Rocannon’s World is Le Guin’s earliest novel, and the first book of what would become the Hainish Cycle.

Its prologue, previously published as the standalone story The Dowry of Angyar, tells the adventure of Semley, an impoverished aristocrat of planet Formault II, who enters a dangerous deal to retrieve a precious heirloom; it’s a tale deeply steeped in folklore, being a very loose retelling of Brísingamen, a Norse myth about Freya’s necklace.

Decades after the events of the prologue, Rocannon, an ethnologist from the League of All Worlds, ends up stranded on Formault II. He makes allies among the locals and embarks with them on a journey to track down his enemies. In doing so, he ends up morphing more and more into the role of a Bronze Age hero, while what little technology he’s still got with him makes him appear as some sort of magical being.

The book is a fairly straightforward space opera, set in a distant future on an alien planet. At the same time, however, it features many tropes more typical of fantasy: the main plot is a very classical quest, its alien species are inspired to creatures such as dwarves and elves, and while advanced technology does play a role in the story, the focus is heavily shifted towards low-tech civilisations.

The novel also draws the first sketch of the Hainish universe, introducing the League of All Worlds and the concepts of mindspeech, time dilation, and faster-than-light communication (here the world ‘ansible’ makes its first appearance).

The prose fluidly adapts to each facet of the setting, alternating technical language and a more lyrical style depending on context.

While not as sophisticated in themes and characterisation as Le Guin’s later works, the book is still remarkable for how it blends the boundaries between genres, showing that futuristic settings may effectively be used to explore universal themes of companionship and loss.