Ekumen
Encyclopedia
The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction
novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
. Most of them are not set on the planet Hain
, but have it as a distant background. People from Hain are often present but mostly as secondary characters.
In keeping with Le Guin's soft science fiction
style, the setting is used primarily to explore anthropological
and sociological
ideas.
Notable and award-winning Hainish novels are The Left Hand of Darkness
and The Dispossessed
. The short novel The Word for World is Forest
and the short story "The Day Before the Revolution
" have also won awards.
, Planet of Exile
, and City of Illusions
—there is or was a League of all Worlds; in City of Illusions, it seems to have been conquered or fragmented by an alien race, called the Shing
, from beyond the League.
In the fourth, The Left Hand of Darkness, it seems that the planets of the former League of Worlds have re-united as the Ekumen, which was founded by the Hainish people.
The fifth, The Dispossessed, is the earliest chronologically in the Hainish Cycle. The Cetians have been visited by people from other planets, including Earth and Hain. The various planets are separate, though there is some talk of a union. The idea of an ansible
is known but none yet exists - Shevek's new physics may be - in fact, eventually is - the key.
The sixth, The Word for World is Forest, has the League of Worlds and the ansible as new creations. The term 'Ekumen' is not used.
Later novels and short stories speak only of the Ekumen, which now includes the Gethenians, who were the subject of The Left Hand of Darkness.
, known as Terra. Most of these were similar enough that humans from one world can pass as natives of another, but on some the Old Hainish 'Colonisers' used genetic engineering
. At least one of the various species of Rokanan are the product of genetic engineering, as are the 'hilf' of Planet S (whose story has not so far been told), and the androgynes of Gethen
in The Left Hand of Darkness. The Ekumen do not know whether the Colonisers sought to adapt humans to varied worlds, were conducting various experiments, or had other reasons.
Hainish civilization subsequently collapsed and the colony planets (including Earth) forgot that other human worlds existed. The Ekumen stories tell of the efforts to re-establish a civilization on a galactic scale through NAFAL (Nearly As Fast As Light) interstellar travel
taking years to travel between stars, although only weeks or months from the viewpoint of the traveler, because of time dilation
, and through instantaneous interstellar communication using the ansible.
This seems to have happened in two phases. First the League of All Worlds was formed, uniting the "nine known worlds" - along with colonies, presumably. By the time of Rocannon's World it has grown but is also under threat from a distant enemy. In City of Illusions it is recalled as a league of some 80 worlds.
The second phase begins with The Left Hand of Darkness. The 80-plus planets seem to have reunited as the 'Ekumen' – a name derived from the Greek
"oikoumene
", meaning "the inhabited world", though characters occasionally refer to it as "the Household", which is in turn a reference to the Greek "oikos
", a word which developed from the same root as oikoumene. Unexplained references are made to the 'Age of the Enemy.'
Physical communication is by NAFAL ships, Nearly As Fast As Light. The physics is never explained: the ship vanishes from where it was and reappears somewhere else many years later. The trip takes slightly longer than it would to cross the same distance at the speed of light, but ship-time is just a few hours for those on board. It cannot apparently be used for trips within a solar system,. Trips can begin or end close to a planet, but if used without a "retemporalizer", there are drastic physical effects at the end of long trips. It is also lethal if the traveler is pregnant.
City of Illusions mentions automatic death-machines that work on the ansible principle and can strike instantly at distant worlds. Such a device is clearly used in the events of Rocannon's World. They are not mentioned again in later books.
ChuChurten theory, as developed by the physicists of Anarres, should allow people to go instantly from solar system to solar system. It is a development of the work of Shevek, whose tale is told in The Dispossessed. Shevek's work made the ansible possible - it is mentioned in his tale that engineers decided they could build it once the correct theory was found. Churten theory offers a way to move whole spacecraft instantaneously, but there are side-effects. These are described in two short stories, "The Shobies' Story
" and "Dancing to Ganam", both of which appeared in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
.
It should be noted that the ansible has been adopted by several other science fiction and fantasy authors, such as Orson Scott Card
, Elizabeth Moon
, and Vernor Vinge
.
and social collapse comes into several of these stories:
includes the detail that the people of Chiffewar are all bald.
There are some cases of ancient biological manipulation:
Alterrans with their distinctive cat-like eyes are nevertheless able to breed with Earth-humans. They may be another case of genetic manipulation, or a natural adaptation.
The Shing of City of Illusions seem to be of some other origin: they cannot interbreed with Earth-humans.
in March 1975, Ian Watson
proposed the following chronology for the first six novels.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
novels and stories of Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American author. She has written novels, poetry, children's books, essays, and short stories, notably in fantasy and science fiction...
. Most of them are not set on the planet Hain
Hain (planet)
Hain is a fictional planet that plays an important background role in the science fiction novels of Ursula K. Le Guin's Hainish Cycle. It is described more closely in some later short stories. It is the oldest culture in both the League of Worlds and later the Ekumen and is about 140 Light Years...
, but have it as a distant background. People from Hain are often present but mostly as secondary characters.
In keeping with Le Guin's soft science fiction
Soft science fiction
Soft science fiction, or soft SF, like its complementary opposite hard science fiction, is a descriptive term that points to the role and nature of the science content in a science fiction story...
style, the setting is used primarily to explore anthropological
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and sociological
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
ideas.
Notable and award-winning Hainish novels are The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness
The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe....
and The Dispossessed
The Dispossessed
The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is a 1974 utopian science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set in the same fictional universe as that of The Left Hand of Darkness . The book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1974, both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1975, and received a nomination for...
. The short novel The Word for World is Forest
The Word for World is Forest
The Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1976 and based on her 1972 novella which was nominated for a Nebula Award.It is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle.-Setting:...
and the short story "The Day Before the Revolution
The Day Before the Revolution
"The Day Before the Revolution" is a Nebula Award-winning short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1974.It is considered a short story prologue to The Dispossessed and represents an idealized anarchy by following the character of "Odo", the semilegendary woman who led the revolution...
" have also won awards.
Sequence of writing
In the first three novels—Rocannon's WorldRocannon's World
Rocannon's World is Ursula K. Le Guin's first novel. It was published in 1966 as an Ace Double, along with Avram Davidson's The Kar-Chee Reign, following the tête-bêche format. Though it is one of Le Guin's many works set in the universe of the technological Hainish Cycle, the story itself has many...
, Planet of Exile
Planet of Exile
Planet of Exile is a 1966 science-fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin in her Hainish Cycle. It was first published as an Ace Double following the tête-bêche format, bundled with Mankind Under the Leash by Thomas M. Disch.-Plot summary:...
, and City of Illusions
City of Illusions
City of Illusions is a 1967 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set on Earth in the distant future in her Hainish Cycle. City of Illusions is significant because it lays the foundation for the Hainish cycle, a fictional world in which the majority of Ursula K...
—there is or was a League of all Worlds; in City of Illusions, it seems to have been conquered or fragmented by an alien race, called the Shing
Shing
The Shing are a fictional alien race, in the Hainish Cycle of novels and short stories of the science fiction writer Ursula K. Le Guin. They are only explicitly described in City of Illusions, but seem to be the same as the distant but threatening 'enemy' mentioned in Rocannon's World and Planet...
, from beyond the League.
In the fourth, The Left Hand of Darkness, it seems that the planets of the former League of Worlds have re-united as the Ekumen, which was founded by the Hainish people.
The fifth, The Dispossessed, is the earliest chronologically in the Hainish Cycle. The Cetians have been visited by people from other planets, including Earth and Hain. The various planets are separate, though there is some talk of a union. The idea of an ansible
Ansible
An ansible is a hypothetical machine capable of instantaneous or superluminal communication. Ansibles occur as plot devices in science fiction literature.- Origin :The word ansible was coined by Ursula K. Le Guin in her 1966 novel, Rocannon's World...
is known but none yet exists - Shevek's new physics may be - in fact, eventually is - the key.
The sixth, The Word for World is Forest, has the League of Worlds and the ansible as new creations. The term 'Ekumen' is not used.
Later novels and short stories speak only of the Ekumen, which now includes the Gethenians, who were the subject of The Left Hand of Darkness.
Back Story
Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the people of Hain colonized a large number of worlds, including EarthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
, known as Terra. Most of these were similar enough that humans from one world can pass as natives of another, but on some the Old Hainish 'Colonisers' used genetic engineering
Genetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
. At least one of the various species of Rokanan are the product of genetic engineering, as are the 'hilf' of Planet S (whose story has not so far been told), and the androgynes of Gethen
Gethen
Gethen is a fictional planet in Ursula K. Le Guin's Ekumen universe. It is the setting for her science fiction novel The Left Hand of Darkness.-The planet:...
in The Left Hand of Darkness. The Ekumen do not know whether the Colonisers sought to adapt humans to varied worlds, were conducting various experiments, or had other reasons.
Hainish civilization subsequently collapsed and the colony planets (including Earth) forgot that other human worlds existed. The Ekumen stories tell of the efforts to re-establish a civilization on a galactic scale through NAFAL (Nearly As Fast As Light) interstellar travel
Interstellar travel
Interstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
taking years to travel between stars, although only weeks or months from the viewpoint of the traveler, because of time dilation
Time dilation
In the theory of relativity, time dilation is an observed difference of elapsed time between two events as measured by observers either moving relative to each other or differently situated from gravitational masses. An accurate clock at rest with respect to one observer may be measured to tick at...
, and through instantaneous interstellar communication using the ansible.
This seems to have happened in two phases. First the League of All Worlds was formed, uniting the "nine known worlds" - along with colonies, presumably. By the time of Rocannon's World it has grown but is also under threat from a distant enemy. In City of Illusions it is recalled as a league of some 80 worlds.
The second phase begins with The Left Hand of Darkness. The 80-plus planets seem to have reunited as the 'Ekumen' – a name derived from the Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
"oikoumene
Oikoumene
Ecumene is a term originally used in the Greco-Roman world to refer to the inhabited universe . The term derives from the Greek , short for "inhabited world"...
", meaning "the inhabited world", though characters occasionally refer to it as "the Household", which is in turn a reference to the Greek "oikos
Oikos
An oikos is the ancient Greek equivalent of a household, house, or family....
", a word which developed from the same root as oikoumene. Unexplained references are made to the 'Age of the Enemy.'
Planets of the Hainish Cycle
The Hainish Cycle contains a very large number of planets and is continually exploring new ones. Genly Ai in The Left Hand of Darkness explains that there are 83 planets in the Ekumen, with Gethen a candidate for becoming the 84th.Technology
Societies tend to use sophisticated but unobtrusive technologies. Most notable is the ansible, an instant-communication device that keeps worlds in touch with each other.Physical communication is by NAFAL ships, Nearly As Fast As Light. The physics is never explained: the ship vanishes from where it was and reappears somewhere else many years later. The trip takes slightly longer than it would to cross the same distance at the speed of light, but ship-time is just a few hours for those on board. It cannot apparently be used for trips within a solar system,. Trips can begin or end close to a planet, but if used without a "retemporalizer", there are drastic physical effects at the end of long trips. It is also lethal if the traveler is pregnant.
City of Illusions mentions automatic death-machines that work on the ansible principle and can strike instantly at distant worlds. Such a device is clearly used in the events of Rocannon's World. They are not mentioned again in later books.
ChuChurten theory, as developed by the physicists of Anarres, should allow people to go instantly from solar system to solar system. It is a development of the work of Shevek, whose tale is told in The Dispossessed. Shevek's work made the ansible possible - it is mentioned in his tale that engineers decided they could build it once the correct theory was found. Churten theory offers a way to move whole spacecraft instantaneously, but there are side-effects. These are described in two short stories, "The Shobies' Story
The Shobies' Story
The Shobies' Story is a 1990 science fiction novella by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, describing a society in which consensus matters more than individual viewpoints. The Shobies' Story posits a reality that emerges as the sum of what all the participants say: a meta-narrative, a...
" and "Dancing to Ganam", both of which appeared in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a 1994 collection of short stories and novellas by Ursula K. Le Guin. The collection was second in the 1995 Locus Award poll in the collection category.-Contents:The stories in the collection are:...
.
It should be noted that the ansible has been adopted by several other science fiction and fantasy authors, such as Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
, Elizabeth Moon
Elizabeth Moon
Elizabeth Moon is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Her novel The Speed of Dark won the 2003 Nebula Award.-Biography:...
, and Vernor Vinge
Vernor Vinge
Vernor Steffen Vinge is a retired San Diego State University Professor of Mathematics, computer scientist, and science fiction author. He is best known for his Hugo Award-winning novels and novellas A Fire Upon the Deep , A Deepness in the Sky , Rainbows End , Fast Times at Fairmont High ...
.
Post-technological worlds
The idea of post-technological societiesApocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction
Apocalyptic fiction is a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of civilization due to a potentially existential catastrophe such as nuclear warfare, pandemic, extraterrestrial attack, impact event, cybernetic revolt, technological singularity, dysgenics, supernatural...
and social collapse comes into several of these stories:
- In City of Illusions, Earth has suffered some sort of collapse in a distant future, losing contact with the stars.
- In "Another Story" in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, it is mentioned that Earth still suffers badly from pollution.
- Eleven-Soro had a high technology and then a massive crash, as is told in the short story "Solitude" in The Birthday of the WorldThe Birthday of the WorldThe Birthday of the World is a collection of short fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin, and first published in March, 2002 by HarperCollins. All of the stories except "Paradises Lost" were previously published individually elsewhere....
. - Hain itself has gone back to a simpler life with high technology only where it is justified, as is told in the first part of "A Man of the People" in Four Ways to Forgiveness. This also seems to apply to planet Ve.
- Orint and Kheakh are mentioned in passing as worlds that have totally destroyed themselves.
- In The Left Hand Of Darkness, the planet Gde is described as extremely hot rock and desert, the result of a technological society that "wrecked its ecological balance" some millennia previous, and "burned up its forests for kindling."
Biology
Most of the people in the tales have a common descent from the planet Hain, which settled many surrounding worlds. Mostly they remain similar and can marry and have children. The unusual hairyness of the Cetians is mentioned in The Word for World is Forest and The Dispossessed - though to Cetians, it seems that other types of human have unusually little hair. The TellingThe Telling
The Telling is a 2000 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin set in her fictional universe of Hainish Cycle. The Telling is Le Guin's first follow-up novel set in the Hainish Cycle since her 1974 novel The Dispossessed...
includes the detail that the people of Chiffewar are all bald.
There are some cases of ancient biological manipulation:
- Unique among known humans, the Hainish have complete voluntary control of their fertility. In order for a Hainish man and woman to reproduce, they must both consciously choose to produce viable genetic material, which they learn to do in adolescence. The required genetic changes to the Hainish population were made in the far distant past, and apparently took many generations to accomplish.
- The Left Hand of Darkness mentions that the 'hilfs of S' must have been produced by human genetic manipulation by the ancient Hainish people, along with the Gethenians and the degenerate winged hominoids of Rokanan.
- The hermaphrodite humans of Gethen may have been produced as an adaptation to a harsh climate, or an experiment to see how people would live without gender. Both ideas are mentioned and nothing is definitely settled.
- The degenerate winged hominoids are seen in Rocannon's World. They live in cities that require much higher technology to build than the rest of the races on Rokanan, but live in bat-like societies, hunting for humans and animals on which their larvae feed by sucking their blood.
- We hear no more about the 'hilfs of S', unless these are the same as the small furry natives of Athshe (who are of Hainish descent, like the various other humans and quasi-humans).
- The Matter of Seggri tells us that the extreme gender imbalance of the people of Seggri may be another case of genetic manipulation.
Alterrans with their distinctive cat-like eyes are nevertheless able to breed with Earth-humans. They may be another case of genetic manipulation, or a natural adaptation.
The Shing of City of Illusions seem to be of some other origin: they cannot interbreed with Earth-humans.
Timeline
Writing for Science Fiction StudiesScience Fiction Studies
Science Fiction Studies is an academic journal founded in 1973 by R.D. Mullen. The journal is published three times per year by DePauw University. As the name implies, the journal publishes articles and book reviews on science fiction, but also occasionally on fantasy and horror when the topic...
in March 1975, Ian Watson
Ian Watson (author)
Ian Watson is a British science fiction author. He currently lives in Northamptonshire, England.His first novel, The Embedding, winner of the Prix Apollo in 1975, is unusual for being based on ideas from generative grammar; the title refers to the process of center embedding...
proposed the following chronology for the first six novels.
- c.2300 AD - The Dispossessed
- c.2368 AD - The Word for World is Forest
- c.2684 AD - Rocannon's World
- c.3755 AD - Planet of Exile
- c.4370 AD - City of Illusions
- c.4670 AD - The Left Hand of Darkness
Novels
The order presented here is the internal chronology of the series, not the order in which the books were written.| Name | Published | Setting | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Dispossessed The Dispossessed The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia is a 1974 utopian science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set in the same fictional universe as that of The Left Hand of Darkness . The book won the Nebula Award for Best Novel in 1974, both the Hugo and Locus Awards in 1975, and received a nomination for... |
1974 | Urras-Anarres (Tau Ceti) | Nebula Award winner, 1974; Locus Award winner for Best SF Novel, 1975; Hugo Award winner, 1975; John W. Campbell Memorial Award nominee, 1975 |
| The Word for World is Forest The Word for World is Forest The Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, published in 1976 and based on her 1972 novella which was nominated for a Nebula Award.It is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle.-Setting:... |
1976 | Athshe/New Tahiti | Hugo Award winner for Best Novella, 1973 Nebula Award nominee for Best Novella, 1973 Locus Award nominee for Best Novella, 1973 |
| Rocannon's World Rocannon's World Rocannon's World is Ursula K. Le Guin's first novel. It was published in 1966 as an Ace Double, along with Avram Davidson's The Kar-Chee Reign, following the tête-bêche format. Though it is one of Le Guin's many works set in the universe of the technological Hainish Cycle, the story itself has many... |
1966 | Rokanan (Fomalhaut II) | |
| Planet of Exile Planet of Exile Planet of Exile is a 1966 science-fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin in her Hainish Cycle. It was first published as an Ace Double following the tête-bêche format, bundled with Mankind Under the Leash by Thomas M. Disch.-Plot summary:... |
1966 | Werel (Gamma Draconis III) | |
| City of Illusions City of Illusions City of Illusions is a 1967 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set on Earth in the distant future in her Hainish Cycle. City of Illusions is significant because it lays the foundation for the Hainish cycle, a fictional world in which the majority of Ursula K... |
1967 | Terra | |
| The Left Hand of Darkness The Left Hand of Darkness The Left Hand of Darkness is a 1969 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of books by Le Guin all set in the fictional Hainish universe.... |
1969 | Gethen | Nebula Award winner, 1969; Hugo Award winner, 1970 |
| The Telling The Telling The Telling is a 2000 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin set in her fictional universe of Hainish Cycle. The Telling is Le Guin's first follow-up novel set in the Hainish Cycle since her 1974 novel The Dispossessed... |
2000 | Aka | Locus Award winner for Best Fantasy Novel, 2001 |
Short stories
In publishing order.- Dowry of the Angyar (1964) - appears as Semley's Necklace in The Wind's Twelve QuartersThe Wind's Twelve QuartersThe Wind's Twelve Quarters is a collection of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin first published by Harper & Row in 1975.Le Guin describes the collection as a retrospective. It includes many stories which had been published previously or expanded into novels. Others take place in locations that...
(1975) - Rokanan - Winter's KingWinter's King"Winter's King" is a short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, originally published in the September 1969 issue of Orbit, a fiction anthology. The story is part of the Hainish Cycle and explores topics such as the human effect of space travel at nearly the speed of light, as well as religious and...
(1969) - appears in The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975) - Gethen - Vaster Than Empires and More Slow (1971) - appears in The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975) - World 4470
- The Day Before the RevolutionThe Day Before the Revolution"The Day Before the Revolution" is a Nebula Award-winning short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1974.It is considered a short story prologue to The Dispossessed and represents an idealized anarchy by following the character of "Odo", the semilegendary woman who led the revolution...
(1974) - appears in The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975) - Urras - The Shobies' StoryThe Shobies' StoryThe Shobies' Story is a 1990 science fiction novella by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, describing a society in which consensus matters more than individual viewpoints. The Shobies' Story posits a reality that emerges as the sum of what all the participants say: a meta-narrative, a...
(1990) - appears in A Fisherman of the Inland SeaA Fisherman of the Inland SeaA Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a 1994 collection of short stories and novellas by Ursula K. Le Guin. The collection was second in the 1995 Locus Award poll in the collection category.-Contents:The stories in the collection are:...
(1994) - Hain, Ve, M-60-340-nolo - Dancing to Ganam (1993) - appears in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994) - Ganam (Tadkla)
- Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994) - appears in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (1994) - O
- Betrayals (1994) - appears in Four Ways to ForgivenessFour Ways to ForgivenessFour Ways to Forgiveness is a collection of four short stories or novellas by Ursula K. Le Guin. All four stories are set in the future and deal with the planets Yeowe and Werel, both members of the Ekumen, a collective of planets used by Le Guin as part of the background for many novels and short...
(1995) - Yeowe-Werel - Forgiveness Day (1994) - appears in Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995) - Yeowe-Werel
- Unchosen Love (1994) - appears in The Birthday of the WorldThe Birthday of the WorldThe Birthday of the World is a collection of short fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin, and first published in March, 2002 by HarperCollins. All of the stories except "Paradises Lost" were previously published individually elsewhere....
(2002) - O - A Man of the People (1995) - appears in Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995) - Hain, Yeowe-Werel
- A Woman's Liberation (1995) - appears in Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995) - Yeowe-Werel
- The Matter of Seggri (1994) - appears in The Birthday of the World (2002) - Seggri
- Solitude (1994) - appears in The Birthday of the World (2002) - Eleven-soro
- Coming of Age in Karhide (1995) - appears in The Birthday of the World (2002) - Gethen
- Mountain Ways (1996) - appears in The Birthday of the World (2002) - O
- Old Music and the Slave Women (1999) - appears in The Birthday of the World (2002) - Yeowe-Werel
External links
- The Hainish Series at Le Guin's World - Hainish chronology, plot summaries, encyclopedia, and other resources
- In what order should I read the Ekumen books? - Ursula K. Le Guin on the coherency and chronology of the Ekumen books
- Wholeness and Balance in the Hainish Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin