m $3.00 )( .... FALL 1980 Vol. 21, No. 3 :a 3'i "a Special Ursula K. Le Guin Issue 0 r- ....3'i -0 2 EXTRAPOLATION CHRONICLE ~ r­ Do you want to know what Robert Sheckley plans to buy as Omni's r­ new fiction editor? What's happened to Heritage Press? How robots are ..... selling Coca-Cola? What publisher signed Carl Lundgren to work for co co them only? Information about the new Covenant trilogy? Where SF 0 artists are showing their work? The effects of Ballantine and Warner merging their sales forces? Why F&SF is raising their price-and when? Details and covers for upcoming books from Arkham House, DAW, Doubleday, Pocket Books, Del Rey, Dell, etc? Isaac Asimov's publishing problems? Who sold what to whom? The latest SF film and TV deals? What publishers are buying SF stories and novels, and what < they pay-plus details of exactly what editors are looking for? Who's .0 autographing at your favorite SF store? What the critics say about that book before you buy it? You'll find all this-and much more-in just one issue of Science Fiction Chronicle. SFC is a monthly newsmagazine covering the entire spectrum of science fiction . Because it's published in New York, it can keep on top of the field a lot better than any other newspaper on SF. And it's published by Andrew Porter, whose Starship: The Magazine About SF (formerly Algol} has been around since 1963. Every issue of Science Fiction Chronicle features market reports, bookseller news, letters, reviews, convention listings, classifieds, editorials, NASA news, media columns, SFWA reports by jack Williamson and others, new toy, model and game news, and still more. And best of all, Science Fiction Chronicle is mailed by First Class Mail to subscribers (airmail overseas), because we know you want the news while it's still new. And yet a subscription to Science Fiction Chronicle costs only $12, $18 overseas. Take the time today to subscribe. If you 're not convinced, write today for a free sample. You can't get a better deal than that. SCIENCE FICTION CHRONICLE, P.O. BOX 4175, NEW YORK, NY 10017. EXTRAPOLATION FALL 1980 Vol. 21, No. 3 194 Contributors 195 The Launching Pad CARL YOKE 197 Precious Metal in White Clay DENA C. BAIN 209 The Tao Te Ching as Background to the Novels of Ursula K. Le Guin ROSMARIE ARBUR 223 Le Guin's "Song" of Inmost Feminism BARBARA BROWN 227 The Left Hand of Darkness: Androgyny, Future, Present, and Past TOM MOYLAN 236 Beyond Negation: The Critical Utopias of Ursula K. Le Guin and Samuel R. Delany EDGAR C. BAILEY, JR. 254 Shadows in Earthsea: Le Guin's Use of a Jungian Archetype ROBERT GALBREATH 262 Taoist Magic in the Earthsea Trilogy BRIAN ATTEBERY 269 On a Far Shore: The Myth of Earthsea THOMAS J. REMINGTON 278 A Time to Live and a Time to Die: Cyclical Renewal in the Earthsea Trilogy C. N. MANLOVE 287 Conservatism in the Fantasy of Le Guin 299 Books ISSN: 0014-5483 Contributors Rosemarie Arbur Is an Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She has published essays on American and British romanticism, literary theory, English pedagogy, and women authors of "mundane" and science-fiction literature. Her bibliography of works by and about Leigh Brackett, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Anne Mccaffrey is scheduled for publication by G. K. Hall; a Starmont Reader's Guide to Bradley is in progress. Brian Attebery is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. His book on American romance and fantasy will be published this fall by Indiana University Press under the probable title American Tales of the Imagination. He has also written the Le Guin entry for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Edgar C. Bailey, Jr. is the Reader's Services Librarian and Assistant Director of the Providence College Library. Prior to that, he was a reference librarian at Eastern Connecticut State College. He also spent five years as a secondary school English teacher, during which time he developed and taught a course in science fiction and fantasy. Dena C. Bain is presently doing research on William Blake for her doctoral dissertation at the University of Toronto. Her article on R. A. Lafferty is pending publication in Extrapolation. Barbara Brown teaches part-time in the English Department of David and Mary Thomson Collegiate, Scarborough, and the Humanities Department of York University, Toronto. She has published several short stories and is currently working on a science-fiction anthology. Robert Galbreath is Coordinator of the Honors Program at the University of Wisconsin­ Milwaukee and a specialist in modern European intellectual history, with research interests in occultism, millenialism, gnosticism, and visionary literature. He edited The Occult: Studies and Evaluations (1972) and has essays forthcoming on apocalyptic science fiction, the occult in American history and popular culture, and modern gnosticism. Colin Manlove is Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he also offers a course on fantasy. He has published Modern Fantasy: Five Studies, Literature and Reality 1600-1800, and has recently completed a book on Shakespeare and a book on fantasy. Thomas Moylan is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Wisconsin­ Waukesha. He has given papers and published essays on utopian literature, children's literature, and science fiction, and on such specific writers as Arthur C. Clarke, Frederick Pohl, and Joanna Russ. He has been a contributing editor of New German Critique and is on the editorial board of New Moon. Thomas J. Remington is an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Northern Iowa, where he coordinates the graduate program and teaches. He has published articles on science fiction in Extrapolation, Science Fiction Studies, The North American Review, and the Ursula K. Le Guin volume of Joseph D. Olander and Martin H. Greenberg's Writers of the 21st Century Series. The current article was originally delivered as a paper at the Science Fiction Section of the MLA Conference in Chicago, 1977. Carl B. Yoke is an Associate Professor of English and Assistant to the Vice President for Regional Campuses at Kent State University. He is also Associate Editor of Extrapolation. His science-fiction publications include A Reader's Guide to Roger Zelazny for Starmont and Roger Zelazny and Andre Norton: Proponents of Individualism for the State Library of Ohio. He is currently working on a Reader's Guide to C. L. Moore and Henry Kuttner for Starmont. THE LAUNCHING PAD •Beginning with the next issue of Pocket Books has finally filled a Extrapolation, we will regularly tremendous gap: Gene Wolfe's (that should not be interpreted as collection The Island of Dr. Death every issue) review fiction. Granted and Other Stories and Other Stories that this is something of a depar­ [sic] has just been published. The ture, it seems a necessity because first volume of his series, The Book several of the journals which were of the New Sun, has also just been to be almost exclusively concerned issued in cloth; its title is The with reviewing current titles have Shadow of the Torturer. But more folded and, at least as I write this, of that and others next issue. Those there seems to be no new title of you who have attended recent forthcoming. We will continue to MLA, PCA, or SFRA meetings in give attention to the reprint series. the Midwest have had a chance to In that regard, note that Gregg hear him speak about science Press has continued its recent fiction and his own work. With publications with another series of these new books his stature as one Andre Norton titles: Catseye, Or­ of the finest writers in the field deal in Otherwhere, Star Man's should be generally recognized. Son, and Storm Over Warlock. All Extrapolation is planning several are available at $9.95 each. special issues, both thematic and We will give attention to the new single-author. We hope, too, to titles, but one plan that we intend to bring some papers and/ or special follow is to keep you informed of sessions from this year's SFRA the availability of paperbacks Conference to you in future issues, which may be of value to you in particularly if there is not a your classrooms, as well as your Proceedings published by the Con­ personal collection. For example, ference itself. Incidentally, we 195 The Launching Pad understand that copies of the 1978 In that regard, MLA has asked Proceedings of the meeting at that we collect letters from MLA Northern Iowa University are still members who favor the formation available. At the moment I can tell of such a group. Professor Charles you nothing about such a volume Elkins of Florida International from last year at the University of University, who will be a member of Nevada-Las Vegas. the initial Executive Committee, This year's meeting at Wagner has turned over to me all letters College, Staten Island, will be held which he received from members of from June 18-20. The Pilgrim S FRA after he and Professor David Award banquet will be held the Ketterer of Concordia University, evening of the 19th. In many Montreal, called for the formation respects this is a special meeting; of such a group through the SFRA indeed, in a sense SFRA comes full Newsletter. If you are a member of circle with it, for it was in the MLA and through some oversight autumn of 1970 at Queensborough (I no longer have the complete file Community College that SFRA of subscribers here at Wooster; met for the first time.