mixed habitat & densely vegetated hiding places

Some time after the events of Rocannon's World, a group of Terran humans are stranded on a different low-tech planet, this one with an orbital period of about sixty Earth years. As the (Earth) centuries have worn on, their descendants have forgotten much of what they knew about interstellar society, but they still hold themselves apart from the planet's native humans, who are the descendants of a far more ancient colonization project. But as the planet's decades-long winter approaches and hostile barbarians encroach on their shared territory, the two human lineages will have to work together or perish apart.

In this second book you can see Le Guin's writing style quickly developing and taking on more of its distinctive flavor. Her prose is much more lyrical here, and it almost gets away from her at times, like she's still learning when to let it run wild and when it rein it in. (A struggle I can relate to!) The worldbuilding is more original, with cultures that feel grounded and real, rather than just providing a backdrop for a story where everything slots neatly into pre-established tropes. I really liked what Le Guin did with the cultural and economic impact of seasons lasting so long. (I wonder if George R.R. Martin was influenced?)

The way the Terran humans are presented is interesting. They have a cultural memory of some kind of Prime Directive that was supposed to protect the integrity of the native society, but as they've struggled to maintain the continuity of their own tiny minority group, their nominal adherence to this directive has become twisted into contempt for the natives and their 'primitive' ways. You can see how their attitude of disdainful superiority is a reaction to feeling threatened (and I think this insight is the main point of the book and was certainly a timely observation in 1966), but it does make them pretty unsympathetic, some more than others.

The protagonist is a Terran, who I did not find likeable or compelling, and for me his centrality hurt the appeal of the book as a whole. His love interest (an indigenous woman) is a much more engaging character, and I wished for a lot more of her perspective and a lot less of his! Among the supporting characters, the elderly native chief is a standout—Le Guin does a wonderful job of letting us into his mind, understanding how he thinks and how his cultural framework shapes his conception of his life's tragedies and triumphs.

I am a reader whose eyes tend to glaze over during battle scenes, but this book features a prolonged siege that did hold my attention! It feels visceral and personal—carrying spears until your hands are full of splinters, still having to stop to eat while death is all around you—and the blizzard that turns the battle to confusion on both sides is a memorable sequence. That said, it takes up a lot of pagecount in this short novel and hinders the development of relationships because everybody spends so much time in emergency mode. To me this made the conclusion feel abrupt and not entirely earned.

This is a more ambitious and thought-provoking book than Rocannon's World, but it's less fun. My recollection is it provides backstory for her next novel, City of Illusions, so we'll see how I go when I get to that.