The Word for World is Forest (Hainish Cycle)

by Ursula K. Le Guin
(1972 | 189 p)

In a far distant future the resources of Earth have been exhausted. To survive humans must travel to other planets, gathering necessary resources and shipping them light years back to their overpopulated home world. This story is about what happens when the materialistic and militaristic Earth humans encounter an indigenous population quite contrary to what they know.

This is only the second book that I've read from the Hainish Cycle but I already know I'm going to enjoy the whole series. I studied anthropology in college and the anthropological context of these novels alone is enough to keep me hooked. In The Dispossessed we learn about the cultures on Urras and Anarres. Anarres is a colony of utopian anarchists who fled the materialistic (very Earth-like) culture of Urras. In The Word for World is Forest we meet the Athsheans, who seem to resemble little green Ewoks. They are a loosely organized population of tribes with no central government. They're pacifists, knowing nothing of war or murder, until the human colony comes with their gift of death.

The Word for World is Forest follows the same archetype as Avatar or Fern Gully, short-sighted man exploits and nearly destroys an untainted world that they can't understand. No matter how many ways I hear that story it always kicks me in the gut and makes me want to go hug a tree.