Ah yes....Le Guin.
Old and cranky because she doesn't sell like she used to. Nevermind that she doesn't write like she used to...
Each generation of SF/F has its theme, and a couple of writers that feelingly expressed that theme.
So was it with Le Guin.
The problem is that the world changes and the theme get stale. As a writer you have to look beyond the generational theme that made you successful. It doesn't matter whether you are talking about the Space Opera (E.E.Smith), The Campbell explosion of the 1940s (Asimov and Heinlein), the juveniles of the 1950s (Heinlein Mark II, Nourse, and others), the "new wave" of the 1960s (Moorcock, Eliison, et. al.), The feminism and modern liberalism of the (mid) 60s throught 70s, or the cyberpunk wave of the 1980s....
Read them all. The writers that succeeded over long time are the ones who changed their themes with the times.
As far as Le Guin and awards, her writing makes a group of literati hearts go pitta pat. Those literati give out lots of awards to their favorites <shrug>. There have been far better writers that her in the SSF/F world. Book for book, story for story, I'd stack Theodore Sturgeon's work superior to hers. But then again, he beat Graham Greene head to head in a British Short Story contest. (
Bianca's Hands). I'd stack
Thunder and Roses,
A Saucer Full of Loneliness, and
The Man Who Lost The Sea, against and and all comers, from any genre (or none), in any language. And for those who think the
The Left Hand of Darkness, was such a groundbreaking work, I would suggest they read
Venus Plus X <published 10 years before>
The Left Hand of Darkness.
But I'm a mean Ol' reactionary. Break out your pitchforks....