Review by Booklist Review
"The airport offers nothing to any human being except access to the interval between planes." In Le Guin's series of 16 vivid stories, an airport-bound woman with an inquiring mind visits assorted other planes of existence. With dispassion, wry humor, and a keen eye, and aided as well by research conducted in libraries of various kinds, she describes those excursions in hopes of inducing the reader to try interplanary travel. Each story features a different society and culture, and some of these settings allow telling commentary on the foibles of our world. Hegn, for example, is a small plane on which everyone belongs to the royal family, except for one, carefully nurtured family of commoners. In Asonu, adults rarely say even one word, though the children chatter until they hit their teens, when they start becoming more and more silent. As for Hennebet, do its people experience reincarnation, or are they living again? The narrator's expectations of identity and time become very confused trying to grasp the slippery concept upon which that plane is based. And then there is unusually tenuous Zuehe, which imparts the feeling of being in a landscape created by the artist Escher. Eric Beddows' black-and-white illustrations perfectly complement Le Guin's wildly inventive array of societies and cultures. Sure to delight fans of the unusual travelogue, this is just plain good airport reading. --Sally Estes
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
When most people get stuck for hours in an airport, nothing much comes of it but boredom. When a writer like Le Guin (The Other Wind, etc.) has such an experience, however, the result may be a book of short stories. In "Sita Dulip's Method," a bored traveler, a friend of the narrator, discovers that if she sits on her uncomfortable airport chair in just the right way and thinks just the right thoughts, she can change planes-not airplanes, mind you, but planes of existence. Each of the linked stories that follows recounts a trip by the narrator or someone of her acquaintance to a different plane. "The Silence of the Asonu," for example, describes a world where the people speak only half a dozen words in any given year, and "The Ire of the Veksi" recounts a visit to a plane where virtually all the natives are angry virtually all of the time. The majority of these stories are allegorical to some degree. Most have a satiric edge, as in "Great Joy," for example which features an entire world devoted to the commercial side of various holidays, with lots of great shopping in quaint little towns like Nol City, O Little Town and Yuleville. Many of the tales echo, or take issue with, other works of fantastic fiction. Swift's Gulliver's Travels is clearly an influence, and one story, "Wake Island," can be seen as a re-examination of the basic premise of Nancy Kress's classic superman tale, "Beggars in Spain." This is a fairly minor effort, but like everything from Le Guin's pen, a delight. B&w illus. by Eric Beddows. 3-city author tour. (July) Forecast: Published as straight literary fiction, this has many subtle references to fantasy and science fiction, and might attract more browsers if shelved with Le Guin's SF works. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In this collection of 16 stories (six of which have appeared in magazines or on web sites), speculative fiction master Le Guin (Tales from Earthsea) explores assumptions about our own world. Presented as travelers' tales about different planets (or "planes of existence"), the stories fit well together as a meditation on culture and what it means to be human. Many illustrate the absurdities of human nature-"Great Joy," for instance, looks at the ultimate commercialization of Christmas. Others are darker in tone; several, including "Porridge on Islac" and "Wake Island," explore our technological hubris. Le Guin's writing is deceptively simple, but she's working with deep themes, including the prevalence of violence, the tension between science and nature, and how we need to fight fear and sometimes risk ourselves in order to feel truly alive. A humorous, imaginative, and thoughtful collection; Escher-like illustrations by Eric Beddows contribute to its charm. Highly recommended for literary short story and sf collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 3/1/03.]-Devon Thomas, Hass MS&L, Ann Arbor, MI (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
The inconveniences and exasperations of airplane travel (described in a bilious prefatory Author's Note) are the starting-point for a sparkling collection of 16 linked stories. This latest from Le Guin consists of delineations of different "planes" of reality visited by passengers who opt for "interplanary travel." In "The Royals of Hegn," for example, a race of blue-blooded epicureans indulges a paparazzi-like fascination with the scandalous misdeeds of oversexed "commoners." Conversely, in "Feeling at Home with the Hennebet," a traveler encounters a placid people who exist quite happily without convictions of any kind. "The Silence of the Asonu" introduces a people who "abstain" from speaking. Elsewhere, Le Guin (The Birthday of the World, 2002, etc.) doesn't refrain from sardonic political commentary, but gives it several ingenious spins. "Seasons of the Ansarac" depicts people who relive their lives in seasonal migrations, to the annoyance of their briskly efficient colonizers. In "Porridge on Islac," genetic engineering has obliterated distinctions among human, animal, and plant life; and in the chilling "Wake Island," scientific efforts to create "supersmarts" unencumbered by the need for sleep instead produces generations of amoral monsters. A peaceful society has paradoxically evolved from a lengthy history of territorialism, tyranny, and genocide (accomplished with the ultimate weapon of an uncontrollable "Black Dog") in "Woeful Tales from Mahigul." And Le Guin's mythmaking power is brilliantly displayed in a story of winged people whose mutant birthright is both curse and liberation ("The Fliers of Gy"). One wishes she had avoided some all- too-easy targets (e.g., on "Hollo-Een ! Island . . . [children are] dressed as witches, ghosts, space aliens, and Ronald Reagan"). But her stories' unconventional premises are more often than not shaped into entrancing, provocative narratives. Inventive and highly entertaining tales. Le Guin's touch is as magical as ever. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Review by Library Journal Review
Review by Kirkus Book Review
