Ursula K. Le Guin: the literary wizard who'd probably laugh in your face if you dared to call her "just a sci-fi writer." Having conjured entire worlds out of mere ink, she audaciously danced from genre to genre, writing books that confused the heck out of bookstore clerks trying to shelve them. Her landmark Earthsea series taught more about real-life morality than most self-help books, and she managed to critique society in ways that were both searing and poetic. Whether it was through her cerebral musings or her habit of mercilessly skewering patriarchal nonsense, Le Guin will forever be the high priestess of speculative fiction, leaving the rest of us mere mortals to marvel at her genius.
