Looked at from one side, the wall enclosed a barren sixty-acre field called the Port of Anarres. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on.

Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. For seven generations there had been nothing in the world more important than that wall. Where it crossed the roadway, instead of having a gate it degenerated into mere geometry, a line, an, idea of boundary. An adult could look right over it, and even a child could climb, it. It was built of uncut rocks roughly mortared. Shevek must make the unprecedented journey to the utopian mother planet, Urras, to challenge the complex structures of life and living, and ignite the fires of change. To do this dangerous task will mean giving up his family and possibly his life. He will seek answers, question the unquestionable, and attempt to tear down the walls of hatred that have isolated his planet of anarchists from the rest of the civilized universe. Shevek, a brilliant physicist, decides to take action. The Defining Science Fiction Books of the 1970s.Science Fiction for Young Adults: A Recommended List by David Brin.Easton Press Masterpieces of Science Fiction.NPR: Top 100 Science-Fiction, Fantasy Books.

David Pringle's Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels.The ISFDB Top 100 Books (Balanced List).Another Story or a Fisherman of the Inland Sea A Crash Course in the History of Black Science FictionĠ.

200 Significant SF Books by Women, 1984-2001.

The dispossessed an ambiguous utopia