The Telling

The Telling, Ursula K. Leguin, Ace Books, 2000

The planet Aka used to be a culturally rich place to live. That is, until the government decided to make the March To The Stars the overriding goal of the entire world. Technology has totally transformed the planet. The population is strictly monitored. The past isn't just being rewritten, it's being thrown in the trash. The government of Aka thinks that this is the way to become a starfaring society.

The Ekumen (the planetary confederation) is allowed four, and only four, sociological observers on the planet at any one time. Sutty is an observer from Earth. The home planet is going through a period of religious dictatorship, where "unauthorized" books are destroyed, no questions asked. Back on Aka, the observers are confined to the cities, and are watched by the Monitors. After a while, Sutty gets permission to spend some time in a small town out in the wilderness, a place called Okzat-Ozkat.

After receiving the usual warning from a Monitor named Yara on the trip to the town (their beliefs are wrong, they preach unauthorized things, they are bad people, etc.), Sutty arrives to find an oral, storytelling based religion called The Telling. It's  something of a cross between Taoism and Buddhism. Sutty records everything she can, including an entire language called Dovzan, which was declared illegal when Aka started the March To The Stars. Sutty notices that there are no books anywhere in the town. She is taken high into the mountains, to a place where cave after cave are full of books, now illegal. They were brought there, a few at a time, by hand, by the people of Aka when things changed. Great precautions are taken to make sure they don't get found by the Monitors. Yara's helicopter crashes nearby, and there is much discussion as to what to do with him, as he is nursed back to health.

This novel is excellent. Twenty-five years ago, Ursula Leguin was a master of speculative fiction; if anything, she's gotten better. Here is a quietly wonderful and thought-provoking story that gets two strong thumbs up.