Le Guin criticism

[altariel]

Can anyone point me to any critical essays on Le Guin (online or offline), particularly which deal with the changes between the first three of the Earthsea books, and the more recent ones? (I've been through her website already.)

Comments

[fileg.livejournal.com]

just came to talk about yur icon, I'm afraid....

And took the fire with him, and a knife...
how does Owen always get under my skin so


(I understand I missed your birthday, which makes me sad. Hope it was happy and youn got some lovely toys.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'm glad the icon works for you. Those words and that image can't be disconnected in my head.

It was my birthday on Tuesday, and I had a lovely day, thank you! Plenty of toys, and still with more to come over the next couple of days! (It's an ongoing joke in our house that I always make my birthday last an entire week.)

BTW, here's a glimpse of what the pages with the Stargazers stories will look like (there's only the first two stories up right now, the rest will follow soon). It's pretty basic, but it's somewhere for them to call home. Any thoughts?

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Those words and that image can't be disconnected in my head.

I hadn't associated those before.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The Abraham and Isaac legend is used in a couple of other poems from WW1; it must have been intentional on Tolkien's part (the knife is the clue).

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Re the Stargazers stories, if a non-author might be allowed to butt her head in here? I personally find the text font you've chosen a touch on the hard-to-read side -- could be you've chosen something that doesn't convert well universally? (Feel free to ignore, if I speak out of turn.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

It's Tahoma, but the stylesheet is set to switch into Arial if it didn't convert. I might have a play with that. Thanks!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Is this better?

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Much! Thanks. (Shall I move my rec for 'Sickle' to that location next time I update?)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Damn, just lost my reply to this...

Glad it reads better.

The link for 'Sickle' at ff.net means people can review, so I think I'd prefer it linked to there for the moment ;-D I'll be getting round to putting a review facility on my site, but not for a while yet (need to learn PHP first...).

And thanks for the rec for 'Valediction' at crack van!

[espresso-addict.livejournal.com]

Sure! I'd forgotten about reviews; I tend not to like ff.net because the pop-ups crash my machine (I do know about the ad-blocker, but it crashes while I'm trying to load the ad-blocker page!).

And thanks for writing 'Valediction' -- though I'm not sure how well it fits into the whole crack_van crossover riff...

[altariel.livejournal.com]

The pop-up blocker on the Google toolbar has been working wonders for me the past couple of days.

[glitterboy1.livejournal.com]

need to learn PHP first

Obviously, if I can answer any questions, or lend you any books, just let me know. (Sorry, not sure whether I've said that before. Probably. But it's still true.)

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Thanks, gb, I may well take you up on that, although I suspect this might be one of those projects that won't even get started for several months.

[communicator.livejournal.com]

Here are four sites which are reviews or essayus or host/link to reviews and essays.

http://surf.to/le.guin/

http://www.sfra.org/Coyote/CoyoteHome.htm

http://www.ocelotfactory.com/leguin/

http://www.ursulakleguin.com/

Hope this helps. I have used them all at one time or another, I can't remember what is where on these sites though.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Brilliant! Thank you.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

You like her books too? It's one of my secret wishes to read Earthsea in English original, but not even in translation are they awailable anymore over here.

And then she wrote that sci-fi story with the gender-changing aliens, I don't know what the original title was, but it was a highly interesting - not to mention disturbing - book. The Hungarian title was "Winterplanet", but that's probably not a correct translation.

[altariel.livejournal.com]

I'll keep an eye out for the Earthsea books - they sometimes pop up in second-hand bookshops.

The other book is 'The Left Hand of Darkness'.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Right! I remember now: Winterplanet was another translation title, maybe the German one? The Hungarian edition actually got that title translated correctly.

Sorry for the gibberish, my mind is so disorganized lately.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

It's one of my secret wishes to read Earthsea in English original, but not even in translation are they available anymore over here.

That's a wish that's easily satisfied; I'd be happy to send you copies if you'd like.

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

That's very generous of you, but won't that be very expensive? I don't know about books in the States, but over there we can barely afford them. That's why I'm so thankful for the Internet. I can find stuff I'd never get otherwise, and that for the price of one book and a half for a month, with unlimited access. Cable access is such a cool thing.

Of course, outrageous prices didn't keep me to buy The Tolkien Bestiary last week, plus The World of Tokien a nice little anthology of the paintings of well-known artists like Alan Lee, John Howe and the others. Credit cards can make a person a little irresponsible. *sighs* But I'm happy with them nevertheless.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Not expensive, actually; I believe all of the books are out in paperback now, and I can easily afford the cost. Just let me know if you'd like them!

[wiseheart.livejournal.com]

Well, in that case I gratefully accept, of course. *blushes*
Thank you very much indeed. Ummm... shall we switch the rest to private email, instead of using up Altariel's space?

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Probably a good idea - she's too nice a lady to spam!

[altariel.livejournal.com]

Wonderful spam, marvellous spam...