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Literature / Rocannon's World

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Rocannon's World is a novel by Ursula K. Le Guin, set on the so far-unnamed world of Fomalhaut II tentatively contacted and studied by the League of All Worlds, a precursor to the Ekumen.

The story begins with the tale of Semley, a local noblewoman who is obsessed with a beautiful necklace her ancestor once owned. To obtain it, she travels to the underground home of the Gdemiar, who tell her that it's actually possible to get it back, but many years will pass in the meantime. She nonetheless accepts the deal, and the Gdemiar take her by a lighthugger starship to the nearest world of the League, where she meets Rocannon, a researcher studying her world, and is given the necklace kept at a local museum. Alas, the Gdemiar warning proves true, and she returns only to see seventeen years have passed, and flees in panic into a forest, never to be seen again.

The rest of the story follows Rocannon, who takes Semley's voyage as a reason to study her world more closely and on-site. Ill times have befallen the League: a war is brewing, by actions of the world Faraday which seeks to establish its own space empire. An attack on a starship carrying Rocannon's fellow researchers is his first sign that Faraday chose this world as a location of a secret base from which it could launch unsuspected attacks on League worlds, and Rocannon finds himself the only one who can save League from this fate. He gathers up a party of followers and sets out on a quest to locate and destroy the Faradayan base.

This novel contains examples of the following tropes:

  • Alternative Calendar: The world has years twice the length of an earth year (or, rather, the standard year used by the League of Worlds). Some regions use two twelve-month (or however many they have) cycles to make up a full year.
  • Alien Non-Interference Clause: After meeting Semley, Rocannon successfully lobbies to cut off exchange of goods with her world, until it is studied more closely. There used to be a limited, but regular trade beforehand, predominantly enjoyed by the Gdemiar.
  • Giant Flyer: The animal the locals use in place of a horse is a large winged cat.
  • Loads and Loads of Races: Fomalhaut II bears a bewildering array of sentient races, only three of which are relatively well-researched by the time the story begins.
  • Low Culture, High Tech: At one point Rocannon is attacked and captured by barbarians: savage, primitive nomads who wield explosive heat-seeking surface-to-air missiles. The dissonance is justified because the nomads are being covertly supplied by Faraday.
  • Mental Fusion: The Fiaa live in villages where all inhabitants form a group mind, so individual specimens are commonly referred to by the name of their village. A singular Fian is most likely a Sole Survivor of some tragedy, and with some luck will soon join another village. The Gdemiar also have this capacity, but they don't do it on the scale of an entire society, and it consists of individuals alongside small, single-digit-sized group minds.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: When Rocannon needs to get in contact with League, he discovers the Gdemiar still feel offended by the sudden halt in communication and refuse his request to send out a message.
  • Planetary Romance: Rocannon, a man from what's give-or-take a modern society, has to get in the boots of a Bronze Age adventurer and go on a quest, meeting a series of more-or-less fantasy races along the way.
  • Standard Fantasy Races: Played with.
    • Hobbits: The Fiia are a small child-like race that just wants to enjoy a simple communal life free of care and fear.
    • Our Angels Are Different: "Angels" only by virtue of Winged Humanoid look, they're an eusocial, non-sapient species which is something of an apex predator in their territory.
    • Our Dwarves Are All the Same: The Gdemiar are a race of underground, technologically-minded diminutive people with a rather ornery disposition towards outsiders.
  • Telepathic Spacemen: The Fiaa and Gdemiar are naturally telepathic and psychic links are common in their society. Rocannon meets a few others along the way.
  • Year Outside, Hour Inside: While there is superluminal space travel in the League — the Faradayans intend to use it for suicide terror strikes — humans can only survive if they stick to sub-light. With time dilation, a century's trip could be a month, but it's not something taken lightly, given how much could change in the time between takeoff and landing. The similarity to legends of visitors in elf-land is not lost — Semley's Necklace plays out exactly as one of them, despite being purely sci-fi.

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