Great eassy. I read a few of her novels last year (Left Hand of Darkness, the Dispossessed, and some of her Earthsea novels). What struck me is even with the amount of effort that goes into building her worlds, she turns her lens back on her characters near the end, with them either figuring out something about themselves or how they relate to other people.

The "fate of the world" gets evoked a lot in popular fantasy/scifi nowadays but I really appreciate the way she chose to make her protagonists the final focus of her narratives. Don't want to spoil anything ;) so I'd encourage anyone that's interested to seek her work out.