Rocannon's World is a fantastic tale part of the Hainish Cycle and if read in chronological order then this novel comes in third of all the Hainish ta Rocannon's World is a fantastic tale part of the Hainish Cycle and if read in chronological order then this novel comes in third of all the Hainish tales, which takes place in c.2684 AD, but if read by publication date then this one is the first one of the lot; first published in 1966 as an Ace Double. It is a great mixture of fantasy and science fiction; I am not sure if there is a genre that has a name for the combination of both, but if there isn't then I really think there should be I have only read of two authors that can really do this well on my list and that is Roger Zelazny and now Ursula K. Le Guin. This story had a lot of high technological devices such as ships that can travel the speed of light and the "ansible", a faster-than-light communicator, that is used in other novels of the Hainish Cycle, a word that was coined from this novel. but then this novel had fantastical creature like fairies and gnomes. And other hominoid creatures and these races all appear to live in the bronze age that wield swords and live in great kingdom with mighty castles or have fortress and villages and that appear to live in a feudal-heroic culture as well. There are those a races but also another, a warrior race that uses high tech machinery and in the most horrific kind of way.
The story starts of with Rocannon a scientist an ethnologist, who known to all on the world as a Starlord. Rocannon is on an surveying mission, part of the League of all Worlds (an alliance of planets, mostly descended from colonization efforts from the planet Hain, uniting the "nine known worlds").
The Prologue of this novel named "The Necklace" is actually my favourite part of the story, which is based of a woman named Semley from a race that is very tall and yellow haired. Her species is called Liuar (singular Liu) and her race is called Angyar. Semley is described by Rocannon as the most beutiful woman he had ever seen. She really isn't mentioned as much as I would have liked but the sections of the story she is in is beautifully written. Before this novel the prologue of Semley was from a short story in the Amazing Stories (September 1964) as "The Dowry of the Angyar".
All in all a truly great tale, the only flaw that it was too short in my opinion, but hey, isn't that a good thing though? Right?
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