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The Birthday of the World And Other Stories Ursula K Le Guin 9780060509064 Books

Download As PDF : The Birthday of the World And Other Stories Ursula K Le Guin 9780060509064 Books

The Birthday of the World And Other Stories Ursula K Le Guin 9780060509064 Books

I don't know why I stopped reading her. But I saw this collection on sale relatively cheap and thought I'd give it a try. What a costly mistake! All the stories in this collection had merit, but the novella of the title was especially refreshing in its depiction of a generations journey to another world. i found it fascinating. I love it when an author forces me to think without banging me over the head with a hammer. The mistake? Now I will have to go back and purchase her other works. She was ahead of her time. Maybe not a mistake, but costly as she has written quite a few books. I look forward to the journey.


Tags : The Birthday of the World: And Other Stories [Ursula K. Le Guin] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, five Hugo Awards and five Nebula Awards,Ursula K. Le Guin,The Birthday of the World: And Other Stories,Harper Perennial,0060509066,Science Fiction - General,Short Stories (Single Author),Science fiction.,Short stories.,FICTION Literary,FICTION Science Fiction Collections & Anthologies,FICTION Science Fiction General,FICTION Short Stories (single author),Fiction,Fiction - Science Fiction,FictionLiterary,FictionScience Fiction - Collections & Anthologies,FictionShort Stories (single author),GENERAL,General Adult,Literary,Science fiction,Short stories

The Birthday of the World And Other Stories Ursula K Le Guin 9780060509064 Books Reviews

As always, a book of short stories and novellas is going to be hit or miss, even from a favorite author. I loved most of the stories; having read the entirety of the Hainish Cycle this year, I was glad to revisit many of the worlds and cultures. That being said, there were two stories, the titular novella in particular, that didn't move me.

The stories I did enjoy, while not directly related as in Four Ways to Forgiveness, nonetheless explored similar themes of love, identity, and sexuality. In fact, having grown up reading Le Guin's early and nearly sexless Earthsea trilogy over and over, it's remarkable to me that her later works dive into sexuality so deeply. While the modern English terms aren't present, bisexuality and a rigid form of polyamory are the norm in one of her alien cultures, gender fluidity in another, and most of her later works, including this one, include queerness in multiple forms beyond that. It's really refreshing to see an author move past heteronormativity, as Le Guin acknowledged she wanted to do when she looked back on her old works and saw missed opportunities.
This is all what's traditionally called "soft sci fi" as the focus is on how the people interact with the technology, far more than any details about the technology itself.

Of course the first several stories explore gender and sex in detail, with some excellent subversion of historically misogynist attitudes (studying is women's work!), and then another one that examines race - and slavery - with similar insight. The other common theme here was revolution, in the true sense of a fundamental upheaval of how a society operates. I love the anthropological take on first contact stories, and it's delivered in full here, mainly from the perspective of the purple who are having contact made with them.

The final story in this series has absolutely no visible connection to the Ekumen/Hainish, and also departs from the more in depth exploration of gender and social norms to address something many of us will find relevant today the warping of the truth, and deliberate obfuscation of information, in order to achieve a specific end, including that of making the facts known.
A thought-provoking collection of stories by Ursula LeGuin. LeGuin is more of an anthropologist than a science fiction writer. She makes you think by positing societies in which the reverse of our familiar hierarchies is the case, with, however, similar effects on the oppressor and the oppressed. In a slave-owneing society the owners have dark skins; the slaves are light-skinned, called "dusties" by the ruling class. The slaves are denied education and are ignorant and superstitious (people's minds are going to be filled with something, whether through imagination or education) and the slave-owners are contemptuous of their slaves and many owners treat them cruelly. A rebellion takes place, with outcome uncertain. Another story has the men segregated from the women, allowed, even required, to be violent to each other, not permitted any education, and used only for procreation by the otherwise separate female society. The women look down on the men as stupid and foolish and useless except for reproduction. This system has grown up out of the ashes of an earlier, technologically advanced civilization that destroyed itself with its weapons, so all that remains of it are glassy wastelands. Other stories are equally interesting, distorted reflections of tendencies and situations with which we are familiar.
Really lovely. Poetic language, and incomparable sense of seeing how people look out of their own eyes and hearts. I've read all LeGuin's work, going back to childhood, and it was so nice to return to something new to me, yet familiar in its high quality. These are all perspective stories....creative and coherent world-building, intensely individual character portrayals; not big on plot (what happens next? Life happens). Superior language and style I remember, I think, LeGuin saying that poetry is that writing where every word choice counts. Certainly word choices have mattered here. (I'm an avid reader, librarian, teacher....I don't usually write reviews but this is a "thank you" to the author).
I don't know why I stopped reading her. But I saw this collection on sale relatively cheap and thought I'd give it a try. What a costly mistake! All the stories in this collection had merit, but the novella of the title was especially refreshing in its depiction of a generations journey to another world. i found it fascinating. I love it when an author forces me to think without banging me over the head with a hammer. The mistake? Now I will have to go back and purchase her other works. She was ahead of her time. Maybe not a mistake, but costly as she has written quite a few books. I look forward to the journey.