with their houses that leapedabout on pillars of fire and their awful weapons that could level hills. Theyhad interfered with all the old ways and wars, and though the sums were smallthere was terrible shame to the Angyar in having to pay a tax to them, a tributefor the Starlords war that was to be fought with some strange enemy, somewherein the hollow places between the stars, at the end of years. It will beyour war too, they said, but for a generation now the Angyar had sat inidle shame in their revelhalls, watching their double swords rust, their sonsgrow up without ever striking a blow in battle, their daughters marry poor men,even midmen, having no dowry of heroic loot to bring a noble husband.Hallanlords face was bleak when he watched the fair-haired couple and heardtheir laughter as they drank bitter wine and joked together in the cold,ruinous, resplendent fortress of their race.

Semleysown face hardened when she looked down the hall and saw, in seats far belowhers, even down among the halfbreeds and the midmen, against white skins andblack hair, the gleam and flash of precious stones. She herself had broughtnothing in dowry to her husband, not even a silver hairpin. The dress of athousand crystals she had put away in a chest for the wedding-day of herdaughter, if daughter it was to be.

It was, andthey called her Haldre, and when the fuzz on her little brown skull grew longerit shone with steadfast gold, the inheritance of the lordly generations, theonly gold she would ever possess

Semley didnot speak to her husband of her discontent. For all his gentleness to her,Durhal in his hard lordly pride had only contempt for envy, for vainwishing, and she dreaded his contempt. But she spoke to Durhals sisterDurossa.