Three of Le Guin's novels that follow the same cycle as this one—Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile,and City of Illusions—have been collected into one volume by Nelson Doubleday Inc., called Three Hainish Novels.

Besides this novel, the book by Le Guin that is most often examined in literature and political science classes is The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia, published in 1974.

Orson Scott Card's classic 1985 science fiction novel Ender's Game also uses the ansible as a tool for interplanetary communication, but it examines the effects of travel and communication on war, not diplomacy.

One of the greatest science fiction novels is Frank Herbert's Dune(1965), which has led to a series of interrelated novels about a richlyimagined world.

Doris Lessing is generally linked to Le Guin because they were among the first women to gain popular attention...