The Principle of Simultaneity is a scientific breakthrough which will revolutionize interstellar civilization by making possible instantaneous communication. It is the life work of Shevek, a brilliant physicist from the arid anarchist world of Anarres. But Shevek’s work is being stifled by jealous colleagues, so he travels to Anarres’s sister-planet Urras, hoping to find more liberty and tolerance there. But he soon finds himself being used as a pawn in a deadly political game.

SALES POINTS

* #16 in the Millennium SF Masterworks series, a library of the finest science fiction ever written

* Winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards

*’Le Guin is a writer of phenomenal power. She sets up enormous challenges and meets them fully; she invites, as Tolkien does, total belief’ Observer

* ‘To be read again and again’ — The Times