City of Illusions

Other reviewers emphasize that there is no need to read La Guin's Hainish series in any particular order. But I do not know what I would have made ofCity of Illusions had I not read Planet of Exile first. When this novel came out, there had been three Hainish novels published in two years, and so readers did not have the eight novels we have now to choose from. It's more likely that readers came to this work with the first two under their readers' belts. Writing about City of Illusions opens up the field of possible spoilers, but they are spoilers in reverse related to a previous novel. Does any of that make sense? Well, after all, the book is titled City of Illusions.

Le Guin brings us back to Terra for this story. The hero staggers naked and filthy out of a forest, his mind a blank and his eyes amber as a cat's. He stumbles into the clearing of the House of Zove, and we cannot appreciate his luck until we encounter with him much less savory remnants of humanity later in the story. These clannish people care for him, educate him, and incorporate him into their social world. They name him Falk, a reference to his amber eyes. But questions remain. Is he human or alien? The eyes are problem and his five-year relationship with one of Zove's daughters remains childless. This sterility with a human argues for his own alien origin. Zove dismisses him from the house, sending him west to the Es Toch, the fabled city of the Shing, the Enemy who now hold dominion over Earth.

The novel is Falk's journey west, across a North America we recognize by geographical landmarks and traces of a civilization wiped out a millennium before. The people he meets may be kind or cruel, savage or delusional. His quandary is his knowledge that while knowing he can trust no one he knows he must constantly trust some one to go further on his quest. When he reaches Es Toch, the matter is further complicated by his encounter with the Shing. Are they the humans they claim to be or the intergalactic raiders he suspects them of being. As in all Le Guin's novels, telepathy, or mind speaking, plays a role. It is an honored, direct means of speaking truthfully and intimately with another. Falk suspects that the Shing have mastered mind lying.

This is a novel about power and what people, or aliens, are willing to do to acquire it and hang desperately onto it, whether they control a clearing in the forest or an entire planet.