Ursula K. Le Guin is a master of speculative fiction. Her work spans literary fiction, science fiction, fantasy, and various reflexive essays on writing and fiction in general. She writes across age groups, for children and adults alike. Her writing is usually found in the form of a novel, a short story, or an essay.
Ursula is unique in the fact that she has explored language, culture, and politics to a great degree through her writing in fiction. Her gripping prose is designed to elicit thought and pondering. Her Hainish universe reflects a great deal of complexity and contradictions within itself, in this way it seems as though it is a reflection of our own universe. The combination of speculative fiction with this degree of imaginative capacity is what stands out as being characteristically Ursula K. Le Guin.
Ursula is a true herald of speculative fiction in the sense that she conjures complex worlds with ease. The license she takes with imagining world systems and cultures challenges our notions of living from an intellectual perspective. Her work is so provocative that it challenges readers on a linguistic level as well. Ursula demonstrates tremendous control over language which she uses to furnish perspectives and helps us immerse ourselves in the world of the narrator. This special imaginative feat has been tried by so few before her. She echoes the legacy of writers like Lewis Carroll or Edwin A. Abbott in her unapologetic forays into various dense themes and topics.