[BenG]

The ansible, the faster-than-light communications device that Shevek's physics made possible, was used in the other stories taking place in the Hainish universe. This was about the ansible's invention and so is the earliest Hainish novel chronologically.

Le Guin coined the word but it has been borrowed by writers such as Orson Scott Card, Vernor Vinge, Elizabeth Moon, and Dan Simmons for similar devices in their books. Card uses it in his Ender novels and gives a shout out to LeGuin. He writes about the word "ansible" was one that someone 'dug out of an old book somewhere', and it caught on.