[bmer]

Okay, let me pull out some post-2005 fiction that does the same thing:

James S. A. Corey writes beautiful socio-political commentary in The Expanse series.

Max Brooks' World War Z was biting in its own special way, more (admittedly positive) social than political commentary.

Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice shows us a world where the only pronoun is "she", and what it might mean for a ship to love her crew.

There are lots of people who write social and political commentary through the vehicle of fiction. It has kind of been one of the defining features of fiction for all of its existence, no?

> Just read more. You'll get it eventually.

This is reasonable. I get that some things can't be communicated too well, and a lot of my favourites I could recommend only in the same way.

Why didn't the article simply begin and end with those two phrases?

[colinramsay]

With respect, The Expanse is fluffy and very average. World War Z is well structured but hardly amazing. Ancillary Justice is just... boring. The characters are awful given the excellent concept behind the book.

That said, I find Le Guin quite dull, though the characterisation is excellent.

In suspect we're in that ambiguous area in which people have different opinions but I do find it a little absurd to reference those three books in response to a comment which implicitly disses Vonnegut.

[bmer]

I didn't want to put up those titles as "amazing", only as "pretty darn good (with the caveats: to me, for now, until something else blows it out of the water)". I won't be writing articles extolling their virtues, and I certainly don't think they are timeless.

Maybe you are pretty meh on those books, because something else has captured your fancy much more. I would be interested in knowing what captures your fancy, because we have a common ground we're working off of (in terms of what we've both read).

> In suspect we're in that ambiguous area in which people have different opinions but I do find it a little absurd to reference those three books in response to a comment which implicitly disses Vonnegut.

I wouldn't dare diss Vonnegut, or even Le Guin, or any writer, for that matter---it's not my place, but when I come across articles that evangelize them in the way the OP does, I can't help but think "but what's so great about them?". For instance, Vonnegut established tropes and themes that writers today riff off of constantly, so he's a pioneer. I get that. In some distant sense, I can appreciate that too. I just can't enjoy his works the same way I can with stuff that has come out more recently, because his stuff doesn't seem novel to me anymore.

[throwaway_java]

yeah the article is a bit fluffy. And I probably didn't answer your specific question very well (ie given that you can find the same themes elsewhere, why read Le Guin)

I just think Le Guin works are still worth reading in themselves without having to justify why they are better/more novel/more correct etc than any other particular work.

[bmer]

> I just think Le Guin works are still worth reading in themselves without having to justify why they are better/more novel/more correct etc than any other particular work.

Makes sense to me.