RIP Ursula K. Le Guin, dreamer of the best dreams

Ursula K. Le Guin, who was arguably America's greatest living author (and one who hated getting pigeon-holed as a science-fiction or fantasy writer), died Monday at the age of 88, her son has announced.

The news set off a firestorm on Twitter — not the usual kind, thank goodness, but a sudden flurry of people debating which of Le Guin's works touches us the most deeply and remains the most relevant.

Usula K. LeGuin, one of the greats, has passed. Not just a science fiction writer; a literary icon. Godspeed into the galaxy.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) January 23, 2018

Was it Wizard of Earthsea, the 1968 classic, and its five sequels, which showed the world how to write a wizard student's coming-of-age story decades before Harry Potter was a gleam in J.K. Rowling's eye? The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), a truly revolutionary novel about a race of aliens that changes gender at will, which holds up better than ever in 2018? The Dispossessed (1973), which featured the first ever anarchist utopia in fiction, decades before Occupy Wall Street was a thing? Read more...