{"title":"Ursula K. Le Guin","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eCelebrated for reshaping speculative fiction through anthropology, Taoism, and radical empathy. Browse our current selection of vintage paperbacks and reading copies by Ursula K. Le Guin.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-farthest-shore-by-usula-k-le-guin","title":"The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin","description":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn Aging Archmage and a Young Prince Sail to the Farthest Reach to Restore the Balance of Life and Death\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePublished in 1972, \u003ci\u003eThe Farthest Shore\u003c\/i\u003e won the 1973 National Book Award for Children's Books and serves as the climax of Ursula K. Le Guin’s original Earthsea trilogy. The story opens on the Isle of Roke, where young Prince Arren of Enlad arrives with disturbing reports: across the islands, sorcerers are forgetting spells of Making, traditional songs are losing their meaning, and entire communities are sinking into apathy. Recognizing that the fundamental Equilibrium of Earthsea is breaking down, Archmage Ged enlists Arren to set sail on the small boat \u003ci\u003eLookfar\u003c\/i\u003e to locate the source of the unraveling.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTheir search carries them past the lawless markets of Hort Town and the silent silk looms of Lorbanery to the floating rafts of the Children of the Open Sea, eventually landing on the remote western sands of Selidor. There, they track down Cob, a sorcerer whose terror of dying drove him to tear open a permanent rift between the living world and the dry land of the dead. To seal the tear and stop the world's vitality from bleeding away, Ged and Arren must step across the low stone wall into the realm of shadows, where Ged must expend the last of his wizardly power.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhy You’ll Love This Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUrsula K. Le Guin explores mortality, aging, and the price of power with clarity and restraint, avoiding conventional good-versus-evil shortcuts. \u003cspan\u003eReaders drawn to the grounded, mythic world-building of Robin Hobb, Patricia McKillip, and J.R.R. Tolkien will find plenty to appreciate here.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fehmerling Books","offers":[{"title":"Good \/ Paperback","offer_id":45267273711770,"sku":"0553238280","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0642\/3455\/3498\/files\/Fehmerling-Books-The-Farthest-Shore-by-Ursula-K-Le-Guin-Paperback-Used-Library-Vintage-Good-117.jpg?v=1773170521"},{"product_id":"the-dead-astronaut-playboy-science-fiction","title":"The Dead Astronaut | Playboy Science Fiction","description":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Premier Vintage Sci-Fi Anthology of New Wave Short Stories Originally Published in Playboy\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEdited with commentary, this landmark anthology gathers ten seminal speculative short stories originally published in \u003ci\u003ePlayboy\u003c\/i\u003e magazine during the 1960s and 1970s. Showcasing leading New Wave and Golden Age authors, the collection blends sophisticated prose, psychological suspense, and satirical sci-fi.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe volume features J.G. Ballard's iconic title story \"The Dead Astronaut,\" alongside acclaimed short fiction by Ursula K. Le Guin, Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Sheckley, Avram Davidson, and Ray Russell, exploring space debris, post-human ecology, and temporal paradoxes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhy You’ll Love This Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis vintage paperback is a high-caliber archive of speculative short fiction representing the peak of mid-century science fiction literature. A must-have volume for J.G. Ballard fans, short story collectors, and vintage paperback enthusiasts.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fehmerling Books","offers":[{"title":"Good \/ Paperback","offer_id":45314727313562,"sku":"27313562","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0642\/3455\/3498\/files\/IMG_6144.jpg?v=1756707257"},{"product_id":"the-tombs-of-atuan-by-ursula-k-le-guin","title":"The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin","description":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cb\u003eA Young High Priestess Bound to Ancient Gods Confronts an Intruder in a Subterranean Labyrinth\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAt age five, a girl named Tenar is taken from her rural family on the island of Atuan after being identified as the reincarnation of the First Priestess. Stripped of her identity and renamed Arha, \"The Eaten One,\" she is consecrated to the Nameless Ones—ancient, formless powers residing beneath the desert at the Place of the Tombs in the Kargad Lands. Guarded by the loyal eunuch Manan and schooled by rival elder priestesses, Arha spends her youth memorizing the pitch-black corridors, dead ends, and lethal drop-traps of the Undertomb, a subterranean maze where the strike of a spark is considered sacrilege.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHer routine of ritual isolation fractures when she discovers an intruder navigating the forbidden tunnels using a sphere of wizardlight. The trespasser is Ged, a young sorcerer from the Inner Lands who has entered the maze to recover the missing half of the Ring of Erreth-Akbe, a talisman of peace broken centuries earlier. Instead of leaving him to starve or turning him over to the vindictive priestess Kossil, Arha secretly brings him water and listens to his accounts of the outside world. When Ged calls her by her forgotten birth name, Tenar must weigh her lifelong religious indoctrination against the risk of abandoning the Tombs forever.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhy You’ll Love This Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePublished in 1971, this 1972 Newbery Honor recipient shifts the Earthsea series away from dragons and open-sea voyages to focus on claustrophobic suspense, psychological independence, and religious deprogramming. It is an easy recommendation for fantasy readers who appreciate the quiet, character-focused storytelling of Patricia A. McKillip, Robin Hobb, and Madeleine L'Engle.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fehmerling Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ Very Good","offer_id":49221268701338,"sku":"VINT-LEGUIN-TOMBS-VG","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0642\/3455\/3498\/files\/Fehmerling-Books-The-Tombs-of-Atuan-by-Ursula-K-Le-Guin-Paperback-Vintage-Very-Good-150.jpg?v=1770832939"},{"product_id":"the-eye-of-the-heron-by-ursula-k-le-guin","title":"The Eye of the Heron by Ursula K. Le Guin","description":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cb\u003ePacifist Exiles and an Aristocratic Defector Resist Forced Labor on a Remote Penal World\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst published in 1978 in the anthology \u003ci\u003eMillennial Women\u003c\/i\u003e and released as a standalone novel in 1982, Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction work takes place on Victoria, an isolated planet populated by two distinct waves of human exiles. The first arrivals were violent convicts transported from Earth who established the City, an authoritarian society governed by an oligarchic council of bosses. Decades later, a second wave of pacifist political prisoners arrived to establish Shantih—an egalitarian farming community that supplies agricultural produce to the City while maintaining nonviolent self-governance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe uneasy coexistence ends when the City Council moves to subjugate Shantih into an indentured labor force. When young organizer Lev Denisov advocates crossing the southern mountain ring to found an independent settlement beyond the bosses' jurisdiction, tensions turn fatal. Disillusioned by her father's authoritarianism, nineteen-year-old Luz Marina Falco—daughter of chief councilor Luis Falco—escapes the City and joins the pacifists. Alongside community elder Vera, Luz helps guide an expedition across the mountain passes into the uncharted wilderness to establish a commune near the native fauna of Heron Pool.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cb\u003eWhy You’ll Love This Book\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUrsula K. Le Guin explores the practical challenges of nonviolent civil resistance, social organization, and ecological adaptation. \u003cmeta charset=\"UTF-8\"\u003e\u003cspan\u003eIt tackles many of the same big ideas as Le Guin's \u003c\/span\u003e\u003ci data-path-to-node=\"1,0\" data-index-in-node=\"52\"\u003eThe Dispossessed\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cspan\u003e, making it an easy recommendation for anyone who reads Octavia Butler, Joanna Russ, or Vonda McIntyre.\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fehmerling Books","offers":[{"title":"Paperback \/ Very Good","offer_id":49221268734106,"sku":"9780061001383","price":15.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0642\/3455\/3498\/files\/Fehmerling-Books-The-Eye-of-the-Heron-by-Ursula-K-Le-Guin-Paperback-Vintage-Very-Good-147.jpg?v=1770833937"},{"product_id":"planet-of-exile-ursula-k-le-guin-ace-1973","title":"Planet Of Exile by Ursula K. Le Guin","description":"\u003ch2\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eUrsula K. Le Guin's Classic 1966 Sci-Fi Masterpiece of Cultural Survival and Alliance\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFirst published in 1966, \u003cem\u003ePlanet of Exile\u003c\/em\u003e is an early entry in Grand Master Ursula K. Le Guin's world-renowned Hainish Cycle. Highly prized by vintage science fiction collectors in its iconic 1970s Ace Books paperback editions, this novel brilliantly anticipates the themes of anthropology, empathy, and environmental survival that would come to define Le Guin's legendary career.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSet on the distant world of Werel (Eltanin III), where a single year spans sixty Earth years as an agonizing, fifteen-year-long winter draws near. For generations, a small colony of stranded human interstellar explorers known as the \"Farborn\" have lived in the stone city of Landin, their advanced technology slowly fading and their population steadily dwindling. The local indigenous humanoid species, the Tevarans, view the Farborn with deep suspicion and prejudice. However, when a massive, nomadic barbarian horde called the Gaal migrates southward—threatening to wipe out both settlements—Jakob Agat, leader of the Farborn, and Rolery, a young Tevaran woman, forge a forbidden personal and political alliance that represents the only hope for their species' mutual survival.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eWhy You'll Love This Book\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA vital piece of speculative fiction history, \u003cem\u003ePlanet of Exile\u003c\/em\u003e showcases Le Guin's ability to blend rich world-building with human heart. Readers who love classic science fiction, planetary romances, and works by masters such as Frank Herbert (\u003cem\u003eDune\u003c\/em\u003e), Marion Zimmer Bradley (\u003cem\u003eDarkover\u003c\/em\u003e), Anne McCaffrey (\u003cem\u003ePern\u003c\/em\u003e), Robert Silverberg, and Samuel R. Delany, as well as Le Guin's own masterpieces like \u003cem\u003eThe Left Hand of Darkness\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eThe Dispossessed\u003c\/em\u003e, will find this early Hainish novel essential reading.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Fehmerling Books","offers":[{"title":"Good \/ Paperback","offer_id":67670123970714,"sku":"BOOK-1791233261","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0642\/3455\/3498\/files\/ursula-k-le-guin-planet-of-exile-ace-1973-front-cover.jpg?v=1791604147"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.fehmerlingbooks.com\/collections\/ursula-k-le-guin.oembed","provider":"Fehmerling Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}