City of Illusions
Cover of first edition (paperback)
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| Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
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| Cover artist | Jack Gaughan |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Hainish Cycle |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Ace Books |
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Publication date
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1967 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 160 |
| OCLC | 3516838 |
| Preceded by | Planet of Exile (1966) |
| Followed by | The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) |
City of Illusions is a 1967 post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin which is set on Earth in the distant future in her Hainish Cycle. City of Illusions is significant because it lays the foundation for the Hainish cycle which is a fictional world in which the majority of Ursula K. Le Guin's science fiction novels take place.
City of Illusions takes place on Earth, also known as Terra, in the future, twelve hundred years after an enemy named the Shing has broken the power of the League of All Worlds and occupied Earth. The indigenous people of Earth have been reduced in numbers and are widely separated and live in highly independent rural communes or nomadic tribal societies. The Shing exercise control over these people by using various strategies of indirect control which include divide and rule as well as deceptive telepathic mental control also known as mind-lying. In contrast, innately truthful telepathy is known as mindspeech.
Prior to the opening scene, the main character, who is a descendant of the protagonists in Planet of Exile, has been involved in a ship crash, and since the Shing do not believe in killing, has had his memory erased and been abandoned in the forest; this leaves his mind as a blank slate or tabula rasa. As the story begins he must develop a new self-identity ex nihilo.
The story starts as a man is found by a small community (housed in one building) in a forest area in eastern North America. He is naked except for a gold ring on one finger, has no memory except of motor skills at a level equivalent to that of a one-year-old and has bizarre, amber, cat-like eyes. The villagers choose to welcome and nurture him, naming him Falk (Yellow). They teach him to speak, educate him about the Earth, and teach him from a book they consider holy, which is Le Guin's "long-translated" version of the Tao Te Ching. Also they teach him about the nature of the never-seen Shing.
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