What is the best Ursula K. Le Guin novel?

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

Her 1974 Hugo- and Nebula-winning novel contrasting an anarchist moon with its capitalist mother planet.

1000pts

2

The Left Hand of Darkness

Le Guin's 1969 Hugo- and Nebula-winning novel set on a world whose inhabitants have no fixed gender.

820pts

3

Tehanu

The 1990 Nebula-winning fourth Earthsea book that revisits Tenar and Ged in later life.

799pts

4

City of Illusions

Her 1967 Hainish-cycle novel following an amnesiac man's journey across a conquered future Earth.

717pts

5

Planet of Exile

Her 1966 novel of stranded colonists and native people forced to unite against a common threat.

717pts

6

The Other Wind

The 2001 concluding Earthsea novel in which the boundary between the living and the dead unravels.

666pts

7

The Farthest Shore

The 1972 National Book Award-winning third Earthsea novel following Ged's final great voyage.

605pts

8

The Word for World Is Forest

Her Hugo-winning story of a forest world's Indigenous people resisting human colonial exploitation.

605pts

9

Rocannon's World

Le Guin's 1966 debut novel, an early entry in her interstellar Hainish cycle.

605pts

10

The Beginning Place

Her 1980 novel about two troubled young people who escape into a twilight otherworld.

605pts

11

A Wizard of Earthsea

The 1968 fantasy that launched the Earthsea saga, following a gifted young mage named Ged.

532pts

12

The Tombs of Atuan

The 1971 Earthsea sequel centered on Tenar, a young priestess of ancient underground tombs.

532pts

13

The Lathe of Heaven

Her 1971 novel about a man whose dreams reshape reality and the doctor who exploits the gift.

532pts

14

The Telling

Her 2000 Hainish-cycle novel about a world suppressing its own history and spiritual traditions.

532pts

15

Always Coming Home

Her ambitious 1985 novel imagining a future California people through story, myth, and ethnography.

532pts

16

Lavinia

Her 2008 novel giving voice to a silent character from Virgil's Aeneid.

532pts