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A review by juliette_dunn
The Wind's Twelve Quarters by Ursula K. Le Guin
4.25
I'm a huge fan of Le Guin, but hadn't read many of her short stories before now. This was a very hit or miss collection. None of them were bad, but there were a fair few that were less than interesting. However, it's made up for by the good ones.
Of course, The Ones who Walk Away From Omelas has to be mentioned, as it is her most iconic story, and deservedly so. I had read it previously, but it was nice to read it again. It's a story that can be interpreted on a number of levels and is Le Guin at her best.
The Day Before the Revolution is also worthy of note. It actually serves as a prologue to The Dispossessed, following that society's famous anarchist revolutionary in her old age. But rather than focusing on world or politics, it centers on a character study, and her thoughts as everything she dreamed of comes to past after she is too exhausted to do much else about it. It's a quiet and compelling story.
I also loved Vaster Than Empires and More Slow, which was a story about a sentient forest. The plants themselves were not individually sentient, rather it is the entire networked collective forming a conscious being, a consciousness truly alien to human's understanding of it. An empathic man (meaning he has the capability to literally sense other's emotions within his mind) is the only one who is able to discover it. This was wonderful sci fi, my favorite types which explores minds which are truly other.
A wonderful collection. Le Guin deserves her place as one of the greats in speculative fiction.
Of course, The Ones who Walk Away From Omelas has to be mentioned, as it is her most iconic story, and deservedly so. I had read it previously, but it was nice to read it again. It's a story that can be interpreted on a number of levels and is Le Guin at her best.
The Day Before the Revolution is also worthy of note. It actually serves as a prologue to The Dispossessed, following that society's famous anarchist revolutionary in her old age. But rather than focusing on world or politics, it centers on a character study, and her thoughts as everything she dreamed of comes to past after she is too exhausted to do much else about it. It's a quiet and compelling story.
I also loved Vaster Than Empires and More Slow, which was a story about a sentient forest. The plants themselves were not individually sentient, rather it is the entire networked collective forming a conscious being, a consciousness truly alien to human's understanding of it. An empathic man (meaning he has the capability to literally sense other's emotions within his mind) is the only one who is able to discover it. This was wonderful sci fi, my favorite types which explores minds which are truly other.
A wonderful collection. Le Guin deserves her place as one of the greats in speculative fiction.