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The Hainish Cycle
Five Ways to Forgiveness
Set in the same universe as Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, these five linked Hainish stories follow far-future human colonies living in the distant solar system
Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe—two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners” and “assets,” together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution.
In “Betrayals” a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,” a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,” which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberation” is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,” in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war . . . I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.”
Here for the first time is the complete suite of five linked stories from Ursula K. Le Guin’s acclaimed Hainish series, which tells the history of the Ekumen, the galactic confederation of human colonies founded by the planet Hain. First published as Four Ways to Forgiveness, and now joined by a fifth story, Five Ways to Forgiveness focuses on the twin planets Werel and Yeowe—two worlds whose peoples, long known as “owners” and “assets,” together face an uncertain future after civil war and revolution.
In “Betrayals” a retired science teacher must make peace with her new neighbor, a disgraced revolutionary leader. In “Forgiveness Day,” a female official from the Ekumen arrives to survey the situation on Werel and struggles against its rigidly patriarchal culture. Embedded within “A Man of the People,” which describes the coming of age of Havzhiva, an Ekumen ambassador to Yeowe, is Le Guin’s most sustained description of the Ur-planet Hain. “A Woman’s Liberation” is the remarkable narrative of Rakam, born an asset on Werel, who must twice escape from slavery to freedom. Joined to them is “Old Music and the Slave Women,” in which the charismatic Hainish embassy worker, who appears in two of the four original stories, returns for a tale of his own. Of this capstone tale Le Guin has written, “the character called Old Music began to tell me a fifth tale about the latter days of the civil war . . . I’m glad to see it joined to the others at last.”
351 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 5, 2017
440 people are currently reading
2520 people want to read
About the author
Ursula K. Le Guin
1,056 books31.3k followersUrsula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.
She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.
She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.
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April 1, 2026
Beautifully written. Five stories and I was tearing up at the end of every single one of them.
I was worried going in that the book would be boring - I impulse-bought it mostly because of the beautiful cover - and instead it just kept building and building and building and building… There’s something about Le Guin’s writing that is so clear that you almost don’t notice it, but if anything that makes the emotional impact that much more direct.
Relevant now, relevant 200 years ago, and I’m sure it’ll be relevant 200 years from now too.
——————
Coming back to say - it’s so genius that, fundamentally, these stories “about” two countries devastated by slavery are actually stories about work. I don’t mean that thing you do for a paycheck, I don’t mean the stuff you “have” to do that sucks - I mean actual *work*, the kind that feels so fulfilling when you *choose* to do it, when you’re putting in the effort, when you think “I can be good at this” and then you put in the work and maybe you *are*.
The way that Le Guin focuses on work, and specifically the work each character *wants* to do and *chooses* to do, in contrast to the slavery that exists on these planets… really amazing, and nuanced, and uncommon.
In the first story, the retired (and bored) protagonist finds purpose in caring for a man who’s fallen sick and has no one else to help. In the second story, a diplomat and a military officer forced to work together hate it, until they decide to do it for the rest of their lives. In the third story, the protagonist’s desire to understand more than he has access to in his small, idyllic hometown drives him to travel across the galaxy to a much less idyllic world, where he finds fulfillment because the work he does matters. In the fourth story, a formerly enslaved woman finds herself in learning and in teaching. And in the fifth story, the protagonist loves his work so much that when he’s prevented from doing it for too long, he makes a choice to try to return to it that has disastrous consequences.
The kind of work that I’m talking about is such a major part of all our lives - discovering it, trying it out, doing it, sharing it with others who understand, feeling its absence - and yet there isn’t a lot of fiction that I can think of that really considers the value of work to the human experience like Le Guin does in this book.
(Off the top, Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man Trilogy is the only other fiction I can think of that’s about work at a really detailed level… although since it’s a trilogy famously about a guy who’s not great at his job and doesn’t like doing it, it’s really about the absence of work, or at best the search for a work/purpose that the protagonist can’t even begin to visualize.)
Anyway - very, very cool.
I was worried going in that the book would be boring - I impulse-bought it mostly because of the beautiful cover - and instead it just kept building and building and building and building… There’s something about Le Guin’s writing that is so clear that you almost don’t notice it, but if anything that makes the emotional impact that much more direct.
Relevant now, relevant 200 years ago, and I’m sure it’ll be relevant 200 years from now too.
——————
Coming back to say - it’s so genius that, fundamentally, these stories “about” two countries devastated by slavery are actually stories about work. I don’t mean that thing you do for a paycheck, I don’t mean the stuff you “have” to do that sucks - I mean actual *work*, the kind that feels so fulfilling when you *choose* to do it, when you’re putting in the effort, when you think “I can be good at this” and then you put in the work and maybe you *are*.
The way that Le Guin focuses on work, and specifically the work each character *wants* to do and *chooses* to do, in contrast to the slavery that exists on these planets… really amazing, and nuanced, and uncommon.
In the first story, the retired (and bored) protagonist finds purpose in caring for a man who’s fallen sick and has no one else to help. In the second story, a diplomat and a military officer forced to work together hate it, until they decide to do it for the rest of their lives. In the third story, the protagonist’s desire to understand more than he has access to in his small, idyllic hometown drives him to travel across the galaxy to a much less idyllic world, where he finds fulfillment because the work he does matters. In the fourth story, a formerly enslaved woman finds herself in learning and in teaching. And in the fifth story, the protagonist loves his work so much that when he’s prevented from doing it for too long, he makes a choice to try to return to it that has disastrous consequences.
The kind of work that I’m talking about is such a major part of all our lives - discovering it, trying it out, doing it, sharing it with others who understand, feeling its absence - and yet there isn’t a lot of fiction that I can think of that really considers the value of work to the human experience like Le Guin does in this book.
(Off the top, Robin Hobb’s Tawny Man Trilogy is the only other fiction I can think of that’s about work at a really detailed level… although since it’s a trilogy famously about a guy who’s not great at his job and doesn’t like doing it, it’s really about the absence of work, or at best the search for a work/purpose that the protagonist can’t even begin to visualize.)
Anyway - very, very cool.
Read
February 12, 2024"Four Ways to Forgiveness" is a set of four stories which contains “Betrayals,” “Forgiveness Day,” “A Man of the People,” and “A Woman's Liberation”. The first three are short stories and the last one can be considered a novella.
The four can be read independently but are connected by the ideological themes and the setting - and under that perspective, the whole can be seen as a novel with four different sections.
In these four stories, set in Le Guin's Hainish universe, three are told from the perspective of women, while one is from a male one. The stories share a common theme of slavery that weaves through the narrative, used by the author to explore gender, family, society, relationships and sexuality - all of which are recurring themes in Le Guin's work - echoing her latter books, namely "Tehanu" and "The Other Wind", as well as several others, especially "The Left Hand of Darkness".
"Four Ways to Forgiveness" contains several graphic and violent scenes that may be disturbing or unsettling for some readers - Le Guin compels the reader to confront the horror of societies built on slavery, oppression, and the abuse of the powerless.
What I think is the most interesting aspect of Le Guin's philosophy is her concept of "building blocks" which defines the importance of equal footing in all forms of relationships. To Le Guin, I believe, it is vital to ensure that all kinds of relationships are built on equal footing, meaning that every individual involved in any relationship is given the same level of respect, understanding and value. Such an approach helps to foster healthy relationships and promotes mutual respect in order to build a properly functioning, truly civilized, society. In Le Guin's ideology is the "journey" to shape that relationship and its terms that are of utmost importance, a "journey" which the author delicately outlines in the first story, “Betrayals,” where she explores what loves and graces are left for old age after the many inevitable losses suffered in life.
It's always hard to tackle difficult topics but Le Guin was never afraid of doing so. In fact, she approaches painful subjects fearlessly but with determination, compelling us to confront them.
To her, control and exploitation are not merely theoretical subjects far away in History; she seeks to portray the real human suffering that is a component of institutionalized privilege and abuse still in practice today, ingrained in our societies.
If not an essential book in Le Guin's bibliography it still contains all the elements and high qualities of Le Guin's work, delving into the Hainish Universe once more.
The four can be read independently but are connected by the ideological themes and the setting - and under that perspective, the whole can be seen as a novel with four different sections.
In these four stories, set in Le Guin's Hainish universe, three are told from the perspective of women, while one is from a male one. The stories share a common theme of slavery that weaves through the narrative, used by the author to explore gender, family, society, relationships and sexuality - all of which are recurring themes in Le Guin's work - echoing her latter books, namely "Tehanu" and "The Other Wind", as well as several others, especially "The Left Hand of Darkness".
"Four Ways to Forgiveness" contains several graphic and violent scenes that may be disturbing or unsettling for some readers - Le Guin compels the reader to confront the horror of societies built on slavery, oppression, and the abuse of the powerless.
What I think is the most interesting aspect of Le Guin's philosophy is her concept of "building blocks" which defines the importance of equal footing in all forms of relationships. To Le Guin, I believe, it is vital to ensure that all kinds of relationships are built on equal footing, meaning that every individual involved in any relationship is given the same level of respect, understanding and value. Such an approach helps to foster healthy relationships and promotes mutual respect in order to build a properly functioning, truly civilized, society. In Le Guin's ideology is the "journey" to shape that relationship and its terms that are of utmost importance, a "journey" which the author delicately outlines in the first story, “Betrayals,” where she explores what loves and graces are left for old age after the many inevitable losses suffered in life.
It's always hard to tackle difficult topics but Le Guin was never afraid of doing so. In fact, she approaches painful subjects fearlessly but with determination, compelling us to confront them.
To her, control and exploitation are not merely theoretical subjects far away in History; she seeks to portray the real human suffering that is a component of institutionalized privilege and abuse still in practice today, ingrained in our societies.
If not an essential book in Le Guin's bibliography it still contains all the elements and high qualities of Le Guin's work, delving into the Hainish Universe once more.
July 3, 2022
Ursula, my Ursula, thank the gods for your flame, burning so bright, strong, and light down through the years and right into my eyeballs. I am blessed by your pure existence.
June 6, 2022
Imagine, if you can, a world without war and slavery, with racial and gender equality. In Five Ways to Forgiveness, Yoss pondered such a world: “It would be the real world. Peace was the true life, the life of working and learning and bringing up children to work and learn. War, which devoured work, learning, and children, was the denial of reality” (p. 6).
In this book of five related short stories/novellas of the Hainish universe, Ursula Le Guin considered a pair of worlds consumed by war, strangled by racial and gender inequality, worlds where 90% of the population were “assets” (slaves) and illiterate. Women, even those born to wealth, led very restricted lives. Opportunity, literacy, money were limited commodities.
It seems to me that authors who are immigrants or in some way bicultural are able look at their world with fresh(er) eyes. This may also be true for bicultural characters such as the Hainish ambassadors to Werel and Yeowe. Similarly, Le Guin’s other characters, on the cusp of a major sea change (slave-owning to free, for example), are forced to consider the truth of all their assumptions: who is good or bad? Is war inevitable or peace possible? Should girls be educated and hold money? As Rakam observed, I “have been advantaged to know with my very flesh the nature of servitude and the nature of freedom” (p. 168). I do not wish to be similarly “advantaged,” yet what a gift to recognize that the “sword” is double-edged and does not only cut, but also includes some advantage?
The five stories in in Five Ways to Forgiveness are written only from the perspectives of Hainish ambassadors or assets and former assets from Werel and Yeowe. That doesn’t seem an accident. Could Owners successfully dream the world different? (Some tried.)
How can one make changes without having seen other options? The assets’ religious text, the Arkamye, guided change, “To live simply is most complicated” (p. 108). Its aphorisms permeated the thoughts and speech of the Hainish, often indirectly> “You will think there are no rules... There are always rules” (p. 129). Variations of the following appeared on multiple occasions: “No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole” (p. 163).
I am a big Le Guin fan. I like the observing stance that her Hainish characters take: they both attempt to be neutral and nonjudgmental, while drawing lines in the sand (no war). Things happen in her books, but in many books and perhaps especially this one, the most important things that happen are in relationship with members of other groups: “Brother, I am thou” (p. 43).
In this book of five related short stories/novellas of the Hainish universe, Ursula Le Guin considered a pair of worlds consumed by war, strangled by racial and gender inequality, worlds where 90% of the population were “assets” (slaves) and illiterate. Women, even those born to wealth, led very restricted lives. Opportunity, literacy, money were limited commodities.
It seems to me that authors who are immigrants or in some way bicultural are able look at their world with fresh(er) eyes. This may also be true for bicultural characters such as the Hainish ambassadors to Werel and Yeowe. Similarly, Le Guin’s other characters, on the cusp of a major sea change (slave-owning to free, for example), are forced to consider the truth of all their assumptions: who is good or bad? Is war inevitable or peace possible? Should girls be educated and hold money? As Rakam observed, I “have been advantaged to know with my very flesh the nature of servitude and the nature of freedom” (p. 168). I do not wish to be similarly “advantaged,” yet what a gift to recognize that the “sword” is double-edged and does not only cut, but also includes some advantage?
The five stories in in Five Ways to Forgiveness are written only from the perspectives of Hainish ambassadors or assets and former assets from Werel and Yeowe. That doesn’t seem an accident. Could Owners successfully dream the world different? (Some tried.)
How can one make changes without having seen other options? The assets’ religious text, the Arkamye, guided change, “To live simply is most complicated” (p. 108). Its aphorisms permeated the thoughts and speech of the Hainish, often indirectly> “You will think there are no rules... There are always rules” (p. 129). Variations of the following appeared on multiple occasions: “No truth can make another truth untrue. All knowledge is a part of the whole knowledge. A true line, a true color. Once you have seen the larger pattern, you cannot go back to seeing the part as the whole” (p. 163).
I am a big Le Guin fan. I like the observing stance that her Hainish characters take: they both attempt to be neutral and nonjudgmental, while drawing lines in the sand (no war). Things happen in her books, but in many books and perhaps especially this one, the most important things that happen are in relationship with members of other groups: “Brother, I am thou” (p. 43).
April 27, 2026
Five Ways to Forgiveness by Ursula K. Le Guin
4★
This is the darkest and riskiest Le Guin I’ve read. Five Ways to Forgiveness is not content to gesture vaguely at slavery or oppression. It goes directly into the machinery of it: ownership, sexual domination, household power, gender training, language, shame, revolution, and the long psychological aftermath of systems that do not disappear just because the laws change.
What impressed me most is how fully imagined the societies are. The compounds, the owner/asset logic, the gender structures, the post-revolution instability, and the Hainish outsider perspective all feel deeply worked through. Le Guin is not just telling stories about liberation. She is asking what liberation even means when domination has shaped how people think about bodies, sex, obedience, dignity, and selfhood.
I did struggle with the racial inversion. Making the owners black and the slaves white felt a little too pointed at times, maybe too blunt as an authorial choice. But the book is doing so much more than that one device. Its real strength is in the way it treats slavery as domestic, cognitive, sexual, political, and historical all at once.
This deserves to be talked about more. It is not the easiest Le Guin to recommend, and it is certainly not the gentlest, but it may be one of the most morally forceful. Dark, uncomfortable, thoughtful, and much more powerful than its relative lack of attention would suggest.
4★
This is the darkest and riskiest Le Guin I’ve read. Five Ways to Forgiveness is not content to gesture vaguely at slavery or oppression. It goes directly into the machinery of it: ownership, sexual domination, household power, gender training, language, shame, revolution, and the long psychological aftermath of systems that do not disappear just because the laws change.
What impressed me most is how fully imagined the societies are. The compounds, the owner/asset logic, the gender structures, the post-revolution instability, and the Hainish outsider perspective all feel deeply worked through. Le Guin is not just telling stories about liberation. She is asking what liberation even means when domination has shaped how people think about bodies, sex, obedience, dignity, and selfhood.
I did struggle with the racial inversion. Making the owners black and the slaves white felt a little too pointed at times, maybe too blunt as an authorial choice. But the book is doing so much more than that one device. Its real strength is in the way it treats slavery as domestic, cognitive, sexual, political, and historical all at once.
This deserves to be talked about more. It is not the easiest Le Guin to recommend, and it is certainly not the gentlest, but it may be one of the most morally forceful. Dark, uncomfortable, thoughtful, and much more powerful than its relative lack of attention would suggest.
June 24, 2025
if ursula has a million fans, then I am one of them
if ursula has a thousand fans, then I am one of them
if ursula has a hundred fans, then I am one of them
if ursula has two fans, then it's me and paulie till the end of the world
if ursula has no fans, then paulie and I have perished
if ursula has a thousand fans, then I am one of them
if ursula has a hundred fans, then I am one of them
if ursula has two fans, then it's me and paulie till the end of the world
if ursula has no fans, then paulie and I have perished
December 31, 2021
I think this was the only short story collection from the Hainish cycle that I didn't absolutely love. And I think it was because it focused on the topic of slavery, which just felt too raw and too real for sci-fi (at least for me, in this time period). Le Guin is an excellent writer of course, and handles the topic with aplomb and grace, but I just felt a bit odd or off reading it the whole time. As if I should be reading Kindred instead. I'm not sure if this makes any sense whatsoever, but here I am anyway.
February 13, 2025
The best to ever do it
April 28, 2025
legoat’s back
January 29, 2025
“what is one man’s and one woman’s love and desire, against the history of two worlds, the great revolutions of our lifetimes, the hope, the unending cruelty of our species? a little thing. but a key is a little thing, next to the door it opens.”
ursula k le guin never misses. though one of the stories here was as brutal as anything she’s ever written, to a point where it seemed almost torture-porn. that story changes tack however
ursula k le guin never misses. though one of the stories here was as brutal as anything she’s ever written, to a point where it seemed almost torture-porn. that story changes tack however
February 26, 2026
Five interconnected stories about two interconnected worlds with a long history of slavery and extractive capitalism, one recently freed by a slave-led revolution and the other on the brink of major change. Centered on questions of sex, gender, love and the meaning of freedom, it feels like Le Guin is reflecting back on many rich years of thought and study. That seems especially true of the last story, published later than the first four which throws an idealist into the messy realities of revolution and questions the cost of justice in a world steeped in historic violence.
In the end, I was moved the most by the first story--it is an extraordinarily sensitive and empowering rendering of an elderly woman character who despite losing everything, has much to live for. For such a heavy topic, the collection is often bright and full of human hope.
A part of the Hanish cycle, the same universe as The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Le Guin at her best.
In the end, I was moved the most by the first story--it is an extraordinarily sensitive and empowering rendering of an elderly woman character who despite losing everything, has much to live for. For such a heavy topic, the collection is often bright and full of human hope.
A part of the Hanish cycle, the same universe as The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Le Guin at her best.
December 27, 2024
A Hainish cycle book that is often overlooked. Yet it is a must read for anyone appreciating the writing of Ursula Le Guin. These five interlinked stories are often painful to read but pain is a necessary experience of life. To overcome pain, it is not enough to forget, it is essential to forgive.
September 19, 2025
“It is in our bodies that we lose or begin our freedom, in our bodies that we accept or end our slavery.” (1996, p. 280)
I have to confess I've both finished and not finished this short story collection. I started reading Five Ways to Forgiveness on my Kindle, but soon switched to a rather forlorn paperback waiting on my shelf for years, Four Ways to Forgiveness, when too many library loans began competing for attention. Before reading in the new format, I hazily registered the difference in the titles, until I noticed the page count. A story was missing from my musty paperback. So, with a little investigation, I found Four Ways to Forgiveness was first published in 1995; then redubbed and published as Five Ways to Forgiveness in 2017 as an ebook, with an additional story, "Old Music and the Slave Women." This new addition I have yet to read, but not having read it yet doesn't diminish the genius of those I did.
I came to read Ursula K. Le Guin through a recommendation by a dear friend: "Start with A Wizard of Earthsea," she said. "It's the best entrée into Le Guin." I did, and followed through with the other three in the Earthsea collection, always sensing deep profound currents under what I was reading but perhaps not understanding them. With Four/Five Ways to Forgiveness, I feel I've a better grasp of what Le Guin undertakes: critiques of our present day, of gender roles, immigration, capitalism, racism, and slavery, among issues.
Although new to the Hainish universe, I still appreciated the stories and messages Le Guin was proffering. All the stories are memorable: "Betrayals" when two people look beyond the past to help and love each other; "Forgiveness Day" shows disgust turned to love; "A Man of the People" follows the sociocultural education of Havzhiva; and my favorite, "A Woman's Liberation," traces a life from slave to academic to public leader. Each story has a carry-over character from the previous story. The fifth story, I assume, must link Old Music to the older couple in the first story, a discovery still waiting for me.
A formidable force, I look forward to entering again into Le Guin's universe, probably by opening the other novel I have on my shelves, The Dispossessed. 💃🏻
I have to confess I've both finished and not finished this short story collection. I started reading Five Ways to Forgiveness on my Kindle, but soon switched to a rather forlorn paperback waiting on my shelf for years, Four Ways to Forgiveness, when too many library loans began competing for attention. Before reading in the new format, I hazily registered the difference in the titles, until I noticed the page count. A story was missing from my musty paperback. So, with a little investigation, I found Four Ways to Forgiveness was first published in 1995; then redubbed and published as Five Ways to Forgiveness in 2017 as an ebook, with an additional story, "Old Music and the Slave Women." This new addition I have yet to read, but not having read it yet doesn't diminish the genius of those I did.
I came to read Ursula K. Le Guin through a recommendation by a dear friend: "Start with A Wizard of Earthsea," she said. "It's the best entrée into Le Guin." I did, and followed through with the other three in the Earthsea collection, always sensing deep profound currents under what I was reading but perhaps not understanding them. With Four/Five Ways to Forgiveness, I feel I've a better grasp of what Le Guin undertakes: critiques of our present day, of gender roles, immigration, capitalism, racism, and slavery, among issues.
Although new to the Hainish universe, I still appreciated the stories and messages Le Guin was proffering. All the stories are memorable: "Betrayals" when two people look beyond the past to help and love each other; "Forgiveness Day" shows disgust turned to love; "A Man of the People" follows the sociocultural education of Havzhiva; and my favorite, "A Woman's Liberation," traces a life from slave to academic to public leader. Each story has a carry-over character from the previous story. The fifth story, I assume, must link Old Music to the older couple in the first story, a discovery still waiting for me.
A formidable force, I look forward to entering again into Le Guin's universe, probably by opening the other novel I have on my shelves, The Dispossessed. 💃🏻
April 8, 2026
A well-written and provocative collection of five short stories set within the same universe, which I later realized is part of a broader series of long-form works by Ursula K. Le Guin. I picked this book up on a whim, drawn in by a handwritten recommendation, its beautiful cover, and its promise to explore the dynamics of an interplanetary slavery system, which it certainly delivers.
I suspect that reading one of the longer works first may have made this collection easier to follow. Le Guin drops the reader directly into the middle of each narrative, and it can be difficult to keep pace with the shifting geographical, political, and historical contexts, especially given the nature of short stories, where the narrative resets quickly and repeatedly.
Despite this, I did enjoy this book. It traces the intertwined histories of two planets, Werel and Yeowe, whose populations have been shaped by low technology, low education, and deeply inequitable systems of slavery. In most of the stories, a character from the Ekumen, “alien” envoys from a vastly more advanced interplanetary society, serves as a kind of external vantage point. Their presence cuts through the inherited trauma and embedded social structures that often obscure how Werelians and Yeoweans understand their own realities.
“What you build your world from… is nothing less than everything… All knowledge is partial, infinitesimally partial…”
The idea that perspective and bias shape reality feels obvious, even boring. But stories like these expand the profundity of epistemic limits. It is not just that we as humans have limited views, it is that the outside of those limits may not even exist to us. Like the idea of blindness not as darkness, but as the absence of sight entirely, there are ways of understanding the world that are simply not available from within a given frame of reference, until suddenly they are. Exploring this phenomenon in the setting of slavery is soul moving. Some characters remain subjugated within systems of total sexual and social control, even when “liberation” arrives offering freedom, education, and personal autonomy. But these possibilities exist outside of those characters’ personal event horizons. Who knows if I, in their situation, would choose differently, or even recognize that I could?
I suspect that reading one of the longer works first may have made this collection easier to follow. Le Guin drops the reader directly into the middle of each narrative, and it can be difficult to keep pace with the shifting geographical, political, and historical contexts, especially given the nature of short stories, where the narrative resets quickly and repeatedly.
Despite this, I did enjoy this book. It traces the intertwined histories of two planets, Werel and Yeowe, whose populations have been shaped by low technology, low education, and deeply inequitable systems of slavery. In most of the stories, a character from the Ekumen, “alien” envoys from a vastly more advanced interplanetary society, serves as a kind of external vantage point. Their presence cuts through the inherited trauma and embedded social structures that often obscure how Werelians and Yeoweans understand their own realities.
“What you build your world from… is nothing less than everything… All knowledge is partial, infinitesimally partial…”
The idea that perspective and bias shape reality feels obvious, even boring. But stories like these expand the profundity of epistemic limits. It is not just that we as humans have limited views, it is that the outside of those limits may not even exist to us. Like the idea of blindness not as darkness, but as the absence of sight entirely, there are ways of understanding the world that are simply not available from within a given frame of reference, until suddenly they are. Exploring this phenomenon in the setting of slavery is soul moving. Some characters remain subjugated within systems of total sexual and social control, even when “liberation” arrives offering freedom, education, and personal autonomy. But these possibilities exist outside of those characters’ personal event horizons. Who knows if I, in their situation, would choose differently, or even recognize that I could?
July 3, 2021
Once I got past not receiving the kinds of closure I was looking for, I really enjoyed this story collection - I had so many thoughts about Le Guin's brilliance and about what she's exploring in this story collection, but I thought for the time being, I would just post my response for my Le Guin class I'm taking. Professor Scott Black, in his lecture on Le Guin's Five Ways to Forgiveness, said, “For both Havzhiva and Rakam, problems may be identified from the outside, but they must be addressed from the inside, from the intimacy of the local pattern and from the intimacy of the body, where you live your history and find your freedom. … In the intimacies of our lives, we live history. How we live in our most intimate moments is a political act.” What I sense playing out politically, socially, and culturally today: how we talk about history has become politicized, but what lens through which we view history has always been political. Le Guin’s brilliance is pointing the narrative lens at these realities and not focusing on the adventure narrative within these fictional histories. Maybe because of the nature of teaching, the net of what can be perceived as political has always seemed larger to me than we traditionally define it?
The description of history from “A Man of the People” also stayed with me, “You say: there is a great river, and it flows through this land and we have named it History. .. To Havzhiva the knowledge that his life, any life was one flicker of light for one moment on the surface of that river was sometimes distressing, sometimes restful.” Throughout these stories, I was impressed by Le Guin’s poetic and masterful way of evoking the setting. The story seemed to be taking place in hot, dry, dusty conditions, but as a balance there is either water or imagery of water.
The quote from “Old Music and the Slave Women,” “We followed his weakness. His incompleteness. Failure’s open. Look at water, Esi. It finds the weak places in the rock, the openings, the hollows, the absences. Following water we come to where we belong," gave me some insight into the setting and the presence of water and water imagery, and really connected to this point from Professor Black's lecture, “At its core are the simple cycles of light and dark, or yang and yin, which revolve like the moon waxing and waning and then waxing and waning again. The Daodejing advocates equanimity and stability amid this flux, like being at the hub around which the spokes of a wheel rise and fall, and practicing wu-wei, or non-coercive action, spontaneous activity free of ingrained habits and so attuned to whatever circumstances you find yourself in." This reminded me of a passage from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong where he observes: “You killed that poem, we say. You’re a killer. You came in to that novel guns blazing. I am hammering this paragraph…. I owned that workshop…. We smashed the competition,” and this really – struck? – me at how much violence can be expressed through the English language and that can be potentially seen in our culture. The stories in Le Guin’s collection have as a backdrop a revolution, a system based on slavery and aggressive profiteering, and other aggressive actions, and yet the stories show characters within that narrative finding harmonious ways to interact with those events or to be part of those events. So many times I wanted the characters to react against the injustice or to meet violence with violence, but Le Guin’s narratives present such a nuanced perspective within historical events.
The description of history from “A Man of the People” also stayed with me, “You say: there is a great river, and it flows through this land and we have named it History. .. To Havzhiva the knowledge that his life, any life was one flicker of light for one moment on the surface of that river was sometimes distressing, sometimes restful.” Throughout these stories, I was impressed by Le Guin’s poetic and masterful way of evoking the setting. The story seemed to be taking place in hot, dry, dusty conditions, but as a balance there is either water or imagery of water.
The quote from “Old Music and the Slave Women,” “We followed his weakness. His incompleteness. Failure’s open. Look at water, Esi. It finds the weak places in the rock, the openings, the hollows, the absences. Following water we come to where we belong," gave me some insight into the setting and the presence of water and water imagery, and really connected to this point from Professor Black's lecture, “At its core are the simple cycles of light and dark, or yang and yin, which revolve like the moon waxing and waning and then waxing and waning again. The Daodejing advocates equanimity and stability amid this flux, like being at the hub around which the spokes of a wheel rise and fall, and practicing wu-wei, or non-coercive action, spontaneous activity free of ingrained habits and so attuned to whatever circumstances you find yourself in." This reminded me of a passage from On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong where he observes: “You killed that poem, we say. You’re a killer. You came in to that novel guns blazing. I am hammering this paragraph…. I owned that workshop…. We smashed the competition,” and this really – struck? – me at how much violence can be expressed through the English language and that can be potentially seen in our culture. The stories in Le Guin’s collection have as a backdrop a revolution, a system based on slavery and aggressive profiteering, and other aggressive actions, and yet the stories show characters within that narrative finding harmonious ways to interact with those events or to be part of those events. So many times I wanted the characters to react against the injustice or to meet violence with violence, but Le Guin’s narratives present such a nuanced perspective within historical events.
December 15, 2025
4.6 Stars overall! Incredible collection of 5 stories that all blend together nicely. Definitely a must read if you’re into the Hainish novels by Le Guin. A Woman’s Liberation is reminiscent of Kindred by OEB. Heartbreaking and horrifying while simultaneously beautiful and a story all should read. But check out the others in this collection first since they are linked a little bit. And they’re all terrific! Individual ratings below. Enjoy!
1. Betrayals: 4.25
2. Forgiveness Day: 5
3. A Man of the People: 4.75
4. A Woman’s Liberation: 5
5. Old Music and the Slave Women: 4
1. Betrayals: 4.25
2. Forgiveness Day: 5
3. A Man of the People: 4.75
4. A Woman’s Liberation: 5
5. Old Music and the Slave Women: 4
January 2, 2026
megan and jeff (if you are not megan or jeff, keep scrolling!),
sometimes, le guin's stories hang heavy. well, this story suite surrounding slavery and liberation wars... yeah, it does that. these stories are beautiful and painful. I am honestly still left wondering what she was saying on forgiveness, because it was not clear to me. while there still are moments of hope and love, the vast majority of these stories center on horrific abuses of power and domination, and the horrible infection of slavery. I wish she wrote the sixth way to forgiveness.
anyway, once again I implore you to read some ursula k le guin.
sometimes, le guin's stories hang heavy. well, this story suite surrounding slavery and liberation wars... yeah, it does that. these stories are beautiful and painful. I am honestly still left wondering what she was saying on forgiveness, because it was not clear to me. while there still are moments of hope and love, the vast majority of these stories center on horrific abuses of power and domination, and the horrible infection of slavery. I wish she wrote the sixth way to forgiveness.
anyway, once again I implore you to read some ursula k le guin.
March 7, 2024
I like what LeGuin has created in the Hainish Cycle and the many topics she's able explore that are very human and very current. This book seems as good as the others however I didn't feel attached to it or to it's characters. I felt disconnected, which in part is how her main characters "aliens" from Hain seem to feel. Maybe that is due to the nature of the short story, versus the longer form of the novel, combined with the constant reminder of the vastness of the universe and the vastness of time.
July 22, 2024
Good book. I don’t have terribly many thoughts about it other than I think it would’ve been better served as a whole novel. These stories intersect so much anyways that it feels like there should’ve been an overarching story to ground them together. Regardless, Forgiveness Day and A Woman’s Liberation were my two favorites. Le Guin touches on so many different topics in so many different ways that it’s hard to articulate much. Plenty of striking moments, great characters, interesting philosophy, and good writing to enjoy.
October 28, 2020
Five interconnected stories, part of Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, set on the planets Werel and Yeowe. Le Guin expertly takes up themes of race, feminism, imperialism, revolution, liberation, civil war, and identity in these riveting stories.
June 30, 2025
4.75
If the Dispossessed is commentary on the nuances of Communist socialism and capitalist greed, this is Le Guins dive into the nuances of the struggle for liberation and the intersection of gender, race, and class. The two middle stories, especially A Woman's Liberation, were outstanding reads, albeit harsh and painful. Definitely some trigger warnings here but just wow
If the Dispossessed is commentary on the nuances of Communist socialism and capitalist greed, this is Le Guins dive into the nuances of the struggle for liberation and the intersection of gender, race, and class. The two middle stories, especially A Woman's Liberation, were outstanding reads, albeit harsh and painful. Definitely some trigger warnings here but just wow
May 3, 2025
A brilliant effort to use her sci fi universe to reckon with the horrors of slavery and capitalist exploitation. Is it a perfect collection? No, of course not. But like each of her worlds, le guin builds the planets of yeowe and werel with care and nuance, always centering the dignity of life. Revolution and liberation is messy and hard and often tragic.
January 4, 2021
Five wonderful interconnected novellas originally serialized in magazines and then presented together in this collection. Characters appear and events occur that are referenced between each one.
Betrayals
An elderly woman who believes she has lost everything finds a way to make life meaningful again.
Enjoyable
Forgiveness Day
A cross between The Left Hand of Darkness and The Handmaid's Tale. A strong independent woman finds herself as an envoy to a phallocracy, that's the word used, and quickly discovers the limits to her feminism and idealism. In this society all women are property and most men as well, 5/6s of the population are enslaved. I read it as an exploration of the limitations of privileged feminism that attempts to bring about change without any understanding of context or what they're up against. Somewhat like a feminist who travels to Saudi Arabia and without any consideration of her surroundings believe she'll be able to bring about systemic change for all women.
Highly Enjoyable
A Man of the People
This one begins on Hain. A young man yearns for something greater than the life he lives and knows and so he sets out to do exactly that. Possibly an exploration of the limits to cosmopolitanism and cultural relativity.
Highly Enjoyable
A Woman's Liberation
Possibly a take on Twelve Years a Slave or similar works depicting slavery. A woman is born into slavery, but has quite a life ahead of her. The limitations of well-meaning male moderates are explored. Manumission? Why certainly, I'm no monster! What's that you say, rights for women? I would never allow it!
Highly Enjoyable
Old Music and the Slave Woman
Old Music is one of his names, but he primarily goes by Esdan. A civil war over slavery is underway and he's bored because he's been in the embassy for far too long with nothing to do. So, he leaves its sanctity and quickly discovers the difference between imagined and actual experience. It doesn't go well for him. The story explores the limitations of both pacifism/non-intervention, the Rwandan Genocide was contemporaneous, and violent revolution, which seems prescient about the outcome of the Arab Spring. This story also seems to be in part a commentary on Iran at the time, though it's still relevant today. It's also strongly against the US "liberating" and "bringing democracy" to other countries. This wasn't included in the original collection.
Enjoyable
From the Chronology section:
1947: Ursula K. LeGuin Graduates high school in class of 3,500, which includes Philip K. Dick. The two never meet, although they later correspond.
1962: Encouraged by a friend, begins reading science fiction writers Philip K. Dick...
What a coincidence and I wonder if she knew as she was reading him that they had been in the same graduating class by then.
Betrayals
An elderly woman who believes she has lost everything finds a way to make life meaningful again.
Enjoyable
Forgiveness Day
A cross between The Left Hand of Darkness and The Handmaid's Tale. A strong independent woman finds herself as an envoy to a phallocracy, that's the word used, and quickly discovers the limits to her feminism and idealism. In this society all women are property and most men as well, 5/6s of the population are enslaved. I read it as an exploration of the limitations of privileged feminism that attempts to bring about change without any understanding of context or what they're up against. Somewhat like a feminist who travels to Saudi Arabia and without any consideration of her surroundings believe she'll be able to bring about systemic change for all women.
Highly Enjoyable
A Man of the People
This one begins on Hain. A young man yearns for something greater than the life he lives and knows and so he sets out to do exactly that. Possibly an exploration of the limits to cosmopolitanism and cultural relativity.
Highly Enjoyable
A Woman's Liberation
Possibly a take on Twelve Years a Slave or similar works depicting slavery. A woman is born into slavery, but has quite a life ahead of her. The limitations of well-meaning male moderates are explored. Manumission? Why certainly, I'm no monster! What's that you say, rights for women? I would never allow it!
Highly Enjoyable
Old Music and the Slave Woman
Old Music is one of his names, but he primarily goes by Esdan. A civil war over slavery is underway and he's bored because he's been in the embassy for far too long with nothing to do. So, he leaves its sanctity and quickly discovers the difference between imagined and actual experience. It doesn't go well for him. The story explores the limitations of both pacifism/non-intervention, the Rwandan Genocide was contemporaneous, and violent revolution, which seems prescient about the outcome of the Arab Spring. This story also seems to be in part a commentary on Iran at the time, though it's still relevant today. It's also strongly against the US "liberating" and "bringing democracy" to other countries. This wasn't included in the original collection.
Enjoyable
From the Chronology section:
1947: Ursula K. LeGuin Graduates high school in class of 3,500, which includes Philip K. Dick. The two never meet, although they later correspond.
1962: Encouraged by a friend, begins reading science fiction writers Philip K. Dick...
What a coincidence and I wonder if she knew as she was reading him that they had been in the same graduating class by then.
May 12, 2025
it took me too long to read this and it deserves a reread!! again ursula proves her expertise in history, world building, and world reimagining. i keep trying to write this review but can’t even find the words… stay tuned
March 8, 2019
There's an ongoing thread in the Hainish novels (and Le Guin's work in general, as far as I can remember) of how to fix a world--of the various, individual problems within a society, and who sees those problems, and why, and who has the potential to solve them, and how. The uneasiness in this, particularly given the frequent outsider PoVs in the Hainish novels, is the threat of the white savior trope (among other pitfalls). Five Ways to Forgiveness is an uneven collection which errs towards confusing due scattered worldbuilding (the appendix clarifies a lot but, perhaps, shouldn't be necessary) and, although explained by monopolies and hegemonies, tends towards monolithic. It concerns two planets undergoing political revolutions which end a long system of slavery, and so is even more daring, and precarious, in its questions. It answers aren't always satisfying, or good, and sometimes they lean explicitly towards white savior. But they're multiple and critical, and as such robust; perhaps what they answer best is the Hainish cycle's own imperfect efforts.
A Woman's Liberation is both the strongest and most punishing to read.
A Woman's Liberation is both the strongest and most punishing to read.
You can't change anything from outside it. Standing apart, looking down, taking the overview, you see the pattern. What's wrong, what's missing. You want to fix it. But you can't patch it. You have to be in it, weaving it. You have to be part of the weaving.
The gardens of Yaramera were utterly beautiful in their desolation. Desolate, forlorn, forsaken, all such romantic words befitted them, yet they were also rational and noble, full of peace. They had been built by the labor slaves. Their dignity and peace were founded on cruelty, misery, pain. Esdan was Hainish, from a very old people, people who had built and destroyed Yaramera a thousand times. His mind contained the beauty and the terrible grief of the place, assured that the existence of one cannot justify the other, the destruction of one cannot destroy the other. He was aware of both, only aware.
May 2, 2024
4.5🌟
Five Ways To Forgiveness is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, set on the planets Werel and Yeowe. All five stories are interconnected and Le Guin weaves together themes of race, feminism, imperialism, revolution, liberation, civil war, and identity. Le Guin writes with her signature blend of lyrical prose and profound insights and each story offers something different as well as a compelling narrative. The characters are interesting and thought-provoking as are the themes.
Five Ways To Forgiveness is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle, set on the planets Werel and Yeowe. All five stories are interconnected and Le Guin weaves together themes of race, feminism, imperialism, revolution, liberation, civil war, and identity. Le Guin writes with her signature blend of lyrical prose and profound insights and each story offers something different as well as a compelling narrative. The characters are interesting and thought-provoking as are the themes.
May 3, 2025
Exceptional does not give justice to Le Guin’s skill and depth of consciousness.
July 25, 2018
An outstanding collection of connected short stories. I'm continually amazed at how good the loosely connected Hainish books all are. This is up there with The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed as some of the best in there.
Note about this Library of America edition: it contains Four Ways to Forgiveness, plus one story published afterwards which continues the story. It's the weakest of the lot (if the others are all five stars, I'd put that one at a three), but I greatly appreciate its inclusion for completeness' sake. In the introduction to Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2: The Word for World Is Forest / Stories / Five Ways to Forgiveness / The Telling, Le Guin writes that she had an idea for a sixth story, but at the time of publication, hadn't been able to fully form it yet. Alas, we'll never know where that one would have gone. But what's here is so good it's hard to be too sad about that.
Note about this Library of America edition: it contains Four Ways to Forgiveness, plus one story published afterwards which continues the story. It's the weakest of the lot (if the others are all five stars, I'd put that one at a three), but I greatly appreciate its inclusion for completeness' sake. In the introduction to Hainish Novels & Stories, Vol. 2: The Word for World Is Forest / Stories / Five Ways to Forgiveness / The Telling, Le Guin writes that she had an idea for a sixth story, but at the time of publication, hadn't been able to fully form it yet. Alas, we'll never know where that one would have gone. But what's here is so good it's hard to be too sad about that.
January 13, 2025
Another installment in the Hainish cycle that just continues to situate it as my favorite sci-fi series of all time
Le Guin's unparalleled prowess as a sci-fi writer is revealed once again through her gorgeous world building and seemless integration of stories from different perspectives.
Getting used to the interplay of politics and history of the two worlds described in the book can be a bit tricky to get your head around at first but it's absolutely a book begging for a re-read.
A modern reader might find the thematic racial allegories to be a bit basic, but Le Guin's signature weaving of politcal discourse into her stories amongst the cultural context of when it was written just reinforces how ahead of her time she was
Finally getting some more context for the Hainish people and having a story from one of their perspectives was definitely the most enjoyable feature of this novel
Le Guin's unparalleled prowess as a sci-fi writer is revealed once again through her gorgeous world building and seemless integration of stories from different perspectives.
Getting used to the interplay of politics and history of the two worlds described in the book can be a bit tricky to get your head around at first but it's absolutely a book begging for a re-read.
A modern reader might find the thematic racial allegories to be a bit basic, but Le Guin's signature weaving of politcal discourse into her stories amongst the cultural context of when it was written just reinforces how ahead of her time she was
Finally getting some more context for the Hainish people and having a story from one of their perspectives was definitely the most enjoyable feature of this novel
August 28, 2025
Le Guin was as exquisite a writer as you could expect for quality, intelligence, passion, and imaginative love. Here, there’s this tone of hope in each of these stories of love in revolution in a bleak future humanity of Others. Wildly and yet subtly inventive, Le Guin casually takes the forms of memoir and history to gift us with tales of rebellion against form and against societal structures that limit the freedom of individuals and peoples not rich enough to prevent their enslavement. Five Ways to Forgiveness is a mature and successful journey through richly and successfully imagined science fiction worlds that reveal the processes of rebellion as love and healing. What makes these tales so successful, decades later, is how necessary they are and easily transposable they are on our own timeline.
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