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Science Fiction » in reply to Goodbye Ursula

"the perfect uselessness of knowing the answer to the wrong question"

I've read only two of Ursula K Leguin's novels; "The Dispossessed" which disappointed me, and "The Left Hand of Darkness", which moved me deeply. I was particularly touched by her thoughts on prescience, prophecy, and foreknowledge, so much more profound than Frank Herbert's.

Le Guin's protagonist learns from the androgynous monks he stays with how pointless it is to be able to predict the future. His hosts have the power, yet they disdain it, they only rarely use it, and its consequences are always a disappointment. I paraphrase, but I distinctly recall "There is only one question about the future that really matters: What happens when we die? And we already know the answer to that."

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