Ekumen
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The Ekumen is the fictional galactic federation of human-inhabited worlds mentioned in several of the science fiction novels of Ursula K. Le Guin. The name is derived from the Greek "oikoumenikos", meaning "the inhabited world". Jack Vance used the term (as "The Oikumene") in a similar fashion to denote the human-populated regions of outer space in his Demon Princes series.
In keeping with Le Guin's soft science fiction style, the setting is used primarily to explore anthropological and sociological ideas. The Ekumen worlds are some dozens of planets populated millions of years ago by human beings from the original human world of Hain. The Hainish used genetic engineering techniques to adapt human beings to non-optimal worlds (for example the androgynes of Gethen in The Left Hand of Darkness).
Hainish civilization subsequently collapsed and the colony planets forgot that other human worlds existed. The Ekumen stories tell of the renewal of interplanetary travel and communication and the efforts to re-establish a galactic "federation".
Especially notable (award-winning) Ekumen novels are The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed. Other Ekumen novels are Rocannon's World, Planet of Exile, City of Illusions, and The Telling. The series also contains some of Le Guin's short fiction, including the award-winning "The Word for World is Forest" and "The Day Before the Revolution".
List of books
The order presented here is the internal chronology of the series, not the order in which the books were written.
- The Dispossessed (1974)
- Rocannon's World (1964)
- The Word for World is Forest (1976))
- The Left Hand of Darkness (1969)
- Planet of Exile (1966)
- City of Illusions (1967)
- The Telling (2000)
External links
- The Hainish Series at Le Guin's World (http://hem.passagen.se/peson42/lgw/links.html) - Hainish chronology, plot summaries, encyclopedia, and other resources