Thomas M. Disch,The Dreams Our Stuff Is Made Of: How Science Fiction Conquered the World, Free Press, 1998.

The author, who has published in almost all genres and is a cult figure in science fiction, has produced an insightful, well-researched, and entertaining history.

John Griffiths,Three Tomorrows: American, British and Soviet Science Fiction, Barnes and Noble Books, 1980.

This exercise in comparative sociology gives readers a good sense of where notions of the unreal come from in the imaginations of authors, including Le Guin's.

N. B. Hayles, "Androgyny, Ambivalence, and Assimilation in The Left Hand of Darkness ," in Ursula K. Le Guin,edited by Joseph D. Olander and Martin Harry Greenberg, Taplinger, 1979, pp. 97-115.

This essay looks in depth at the issues in its title, offering an advanced, scholarly study.

Suzanne Elizabeth Reid,Presenting Ursula Le Guin, Twayne, 1997.

Reid gives a clear overview of the author's...