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| First Written | 1972 |
| Genre | Scifi |
| Origin | US |
| Publisher | Tor |
| ISBN-10 | 0765324644 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0765324641 |
| My Copy | library paperback |
| First Read | September 16, 2013 |
The Word for World is Forest
Did you see the movie Avatar? This book is its precursor, and it's basically the same plot but without a hero.
Its focus on the misunderstandings of a colonizing force made it feel like some kind of shallow, tripped-out Graham Greene novel.
Noted on October 11, 2013
Dongh was worried by these multiple-choice futures, but Lyubov enjoyed them. In diversity is life and where there's life there's hope, was the general sum of his creed, a modest one to be sure.
Quoted on October 11, 2013
So earth, terra, tellus meant both the soil and the planet, two meanings and one. But to the Athsheans soil, ground, earth was not that to which the dead return and by which the living live: the substance of their world was not earth, but forest. Terran man was clay, red dust. Atheshean man was branch and root.
Quoted on October 11, 2013
Character and training disposed him not to interfere in other mens’s business. His job was to find out what they did, and his inclination was to let them go on doing it. He preferred to be enlightened, rather than to enlighten; to seek facts rather than the Truth. But even the most unmissionary soul, unless he pretend he has no emotions, is sometimes faced with a choice between commission and omission. “What are they doing?” abruptly becomes, “What are we doing?” and then, “What must I do?”
Quoted on October 11, 2013