Rocannon's world
Rocannon's World (Original title: Rocannon's World) is the first novel by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin . It was published in 1966 and is based on the short story The Dowry of the Angyar , published two years earlier . The first novel in the Hainish cycle introduced LeGuin's own mix of science fiction and fantasy.
action
In order to please her husband, Semly, the wife of a nobleman Angyar, decides to reclaim a long-lost piece of jewelry from the dwarves, who they believe keep it hidden, and travels to their caves. The dwarves know where the trinket is and are ready to send them there. Semly soon finds herself in a museum where she asks Rocannon, an ethnologist , for the piece of jewelry. He gives it to her. She travels back and, having got home, notices that 16 years have passed; her husband is now dead. Time had passed, without her knowledge, while she flew in a light-fast spaceship to a strange planet and back.
The ethnologist Rocannan is later sent on a reconnaissance mission to their planet, Fomalhaut II . His spaceship and crew are soon destroyed by technologically advanced aggressors - Rocannon, the only survivor, realizes that an enemy of his civilization has set up a base on the backward planet to launch a surprise attack on his home culture. He makes various friends and advocates among the inhabitants of the planet, including the daughter Semlys, who gives him the piece of jewelry that started the story. Now he wants to advance to the base of the enemy and use their equipment to warn his home. To do this, he and some companions undertake a long, dangerous journey full of losses. He succeeds in sending a message; the aggressors' fleet is destroyed.
Although a ship is sent out to pick it up, the journey takes nine years; the expedition only finds his grave.
expenditure
- First edition: Rocannon's World. In double edition with Avram Davidson : The Kar-Chee Reign . Ace Books (Ace Double # G-574), 1966.
- First separate edition: Rocannon's World. Ace Books # 73291, 1972.
- German translation: Rocannon's world. Translated by Birgit Reß-Bohusch . Heyne SF&F # 3578, 1978, ISBN 3-453-30473-X .
- Current issue: Hainish. Three novels Heyne SF&F # 7035, 2002, ISBN 3-453-21347-5 . Anthology together with The 10th Year and City of Illusions .
Web links
- Rocannons world in the Internet Speculative Fiction Database (English)