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What is the best Ursula K. Le Guin novel?

By YPB Team

Spanning windswept fantasy archipelagos and far-flung interstellar worlds, this lineup gathers the visionary fiction that reshaped how we imagine gender, power, and freedom. Which one earns the top spot? Cast your vote!

  1. The Dispossessed — ranked #11
    The Dispossessed
    Her 1974 Hugo- and Nebula-winning novel contrasting an anarchist moon with its capitalist mother planet.
    1000pts
  2. The Left Hand of Darkness — ranked #22
    The Left Hand of Darkness
    Le Guin's 1969 Hugo- and Nebula-winning novel set on a world whose inhabitants have no fixed gender.
    731pts
  3. Tehanu — ranked #33
    Tehanu
    The 1990 Nebula-winning fourth Earthsea book that revisits Tenar and Ged in later life.
    700pts
  4. City of Illusions — ranked #44
    City of Illusions
    Her 1967 Hainish-cycle novel following an amnesiac man's journey across a conquered future Earth.
    577pts
  5. Planet of Exile — ranked #55
    Planet of Exile
    Her 1966 novel of stranded colonists and native people forced to unite against a common threat.
    576pts
  6. The Other Wind — ranked #66
    The Other Wind
    The 2001 concluding Earthsea novel in which the boundary between the living and the dead unravels.
    500pts
  7. The Farthest Shore — ranked #77
    The Farthest Shore
    The 1972 National Book Award-winning third Earthsea novel following Ged's final great voyage.
    409pts
  8. The Word for World Is Forest — ranked #88
    The Word for World Is Forest
    Her Hugo-winning story of a forest world's Indigenous people resisting human colonial exploitation.
    409pts
  9. Rocannon's World — ranked #99
    Rocannon's World
    Le Guin's 1966 debut novel, an early entry in her interstellar Hainish cycle.
    409pts
  10. The Beginning Place — ranked #1010
    The Beginning Place
    Her 1980 novel about two troubled young people who escape into a twilight otherworld.
    409pts
  11. A Wizard of Earthsea — ranked #1111
    A Wizard of Earthsea
    The 1968 fantasy that launched the Earthsea saga, following a gifted young mage named Ged.
    300pts
  12. The Tombs of Atuan — ranked #1212
    The Tombs of Atuan
    The 1971 Earthsea sequel centered on Tenar, a young priestess of ancient underground tombs.
    300pts
  13. The Lathe of Heaven — ranked #1313
    The Lathe of Heaven
    Her 1971 novel about a man whose dreams reshape reality and the doctor who exploits the gift.
    300pts
  14. The Telling — ranked #1414
    The Telling
    Her 2000 Hainish-cycle novel about a world suppressing its own history and spiritual traditions.
    300pts
  15. Always Coming Home — ranked #1515
    Always Coming Home
    Her ambitious 1985 novel imagining a future California people through story, myth, and ethnography.
    300pts
  16. Lavinia — ranked #1616
    Lavinia
    Her 2008 novel giving voice to a silent character from Virgil's Aeneid.
    300pts

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