Never read Le Guin, but I guess I gotta look her work up. I've heard a Tolkien fan once rant about Elfquest due to the pointy ears as (saint) Tolkien never mentioned pointy ears as a racial trait for Elves. Problem for him was though, Elves are not a creation by Tolkien but come from ancient folklore and there are very old pictures of Elves with pointy ears. And that is just the tip of the iceberg. It's not that I don't like Tolkien (the LOTR movies that is, as the books are very hard to get through, to be honest), and I am a writer myself and Tolkien is one of my big examples when it comes to world building... But the anti-Harry Potter talk there is really getting annoying.