Here There Be Trees: Radical Otherness in Ursula K. Le Guin’s “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow”

Ursula K. Le Guin’s science fiction tends to remain within an anthropocentric and anthropomorphic universe, exploring the possibility of communication between familiar and Other across a cultural divide, but within the boundaries of a humanoid physiology. This study investigates how Le Guin’s Hainish narratives explore the sublime encounter with the radical, vegetal Other in the short story “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow,” touching upon the topics of communication and transgression, mutual intelligibility, neurodiversity, and empathy. (VB)