In the foreword to her sci fi novel The Word for World is Forest, Ursula Le Guin questions the supposedly escapist function of scifi and fantasy explaining how, no matter which genre a book may fall into, a true writer’s motivation always lies in the pursuit of freedom. Conceiving her story in the backdrop of the Vietnam war during the late ‘60s as a member of the peace movement, all the while witnessing “despoliation of natural resources”, exploitation and murder as inherent expressions of a male-oriented war culture, Le Guin thought it was her moral duty to write a book expressing her dissent towards oppression against the Other and her cry for freedom…