Word for the world ending

The way Reverse Dictionary works is pretty simple. It simply looks through tonnes of dictionary definitions and grabs the ones that most closely match your search query. For example, if you type something like «longing for a time in the past», then the engine will return «nostalgia». The engine has indexed several million definitions so far, and at this stage it’s starting to give consistently good results (though it may return weird results sometimes). It acts a lot like a thesaurus except that it allows you to search with a definition, rather than a single word. So in a sense, this tool is a «search engine for words», or a sentence to word converter.

I made this tool after working on Related Words which is a very similar tool, except it uses a bunch of algorithms and multiple databases to find similar words to a search query. That project is closer to a thesaurus in the sense that it returns synonyms for a word (or short phrase) query, but it also returns many broadly related words that aren’t included in thesauri. So this project, Reverse Dictionary, is meant to go hand-in-hand with Related Words to act as a word-finding and brainstorming toolset. For those interested, I also developed Describing Words which helps you find adjectives and interesting descriptors for things (e.g. waves, sunsets, trees, etc.).

In case you didn’t notice, you can click on words in the search results and you’ll be presented with the definition of that word (if available). The definitions are sourced from the famous and open-source WordNet database, so a huge thanks to the many contributors for creating such an awesome free resource.

Special thanks to the contributors of the open-source code that was used in this project: Elastic Search, @HubSpot, WordNet, and @mongodb.

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Given Ursula Le Guin’s penchant for
mixing real world social, political, and cultural concerns, it should come as
no surprise that her voice could be heard on the Vietnam War.  The
Word for World is Forest, published in 1976, is some of Le Guin’s most
overt commentary on war and colonization. 
A revision of her eponymous 1972 novella, the novel comments directly on
the presence of major political powers in less-developed areas for profit, all
in highly personal and well-told fashion.  

The
Word for World is Forest is set entirely on the planet Athshe.  Humanity (called the Terrans) has arrived and
set up mining, logging, and other resource-based enterprises, enslaving the
indigenous to perform labor in the process. 
A smaller, greener, hairier version of humanity, the natives also sleep
in a significantly different fashion.  In
fact sleeping little at all, they rather fall into a state of lucid dreaming at
random periods of the day.  Thinking them
to be lazy and avoiding work, the humans, in particular a man named Davidson,
routinely beat and otherwise abuse the Athsheans, forcing them to perform the
labor whose profits are sent to Earth. 
It isn’t long, however, before the natives rebel against the humans, the
resulting fight deciding the sentient fate of Athshe.

The
Word for World is Forest being part of Le Guin’s Hainish series, it isn’t surprising that one of the characters is
an anthropologist.  Named Lyubov, he has
been sent to study the Athsheans, in particular their strange mode of
dreaming.  The knowledge he finds in
effect humanizing the natives (otherwise belittled as “creechies” by Davidson
and other pro-Terran characters), his portion of the narrative gains the
Athsheans a high degree of sympathy.  It
goes without saying Lyubov’s voice of reason is not always respected, providing
the plot a major point of tension.  

Potential complaints of the novel are
that it is simplistic.  At roughly
two-hundred pages, a lot more could have been said to give matters a realistic
feel.  Le Guin does perfectly balance
plot, world building, and characterization, just none are developed too
deeply.  The sides presented, for
example, lack nuance and are easily pigeon-holed into pro- or anti-Athshean
factions, little gray between.  Had Le
Guin graded her premise and characters a little finer, the book would have a
more affective impact.  

In the end, The Word for World is Forest is a short but powerfully-worded
polemic on US economic and political interests in sci-fi form.  Initially written in 1972 but revised into a
novel in 1976, the social and cultural interests of the Vietnam War are plainly
at stake.  (Given the novel has no
spurious material, focus maintained throughout, I can only assume the novel is
an improvement on the novella.)  Cutting
no slack, Le Guin imaginatively envisions a culture of aliens invaded by
humanity for profit, undermining corporate and political interest the entire
way.  Characterization and plotting are
representative rather than realistic, but detract only slightly from Le Guin’s
message given the parallel to the situation in reality.  An inspiration for the film Avatar’s plot, (though never formally
acknowledged by Cameron), those looking for a quick paced and politically
motivated book will find the story a meaningful piece of science fiction that
takes full advantage of genre tropes in communicating its import—only in a
fashion that condescends to a broader spectrum of reader intelligences.  (Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War is better commentary on Vietnam in this regard.)

If the world was ending