I learned that Ursula Le Guin passed away, earlier today. I am a bit surprised how much this news has affected me. Le Guin was one of the best writers that I had the pleasure of reading, first as a teenager, and then through the college years, as the appreciation of her nuanced writing grew unceasingly. Her writing transformed how I thought about Science, Fiction, and the world. She was the SF writer that deserved the Nobel more than anyone. More later, but here is the NYTimes Obit.