The Word for World Is Forest

Cover of --? edition

The Word for World Is Forest is a novel / novella in the Ekumen universe / Hainish cycle, set in the time of the League of Worlds. The original novella was published in 1972, and a novel based on the novella and of the same title was published in 1976.

Some centuries in the future, humans from Earth have established an imperialistic colony on a planet, called Athshe ("forest") by the native inhabitants, and called "New Tahiti" by the humans. The colonists exploit Athshe and the Athsheans, mining and logging the planet and enslaving the Athsheans. After one native woman is raped and dies, her husband, Selver, becomes a revolutionary.

Further reading

• A Door into Ocean by Joan M. Slonczewski (1986) was written in significant part in response to The Word for World Is Forest. Slonczewski notes:

"Much of A Door into Ocean reflects my responses to Frank Herbert's Dune, and to Ursula LeGuin's The Word for World is Forest. ... The Word for World is Forest is a more direct predecessor of Ocean [(than Dune)]. Forest started out as my favorite of LeGuin's books, but in the end was an intense disappointment. LeGuin's forest-dwellers start out as unconditional pacifists, with inborn mechanisms of self-discipline similar to those of the Sharers; but in the end, in order to throw off their oppressors, they, too must give up their pacifism and their own humanity; the ending is even more bleak than Dune. In Ocean, I imagined a "forest" turned upside-down: the trees stretch their branch/roots into water, an endless source of life and power. The Sharers use this power, enabled by their superior genetic technologies, to maintain their way of life. Their own nonviolent politics overcomes the oppressor ..."

References

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