I first came across her work through a secret pen pal program in high school. My friends were into it, so I joined up. Essentially, you were randomly assigned a teacher and you would correspond with them through the year with a pseudonym (the student was secret, the teacher was not), and you would meet at the end of the year merits gala. I'd say I lucked out, as I got an English teacher and not MY English teacher (with whom I was at war, because I was too smart for my own good I guess). I signed my missives with a little "God" signature and spoke with a voice from on high... the stuff you think is funny when you're a teenager. But she was into it, nice sense of humor, and learning I was interested in science-fiction, she lent me books through the program (you had to be careful not to read them in the corridors, of course).
The book I actually remember was Le Guin's The Lathe of Heaven, about a guy with wishing powers who creates a disastrous utopia. Justified by science, it was nevertheless more of a fable, and one with nice Twilight Zone feel. I dug it. I believe this teacher got me The Dispossessed - about a capitalist colony stepping on the communist natives' territory - either for Christmas or at the end of the year. Or I found it myself later, the memory cheats. I definitely found her opus, The Left Hand of Darkness, which takes place in a genderless society, later in a used book store. I know I have her novella The Word for World Is Forest around here somewhere as well (great title).
Her SF was about the soft sciences, in the same strand as Frank Herbert's Dune or Asimov's Foundation series, experimenting with sociology and anthropology in different ways, and did it so well she won 5 Locus, 4 Nebulas, 2 Hugos, and a World Fantasy Award for novels alone (The Dispossessed won three of those). And yes, all while being a woman in a male-dominated field, from the 1960s on. No male-sounding pen name either.
The silver lining is perhaps that I still have a lot of Le Guin to discover for the first time, and truth be told, a lot to REdiscover with these now older eyes as well.
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