Happy 80th Birthday, Ursula K. Le Guin

I know I've been snarky at times about "Bad Ursula" -- fannish shorthand for the tendency of some of her late-period works to rely rather more heavily on a thick thumb on the moral scales than the reader would prefer -- but she's one of the indispensable writers of SF & Fantasy. Even more than that, she's been a great writer for more than forty years, has never denied writing genre stories, and has been a wonderful voice of reason when speaking to and about the larger literary world.

If Ursula K. Le Guin had not existed, we would not have been able to invent her. So my heartiest congratulations on reaching this milestone birthday with her wit, vigor, and literary power undiminished -- her recent novel Lavinia, which I have not read myself, has been widely lauded -- and my most fervent hopes for at least twenty more happy and productive years to come.