Perhaps the best word to sum up this collection is "poignant." All three of the novels from Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish universe have an element of loss, starting with "Rocannon's World." Two storylines are woven together here, on a planet that has a medieval feel with its hierarchies and impoverished ruling class. One storyline is that of an impoverished wife of an impoverished lord who takes an interstellar journey to retrieve her family's inheritance and returns years later with her heirloom necklace. The other involves the namesake of this book, Rocannon, who is preparing to return to his ship and shipmates only to find his spaceport blown apart.

The second book, "Planet of Exile," deals with more primitive peoples on this world, living near the exiles from Terra who are unable to return to their homeland. Time on this planet is much different than on Terra, due to the rotation of the planet with its moon. Le Guin's skill in anthropology is shown to its fullest when explaining how peoples' culture adapts when a moon phase is 400 days long.

Finally, in "City of Illusions," we journey with Falk whose memories only begin when he is a man stumbling through a forest and into a small settlement. Who he was as a child, where he came from, are all blanks for him. As he journeys from this settlement after a number of years, he finds out he is on Terra and the technology of the past, the learnings of the past, are all forbidden so as not to raise the interest of the Shing. And in this story we learn that the League of All Worlds is dissolved, also because of the Shing. At the end of Falk's journey he meets the Shing and discovers not just his past but also his planet and his own starship's disaster. ( )

Rocannon's World:
When all the other members of his ethnographic survey are killed, Gaverel Rocannon is stranded on the planet Fomalhaut II. The weapons that were used in the attack could only have come from an alien military faction. To stop them Rocannon must get a message back to the League of All Worlds. But on this planet the only equipment that can span the distance between the stars quickly enough to deliver the message in time could only be located on the enemy’s base. So Rocannon and his hosts from what The Abridged Handy Pocket Guide to Intelligent Life-forms describes as a “clan-descent society,” with a “feudal-heroic culture,” set out on a quest to find and infiltrate the base in the forgotten lands to their south. Will it be swords, lances, and griffins against helicopter gunships and faster than light bombers?

Planet of Exile:
The native girl Rolery, born out of season and impetuous, finds herself strangely attracted to Jakob Agat Altetta, the dark leader of the farborn, even though her people consider the farborn to be inhuman practitioners of witchcraft, and so rude that they would look you directly in the eyes. The attraction is mutual, and it leads to bitter misfortune and near disaster just when the two peoples should unite against a common enemy.

City of Illusions:
Five years ago a man without memory or language stumbled out of the wilds of the forest. At least he had the body of man, but his yellow eyes were like those of a cat. In Zove’s household the family debated what he was and what to do with him. Was he a spy, an agent of their enemy the Shing, or possibly an alien, even though, “No being from the Other Worlds that once were know has walked on Earth for twelve hundred years.” They let him live and learn, and now he’s about to journey across a continent to the city of the Shing, the masters of the “mind-lie” that defeated the League of All Worlds and enslaved humanity, to uncover the truth about himself.

These first three of Le Guin’s science fiction novels were published in 1966 and 1967. Each is set on a different planet. The backstory to all three stories, each set about a millennium apart, is the rise and fall of an interstellar human, or perhaps humanoid civilization. During this time humanity gains and develops the skill of telepathy. More in the forefront of the stories is the clash between cultures, the interstellar and the native, and in final one, City of Illusions, between human and the truly alien.

The three, taken together as in this edition, are two heroic quests framing a siege. If all this sounds more like the themes found in heroic fantasy rather than in science fiction to you, you have the author’s agreement. Eleven years after its first publication, in an introduction to the 1977 edition of Rocannon's World (reproduced in The Language of the Night, the author writes, "...of course fantasy and science fiction are different, just as red and blue ; different; they have different frequencies; if you mix them (on paper—I work on paper) you get purple, something else again. Rocannon's World is definitely purple." ( )

There are 3 novellas or very short novels in this collection. The first is Rocannon's World about a scientist from a group called The League of All Worlds who is in the process of making second contact with a civilization on the planet when he realizes he has been cut off from the rest of the League, which can only mean that war has broken out and that The Enemy have come to this planet. The only thing he can try to do is break into the enemy's base to use their communication device to warn The League that the Enemy have come. The story becomes a fairly straightforward '70s adventure story, but I appreciated the little details here. Careful attention is placed on the anthropological details. I appreciated the way Rocannon's name is spelled when a native is pronouncing it versus how people from off-world spell it. The League has an interesting approach to these worlds, in that they do not want to interfere with the natural development of the people on these planets and don't introduce technology that could sway them in a particular direction. This story, and well, all of the stories to some extent could be considered space fantasy, because the civilization on this planet that Rocannon is involved in, uses swords and armor, ride flying cats, and believe prophecy more than science. But on his journey, Rocannon basically assimilates into the native culture, but his name become's legendary in the greater League culture. The second story is called Planet of Exile, and it was a bit shorter, about 100 pages in the edition I read. The story involves another group of League scientists trying to survive on a remote planet where the seasons are incredibly long, and an invading group from the Northern part of the planet is threatening to destroy their settlement along with another native group who is slightly allied with the League scientists. Again, the League scientists don't use technology from the League and are also cut off from communicating with the rest of the League. This story is crucial for the last book, because it shows how the League group and the natives are able to merge and survive instead of staying separate and dying out. The story was more brutal with its depictions of violence and war, distrust, and stereotyping. But it ended on a hopeful note. The third story, City of Illusions was very interesting, especially the last 20 or so pages. The story follows a man with no memory as he travels the continent of North America in an attempt to find the truth of who he is and what happened to him. He appears to be from off-world, but during his journey he becomes an Earthling in his heart. We meet the Enemy, the Shing, in this story and the true conflict between the two groups is very interesting to me. The Shing believe in Reverence For Life, and preach not killing any life. They have figured out how to lie using Mindspeech, a form of telepathy that all of the main characters have been able to use to some extent. The difference being that normally, you cannot lie when using it. You are sharing pure thought, intention, and emotion directly from your mind to another's mind, and lying is impossible, but the Shing have figured out a way to transmit falsehoods, and so they are able to take over, despite their smaller numbers, because they convince everyone that there is no war, there is no enemy, just rebels from the League, and that they, with their reverence for life doctrine, are better at being the leaders and unifying everyone. But their process for doing this is to limit the technology that people develop or use, and using a device to destroy a person's personality and memory, but keeping them alive, because they have the superior reverence for life. How the main character learned about this and overcame the enemy was very interesting and thought-provoking. All of the stories were interesting, but the third one was the best and more mature novel. I'm looking forward to diving further into the Hainish cycle. ( )

At some point in all three of these novels, it felt like I had read it before, but I am certain I haven't, and if I have, I have no record of it and I've been keeping records for decades. Maybe I've just heard so much about them, or they are such basic SF stories, that they have that familiar, can't quite place it feeling. Regardless, these are the first of Le Guin's novels and for their time, pretty good. But they have not aged well. Still, I can see in them the seeds of the Le Guin we all know and love, and I am glad I read them. ( )

Contains: Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions