Also a science fiction fag…or was…started as one, lets put it that way. Hadn't heard of Ursula K. LeGuin- looking forward to checking that out.
I was real big on Jules Verne. Especially Journey to the Center of the Earth because it involved going underground and it had a Cipher in it…one of the firsts books I grabbed off the shelf at the library along side a childrens guide to writing things in ciphers.
Another relevant book to all of this…dead skin mask / cadaver experimentation shit is The Island of Dr. Moreau by HG Wells. Really dark book and very relevant AS WELL as Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louise Stephenson.
If you haven't read these you should. How they are often marketed as books for kids, I have no idea. They are very much adult and you can't have a shitty vocabulary and get much use out of them.
Almost all of these authors, esp HG Wells, have "strings" attached to them in real life. another dig for another day I suppose.