Review by Booklist Review
Le Guin's compilation of eight stories, six set in the universe of the Ekumen, which she introduced in her best-known book, The Left Hand of Darkness (1969), requires knowledge of the complexities of her Ekumenical works to be fully appreciated. In one story she expands on the workings of androgynous sex on the planet Gethen, looks at the effect of gender imbalance (16 women to one man) on a planet where men have all the privilege and women all the power, and explores the marriage and kinship customs of the people of the world called O. "Old Music and the Slave Women," another Ekumenical tale, is a fifth story to go with the four connected ones in Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995). Le Guin, in the foreword to this book, says that the title story "may or may not take place on a world of the Ekumen," and readers will probably feel the same about it, but knowing the Ekumen canon will help them ascertain that feeling, just as it will make the others more comprehensible. The concluding novella, "Paradises Lost," is the only first publication here. It offers a change of pace and stands well on its own as it follows the experiences of Earth people on a spaceship that takes centuries to get to its destination, centuries during which people are born, grow up, develop a religion, and die without seeing "planetfall." That Le Guin continues to be a master of literary sf is brilliantly borne out in these stories. --Sally Estes
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Deeply concerned with gender, these eight stories, although ostensibly about aliens, are all about ourselves: love, sex, life and alienation are all handled with illuminating grace. Le Guin's overarching theme, the journey, informs her characters as they struggle to come to terms with themselves or their worlds. The journey can be literal, as in "Paradises Lost," set on a generational ship, where the inhabitants, living in a utopia, learn they will land on the planet their ancestors set out to colonize 40 years earlier; and as in "Unchosen Love," where a young man falls in love with someone in another country and must decide if he can build a new life in a new place. Or the journey can be figurative, as in "Coming of Age in Karhide," in which an adolescent in a genderless society enters sexual maturity; and in "Solitude," as outsiders visit and study a planet where the men and women live apart and a young woman seeks to perfect her soul in the only place she knows as home. In "The Birthday of the World," the nature of God is considered as hereditary rulers, literal gods to their subjects, give up their power when new gods aliens come, throwing their culture into chaos. Gender is a constant concern: "The Matter of Seggri" takes place on a planet where women greatly outnumber men, and in "Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways," society is based on complex marriage relationships comprising four people. Le Guin handles these difficult topics through her richly drawn characters and her believable worlds. Evocative, richly textured and lyrically written, this collection is a must-read for Le Guin's fans. (Mar. 13) FYI: Winner of five Hugo and five Nebula awards as well as a National Book Award, Le Guin published two major books last year, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
From a tale of a youth's sensual and bittersweet initiation into the world of adults on the planet Gethen ("Coming of Age in Karhide") to a story of a child's spiritual and political journey into womanhood ("The Birthday of the World"), this collection of eight short works, including a never-before-published novella, "Paradises Lost," reflects the storytelling expertise of one of the genre's most intelligent and courageous authors. Le Guin grapples with gender roles, religion, politics, and social concerns in prose at once luminous and graphic, tender and incisive, never backing down from difficult situations or selling her audience short. A good choice for sf collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/01.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Eight stories, including seven reprints and a never-before-published novella, by the masterful Le Guin (The Telling, 2000, etc.), who has racked some SF and fantasy classics onto her shelf since receiving her first rejection slip, at age 11, from Amazing Stories. The first six tales take place on the world of Ekumen: "Coming of Age in Karhide" spells out societal differences among the androgynes that confused Le Guin 36 years ago when they arrived piecemeal into her imagination for The Left Hand of Darkness. "The Matter of Seggri" gathers documents by the Historians of Hain about Earth's Seggri society and turns on the killing of female fetuses and babies. The amusing "Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways" are set on a world near Hain. The standout, charmingly limpid title story tells of the daughters of God and the infant Tazu, who will be four tomorrow on "The Birthday of the World" (see The Year's Best Science Fiction 2001). In the wry "Solitude," an ethnologist's daughter discusses gender, sexuality, and the lack of marriages among introverted people of Hainish descent who survive a gigantic population crash. "Old Music and the Slave Women" connects with four stories in Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995), chronicling a revolution in the slave-based social economy on the planets Werel and Yeowe. Longest by far, the blissful novella "Paradises Lost," written for this collection, tells of a generation of 4,000 space-voyagers aboard the ship Discovery. Their parents, born earlier on that paradisiacal dirtball Earth, did not live to see New Earth, the planet the ship sails toward; perhaps only their grandchildren will. And these new Adams and Eves, upon arrival at New Earth, must of course start naming things before innocence fades. Pure starlight.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
