The Defacers
The story that follows is a work of tribute—“fan fiction,” if you will. Its setting is the world of Anarres, which was created by Ursula K. Le Guin in her 1974 science-fiction novel, The Dispossessed. Anarres is the sole moon of Urras, a planet much like ours in its wealth of resources and in its technological and societal development. Roughly 140 years prior to the events of this story, a group of anarchist revolutionaries known as Odonians left Urras to found a colony on Anarres. There, they built a society without government, laws, or private ownership, one based on cooperation and mutual aid. Compared to Urras, Anarres is dry and barren. Its atmosphere is thin, so the sun burns hot and the wind blows cold. The native plants are tough and shrubby, adapted to a desert environment. There are no native animals, aside from fish in the oceans and some worms and crustaceans on land. Settlements are scattered across the planet, but the majority of the moon’s 20 million people live ...