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(em português: sol2070.in/2024/05/livro-the-eye-of-the-heron-ursula-le-guin/ )

Ursula K. Le Guin often writes some of the best science fiction books on specific themes: “The Dispossessed”, about anarchism; “The Left Hand of Darkness”, about gender fluidity; and “The Eye of The Heron” (1978), about non-violence.

In the latter, two groups are exiled from Earth as a kind of scum: people convicted of crimes and pacifist activists who refused to participate in society in nations at war. The convicts arrived a few generations earlier. They had been expelled from a self-destructing Earth with no more prison capacity, on a one-way trip to the prison planet. So they recreate an authoritarian and hierarchical society.

The activists, on the other hand, were adherents of non-violent direct action and gave rise to an essentially anarchist community. I'm not going to comment any further because the revelation about their history and how their exile came about are among the greatest moments.

The plot revolves around the social tension between the groups, the clash between brutality and non-violence as the basic ethical principle of a culture.

It will especially delight those who loved The Dispossessed.

Em português → sol2070.in/2023/07/Conto-Emergency-Skin,-N.K.-Jemisin

Science fiction author N.K. Jemisin had been on my to-read list for a while, because her awards, her inclusivity, and because of her portrayal of sociopolitical issues like racism.

Listening to a podcast by Annalee Newitz - author of "The Terraformers" - there is a reference to a short story by Jemisin, as being the best response to Ayn Rand's so influential right-wing libertarianism.

That story is "Emergency Skin". I picked up the audio version (in English, an hour long). It was my first time with this format and I loved it - perhaps because of the competence of the voice actor.

It is a dystopia (which becomes utopia) quite relevant in these times. In a very distant future, the class of billionaires and oligarchs in general flees to another planet, due to the socio-environmental collapse on Earth, abandoning to die the 99% of the population that has no privileges. A long time later, an expedition visits Earth to gather data on the collapse and finds something very different than expected.