THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST

Terran logging interests vs. the gentle natives of Athshe. Le Guin's most pleasing efforts are spent on the Athshean culture: a non-technological forest society with an interesting division of sexual roles and an intense development of the capacity for dreaming—that is, for re-experiencing and restructuring the mysteries of waking life. The Terran exploiters are more trivially realized; despite economical plotting and a wonderfully ambiguous ending, this shows signs of a previous fragmentary incarnation as a children's story. Lesser Le Guin, but often impressive.