Rating: 
Summary: great "social" science fiction
Review: Le Guin, anthropologist-turned-sci/fi author, writes about an interesting anarchic society, failing only to realize that decentralization is key to stability for any utopia. (Otherwise, any such society can be conquered at its central control point[s].
Rating:
Summary: Intense, Speculative, Original
Review: This is one of LeGuin's great thought experiments. It is interestingto compare it to her later, more tribalist, _Always Coming Home_.
This is a smart book. It's full of ideas and speculation. It may not always succeed in its aims-- I for one found the sexism in her 'egalitarian' Annares irritating-- but it's a grand work of imaginary anthropology. She tries to lay bare for us the workings of two societies, the anarcho-syndicalist Annares and its capitalist home world.
Whatever its problems, the fact of LeGuin's having attempted something that no one had ever done in Science Fiction before makes this worth looking at.
Rating: 
Summary: A man's journey through two societies; search for meaning
Review: Le Guin weaves two interlinking tales that are joined at the end.
Shevek is an inspired scientist who lived two different kinds of lives
in the socialistic Anarres, and later in the capitalistic Urras.
These are the personal accounts of Shevek's search for meaning
and love, against life's obstacles.
1974 Hugo and Nebula award winner
Rating: 
Summary: Boring.
Review: I could not finish reading this story. Nothing happens. It's philosophy disguised as science fiction. Dull.
Rating:
Summary: An example of why LeGuin is a master of her craft.
Review: This is one of the best and most thought-provoking books I have read in ages. While it is a sci-fi novel about two sister planets, one ruled by an advanced version of our own society and the other a planet of anarchists, the book reads more like philosophy than anything else. Don't let that scare you, though. The story was excellent.
The planet of Anerres is a dry, dusty, arid planet and was unpopulated until citizens of Urras came to mine it for resources such as gold and lead. While this was happening, another citizen of the planet of Urras, Odo, began to write and speak out about the virtues of a society where no one owns anything and power is non-existant. The movement her teachings sparked became so prominent and threatening to the governments on Urras that they bought them off with Anerres. The miners and other workers on the dry planet were brought home, and the Odonians (as they came to be known) were sent to establish a new society of their own, free from government, bosses, money, and class. The Dispossessed tells the story of a physicist named Shevek that lived one hundered and seventy-five years after that society began.
The story itself seemed to take a backseat to the ideas that run rampant throughout the text of this book. Thoughts about how a society based on anarchism would and would not work, as well as ideas that made you really take a look at the world around us pervaded each paragraph.
It's difficult to write about this book because there was simply so much going on that I find it hard to focus on any one thing. Last night, after I finished the last few words, I set the book down and immediately thought: "I'm going to have to read this again soon." There was so much depth to the world and ideas conveyed that I honestly believe a single reading isn't enough to absorb it all.
Keep in mind (I can't stress this enough), this is not your average read and then put-on-the-shelf-and-never-think-about-again sci-fi novel. It was a true piece of literature, and I had a hard time (at first) believing that it was written by the same woman that wrote A Wizard of Earthsea. Not that there is anything wrong with A Wizard..., mind, I just wasn't expecting such an adult book.
So, I have to say, I loved it and plan on reading it again soon.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: This book is definitely thought provoking, but I found it was not much fun to read. I think it might have been more relevant at the time of its original publication, but the premise of exploring alternative political systems (or lack thereof) is dated. I have to give the author credit for portraying the anarchic communtiy as far from perfect, but then again, this is blamed on the inevitability of capatalism. I don't believe anarchy could work, but I think I would have given the concept more credit than the author does. I don't think selfishness and the lust for power (other than what is needed for self preservation) is genetic or inevitable, but rather those traits are something that is learned.
Rating: 
Summary: Not what it seems.
Review: We have the planet Urras with a single large moon called Arrakis. Urras is very like Earth; the main difference is that their moon is (marginally) habitable. Having discovered this early on, the Urrans became capable of space travel much earlier in their political-social development than we did on Earth.
Just as they develop the ability to explore and exploit their moon, there arises an anarcosocialistic philosopher called Odo. Her followers become troublesome, and are invited to remove to Arrakis to build a utopian society on their own.
Now, LeGuin is no Marxist herself; having been raised in "the People's Republic of Berkely" (her parents were professors at UC/B; her father was a famous anthropologist, although I don't remember her mother's field), she was aware of and sympathetic to Marxist theory and ideas. However, like any halfway aware person, she knew what happened in Russia, China, etc. when these countries attempted to set up Marxist societies.
"Ah!" say a defender of Communist theory,"That is because not everyone in a country is equally committed to realizing the ideal. Many don't understand it; many oppose it. That is why these attempts have failed." Please remember that most Communists are, at least, at first, well-meaning reformers; most really want to make the world a better place, even if they become corrupted once they get into power. Lenin and Trotsky really wanted to make Russia a better place, and Mao firmly belived (at least at first) that Communism would make China great; Stalin was another kettle of fish entirely, or course.
LeGuin responds, "OK, let's have a group of colonists, all True Believers, go off and try to establish a this Utopia on their own, where the 'dead hand' of the old ways won't effect them." The novel is a result of this thought-experiment; she could as easily have chosen Plato's Republic, except that nobody has seriously tried to establish a Platonic state, and several people have tried to establish Marxist ones.
These events happened about 200 years before the start of the book. On Urras, we have various nation-states dominated by two powers which have a strong similarity to the United States and the late, unlamented Soviet Union. On Arrakis, the descendants of the Odoites maintain their ideological experiment. And it works, more or less. But at what a price! Individualism is repressed not by government--as there is none per se--but by social pressure to conform. Originality and excellence are frowned upon, for they lead to inequality and thus inequity. Stifled by this dull, grey, conformist society, a brilliant young Arraki physicist defects to Urras, the first Arraki in 200 years to do so.
Of course, Urras is no better. All the excesses of Western Capitalism are seen in the one major country, while all the evils of Soviet Communism are seen in the other--all exaggerated to be sure that the reader does not miss the point. Due to there being no Democratic Socialists in the Capitalist country, the government has not been moved to construct even a minimal 'safety net', and the Communist country (for similar reasons) is more brutal than the Soviet Union or Red China were even in the worst Stalinist/Maoist stages. The exile of the Odoists was seen at the time to be a preventive of revolution, but Urras lost something important when they left.
Although LeGuin is sympathetic to the ideals of Arrakis, she knows human nature too well not to know that the Utopian society there can't work without repressing significant aspects of that nature, but rather than telling us this she shows us how this repression can't be kept up, and how the Odoist experament can't be kept up much longer.
I did not give this more than three stars as, while the ideas were interesting, it takes more than interesting ideas to make a good novel. The plot is merely a hook upon which to hang the ideas, and none of the characters are very memorable.
Rating:
Summary: One of the finest works of SF ever written
Review: The title of my review says it all. When it comes to philisophical soft SF jam packed with insights into the contemporary world, there's no one better than LeGuin. Shevek, in my opinion, remains one of the most well-written characters ever to come out of science fiction. Be sure to read this one along with her earlier work, The Left Hand of Darkness.
Rating:
Summary: Eternal Revolution?
Review: Shevek is a physicist from a world of anarchists who finds the only way to spread his revolutionary ideas of temporal physics is to visit the world who exiled his culture nearly 200 years ago. In this act and in those leading to and from it, he brings a reexamination of the revolutionary anarchy of the desolate moon Anarres as well as casts a gaze on the stratified capitalist world of Urras. Set in the same universe of LeGuin's other space stories, _The_Dispossessed_ critiques the capitalism of late 20th century Western culture, with its proxy wars and gender inequities, the failings of idealized communist societies which succumb to human drives for power through buereacracy, as well as the drive in both to maintain a status quo. In addition, Shevek's struggle to unify linear and circular views of temporal physics parallels Einstein's (or Ainsetain's (sic))and modern physics struggles to unify general relativity with quantum mechanics. This, along with insights into the perils of dual career families and academic politics round out the tale. Shevek, is perhaps the only fully realized character and he serves as the readers eyes onto the two Cetian societies and thus the aforementioned critique of our own. So, while I did identify and feel empathy for Shevek, it was the social descriptions and plot which kept me from putting the book down more than once to sleep, over the course of 24 hours. Are you possessed by your possessions? by your ideas?
Rating: 
Summary: Move Over Ayn Rand
Review: LeGuin does for anarchosyndicalism what Ayn Rand attempts to do for capitalism. The difference? LeGuin succeeds. -The Dispossessed- occupies a place of high honor on my bookshelf right next to -The Left Hand of Darkness-, -The Moon is a Harsh Mistress- (Heinlein).
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