The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
Sasha’s turning point is one of atonement. a rare instance in the book. Years later, Sasha is fired from Bennie’s business for stealing, Bennie gets fired from the business for losing his touch, and Alex has given up on his own music career. Alex’s time has come. He has reconnected with Bennie years after Sasha’s pivotal moment, which is a strange turn of events. Bennie is making an effort to reconnect with Scotty, an old acquaintance.
The Word for World is Forest by Ursula K. Le Guin
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It has only recently begun to settle in New Tahiti. Its continents are covered in lush forests, making them the perfect export product for a world in need of lumber. There should be enough of land accessible to develop and continue human habitation of the planet once the forest has been cleared. The native sentient species, the Athsheans, is one of the issues, though there are others as well. They are regarded as non-violent and have only advanced technology to a basic degree. They are abused, exploited for work and sex, and generally seen as just another resource the world has to give, in keeping with the frontier attitude.
In areas where excessive deforestation has occurred, issues arise when the poorly understood forest ecology collapses. Many places become wasteland-like due to the topsoil’s erosion after clearing. When the Indians finally retaliate against the settlers and become violent, new issues develop. When members of the recently created League of All Worlds show up with a cutting-edge new device, the situation is rather chaotic.
The plot of this brief novel, which was written in 1972 while the US war in Asia was still vivid in readers’ minds, involves humans landing on a forest world populated by friendly, intelligent green monkeys. Alternatively, depending on your viewpoint, short, green, furry people. Deforestation begins, and the monkeys are enslaved. A few of the female monkeys have been raped. Some of the men have had their pubics cut off. The monkeys are unique in that they occasionally have their dreams come true while they are still awake. One specific monkey, whose wife was murdered by a macho, bigoted, racist soldier, rebels, killing 200 people in the process. From then, there is a tense standoff between humans and monkeys, with humans having helicopters and firepower and the advantage of numbers…
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin is an American writer of novels, children’s books, and short stories, primarily in the fantasy and science fiction genres. She has also published articles and poems. Her writing, which was first published in the 1960s, frequently presents imagined or futuristic alternate worlds in terms of politics, the environment, gender, religion, sexuality, and ethnography.
She had an impact on authors who have won the Booker Prize, including Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell, as well as renowned science fiction and fantasy authors like Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She has received multiple Hugo Awards, Nebula Awards, Locus Awards, and World Fantasy Awards. The National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Literature was given to her in 2014.
