City of Illusions
City of Illusions is where Le Guin both gets her teeth into the live high voltage wire of science fiction (to steal a phrase from Bruce Sterling) and fully comes into herself, and finds the major themes that will drive the rest of her fiction.
On Terra, in the far future, a man with golden eyes and no memories wanders into the Forest House. The people there take him in, introduce him to their elegant appropriate technology way of life, teach him to speak and hunt, and warn him of the terrible fate that has befallen man. Centuries ago, alien invaders calling themselves the Shing arrived with the power to mind-lie, to deceive while in telepathic communication which is otherwise impossible. The Shing broke human power and erased human history in a web of lies, leaving only their ultimate law: Reverence for life.
The amnesiac man character, called Falk by his rescuers, sets out toward Es Toch, the city of the Shing, in search of the truth about himself. His journey takes him across the Great Inland River and the plains, with many strange and sometimes dangerous encounters: a mad Taoist hermit, the brutal herding tribe of the Basnasska, and then, in the company of a woman named Estrel, he continues onwards.
He arrives at Es Toch to be betrayed by Estrel, who is the Shing’s agent. The Shing are all liars, but in their web of lies might be some truth. Falk is one of two survivors of an expedition from Werel. He was the navigator, a mathematician named Ramarren. The Shing claim that they are men who set themselves up as peacekeepers, that the League of All Worlds tore itself apart, and there was no invasion. The only other survivor of the Werel expedition is a boy named Har Orry, who knows nothing significant. The Shing offer Falk the restoration of his prior memories, at the cost of his current self.
Knowing this is a trap, and knowing that he can trust no one and yet must keep the location of Werel secret, Falk accepts. He manages to deceive the deceivers and triumphs, making his escape.
The writing is gorgeous, a sensuous journey through the varied terrain and the cultures of the conquered America. The Shing are shifty, masterful, cold and deadly. Taoism appears again and again, both as text and subtext, and in one of the better insights, Le Guin describes how laws guard against the urges a society most feels in itself. The Shing forbid murder and permit everything else, a sign of the deep murderousness at the heart of their imperium.
The first two books of this series were fine; nothing exceptional. City of Illusions redeems the whole series, like the sun breaking through clouds.