A rather laid-back novel by Le Guin, tracing the life story of a slave boy with very limited powers of seeing into his own future. We are taken in detail through several carefully and intensely described settings – the slave-holding city of his boyhood, a rebel stronghold, his birth village and culture, a flight to freedom which draws from both Huck Finn and Uncle Tom, and finally an enlightened city of learning. She also lucidly shows the narrator’s gradually increasing consciousness of the evils of the world around him.

I’m frankly surprised that it won the 2009 Nebula for Best Novel. The only really sfnal bit is the narrator’s power of precognition, which isn’t actually of any use to him and doesn’t make much difference to the plot except to tell us when we have reached the end. There’s also a cartooney villain who exits the story rather unsatisfactorily. I would put this down as good but minor Le Guin.

The other novels nominated that year were: Little Brother, by Cory DoctorowCauldron, by Jack McDevitt; Brasyl, by Ian McDonaldMaking Money, by Terry PratchettSuperpowers, by David J. Schwartz. I have to say that of the four I have read from that list, Brasyl stands out by a long way as the obviously deserving winner. The McDevitt is on my shelf; I don’t think I have heard anything about Superpowers. It’s a good illustration of why the Nebula system so desperately needed to be changed (as I think happened the following year).