Regarding the Le Guin selection: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas is perhaps my least favourite Le Guin story. I understand (and appreciate) the theme but its presentation is so tritely and artificially delivered that I think it undermines itself. It frankly reads like a morally earnest high schooler's piece of creative writing (albeit with more polished prose). I find Le Guin a mediocre writer when she is at her most didactic. Conversely, when she writes from a more subconscious, mystical space she is brilliant. And this is mostly her earlier work.