City of Illusions
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 Cover of first edition (softcover) |
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| Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction novel |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
| Released | 1967 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 160 pp |
| ISBN | NA |
City of Illusions is a 1967 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set on Earth in the distant future in her Ekumen series. City of Illusions was republished in 1978 along with Rocannon's World and Planet of Exile in a volume called Three Hainish Novels and in 1994 with the same novels in Worlds of Exile and Illusion.
[edit] Plot summary
The story starts when a man crawls into a tiny village (housed in one building) in eastern North America. He's naked except for a ring on one finger, he has no memory except of motor skills at about the one-year-old level, and his distinctive physical features show that he's from some other planet. The villagers name him Falk; they teach him to speak and teach him about the Earth. It's ruled by the "Shing", conquerors who are said to be the only beings able to lie telepathically.
After six years, Falk sets off alone for the Shing's capital in western North America. He finds many obstacles to learning the truth about himself and about the Shing.
City of Illusions is the first of Le Guin's novels to deal with some of her frequent themes: Taoism (the Tao Te Ching has talismanic value to Falk), liberation, an oppressive male-dominated culture, and perhaps anarchism in the original village and its neighbors.
| Ursula K. Le Guin's Ekumen series | |
|---|---|
| The Dispossessed | The Word for World is Forest | Rocannon's World | Planet of Exile | City of Illusions | The Left Hand of Darkness | Four Ways to Forgiveness | The Telling | |
