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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
N/A
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Entertaining enough but took me a few chapters to realize there wasn't an overarching plot here. Once I figured that this is a series of short stories and world building exercises (literally) I enjoyed this immensely.
fwiw. The world I would want to live in is the royalty one (royals of hegn). Don't have to worry about food and get my daily dose of drama from the non-royal definitely imbred family.
Veksi Island and Island of the Immortals seems terrifying. Would not go.
fwiw. The world I would want to live in is the royalty one (royals of hegn). Don't have to worry about food and get my daily dose of drama from the non-royal definitely imbred family.
Veksi Island and Island of the Immortals seems terrifying. Would not go.
Unsurprisingly, this is an interesting concept. I especially enjoyed the re-imagining of changes to the world we normally assume would be unambiguously good.
challenging
funny
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
challenging
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
(guy who's favourite short story they read this year is invisible planets by hao jingfang) getting a lot of invisible planets by hao jingfang vibes from this...
all jokes aside i am very glad to have (completely impulsively i might say and without ever having heard about it before despite being an avid ursula le guin enjoyer (shame on me)) picked up this wonderful collection of tales functioning effectively as a travel log documenting the narrator's trips to various different worlds and attempts at getting to know their inhabitants, their traditions and their languages — i had not quite known what to expect from this book, but it turned out exactly as whimsical and thought provoking as one might expect and i thoroughly enjoyed reading it and look forward to undoubtedly revisiting it in the future :^]
my favourite stories from the collection: the silence of the asonu, seasons of the ansarac and the building
“do not ask me about the coordinates of these planets. those numbers are the oldest mystical proverbs of the universe. they are the air between your fingers. you reach out to grab them, but when you open your hands, there’s nothing. you and i and they meet for a moment, and we are fated to again separate. we’re only travelers, singing songs whose meanings are obscure, wandering through the dark sky. that is all. you know they are singing in the wind, singing in the wind of a distant homeland.”
— hao jingfang
all jokes aside i am very glad to have (completely impulsively i might say and without ever having heard about it before despite being an avid ursula le guin enjoyer (shame on me)) picked up this wonderful collection of tales functioning effectively as a travel log documenting the narrator's trips to various different worlds and attempts at getting to know their inhabitants, their traditions and their languages — i had not quite known what to expect from this book, but it turned out exactly as whimsical and thought provoking as one might expect and i thoroughly enjoyed reading it and look forward to undoubtedly revisiting it in the future :^]
my favourite stories from the collection: the silence of the asonu, seasons of the ansarac and the building
“do not ask me about the coordinates of these planets. those numbers are the oldest mystical proverbs of the universe. they are the air between your fingers. you reach out to grab them, but when you open your hands, there’s nothing. you and i and they meet for a moment, and we are fated to again separate. we’re only travelers, singing songs whose meanings are obscure, wandering through the dark sky. that is all. you know they are singing in the wind, singing in the wind of a distant homeland.”
— hao jingfang
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
medium-paced
I like her mind
A sort of distillation of Le Guin’s dominant form into a series of delightful vignettes, some of which are startlingly challenging and evocative, given their whimsy. She knows what she’s doing. Everyone’s called her an anthropologist who unearths and studies imagined lands. I’ve said as much, but I don’t think that’s quite right. Obviously I can’t assert that these many micro-verses and their fascinating variations of human society and biology are actually real and waiting for Le Guin to discover them, but also that’s precisely what’s happening. She’s the first to observe them and therefore give them life. The thing is that none of them are alien. Her planes are always reorganizations of our own realities. Adjust one detail and everything changes. She’s an ethnographer of human potential, for better or worse.
Changing planes turned out to be different than I thought it would be. The short stories were interesting and creative.