Three Hainish Novels by Ursula K. Le Guin
The "Three Hainish Novels" is a series of interconnected stories that explore a dark period for the League of All Worlds, a collective of diverse planets and species. The narrative follows the impact of an extragalactic invasion that undermines trust and cooperation among the League's members, rather than relying solely on military strength. The three novels—*Rocannon's World*, *Planet of Exile*, and *City of Illusions*—chart humanity's evolving telepathic abilities, which become crucial in resisting the enemy's psychological and cultural attacks.
In *Rocannon's World*, the protagonist embarks on a quest to combat internal rebellion, ultimately gaining telepathic powers that enable him to thwart the enemy. *Planet of Exile* examines the dynamics between the "farborns," a League colony, and the local Tevarians, culminating in an unexpected alliance sparked by personal relationships. *City of Illusions* introduces a character named Falk, who struggles with identity and memory in a world overtaken by the alien Shing. His journey of self-discovery leads him to challenge the Shing's deceitful narrative and reclaim his heritage. Collectively, the novels delve into themes of cooperation, resilience, and the complexities of communication across cultures.
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Subject Terms
Three Hainish Novels
First published:Three Hainish Novels (1978, as trilogy); previously published as Rocannon’s World (1966, a portion appearing as a short story in Amazing Stories, 1964; corrected version, 1977), Planet of Exile (1966), and City of Illusions (1967)
Type of work: Novels
Type of plot: Science fiction—cultural exploration
Time of work: A span of twelve hundred years, sometime in the future
Locale: Earth and two other planets within the League of All Worlds
The Plot
The three novels chronicle the beginning, middle, and end of a dark age for the League of All Worlds. An extragalactic invader destroys the League, not through superior firepower but by undermining bonds of trust and cooperation. Each novel dramatizes the evolution of telepathic skills that eventually will equip humanity and its ally HILFs (Higher Intelligence Life Forms) to repel the enemy’s attack on mind and culture.
In Rocannon’s World, the planet Formalhaut II, a League ally, comes under attack by a rebel group within the League. Rocannon sets off on a transcontinental quest to find the enemy, accompanied by local HILFs of different species.
Following a series of hardships and escapes, Rocannon, in a solitary meeting with a member of a cave-dwelling species previously unknown to the League, pays a large but unnamed price to acquire the gift-weapon of telepathy. Thus enabled to listen in on his enemies, he finds the means to direct a League attack that destroys the rebels. The price for victory includes the death of a traveling companion and the experience within his own body and mind of the deaths of a thousand rebels. Rocannon seals the bonds forged on his journey by marrying an Angyar princess.
Planet of Exile features the “farborns,” a League colony cut off by a six hundred-year silence. Carefully preserving League technology, including telepathy, they remain isolated from the native communities. The native Tevarians, for their part, regard the “farborns” as “witches” and “false-men.”
When Jakob Agat, a farborn leader, warns that the nomadic invasion that comes every winter will be far more severe than usual, the Tevarians are skeptical. Their half-senile but savvy chief, Wold, authorizes a military alliance, but when his people learn of a romance between Agat and Wold’s daughter Rolery, they break the alliance and nearly kill Agat. They subsequently are overrun by the invading Gaal and come to the farborns’ city, Landin, as refugees. Their few remaining warriors fight side by side with the farborns to ward off the Gaal.
The relationship that nearly destroys the alliance ultimately cements it. Rolery and Jakob break a set of taboos: They communicate telepathically, copulate, marry, and ultimately (as readers learn in City of Illusions) found a hybrid race.
A “mute spirit,” a man stripped of all knowledge including the power of speech, stumbles into a forest clearing at the beginning of City of Illusions. He is taken in by a girl, Parth, and guided through a second childhood. Her household names him Falk, their word for yellow, for the yellow eyes that mark him as an alien.
Falk learns that Earth is under occupation by the alien Shing, who by means of the telepathic mind-lie “broke the League” and stopped human evolution. He sets out across a North American continent gone to wilderness toward Es Toch, the Shing city, where he hopes to solve the mystery of his own identity and mission.
Falk’s solitary trek is punctuated by a series of encounters, each illustrating the maiming or the resilience of the human spirit. When Falk reaches Es Toch, the Shing present him with a subtle mixture of truth and lies. He is told that he is Ramarren, of the distant planet Werel; that enemies of the Shing mind-razed him; and that the Shing will undo the razing and return him to his home planet, but that Ramarren cannot be restored unless Falk is erased. The Shing also claim that internal dissent destroyed the League and that they are human peacemakers who allow themselves to be demonized while they enforce a pastoral peace.
Falk, who mistrusts the Shing, learns enough to be convinced that he is indeed Ramarren, a descendant of Jakob Agat, whose people flourished after their union with the Tevarians. Wanting to bring home to Werel news of the Shing conquest of Earth, Falk wins two mental victories. First, he undergoes the operation to restore Ramarren but holds on to the memories of Falk, thereby retaining knowledge that the Shing are liars and alien tyrants. He then wins a telepathic battle that enables him to make the voyage home without revealing Werel’s location to the Shing.
Bibliography
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