From Powells.com
Ursula K. Le Guin has been dubbed a "literary" science fiction
and fantasy writer, perhaps in part because her themes, set on other worlds,
so immediately resonate with our own place and time. As well, she is never
heavy-handed; she stays out of her own way, and her clean, direct prose
lets her characters, which are consistently memorable, realistic, and distinctive,
unfurl their own narratives. The stories in The Birthday of the World, Le
Guin's best work in years, are primarily about power and its dynamics
in sex, marriage, and love, most prominently in the first six stories, and
religion and history in the last two. Longtime fans will find several familiar
settings here, explored more thoroughly and in smaller scale. The last story,
a novella called "Paradises Lost," may be one of the finest pieces
she's written, and the introduction, a direct address from Le Guin about
the genesis and evolution of her fiction, is an unexpected bonus. The Birthday
of the World is a collection from a writer at the top of her form, and,
if you haven't read her before, a wonderful introduction to her work. Jill, Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
For more than four decades, Ursula K. Le Guin has enthralled readers with her imagination, clarity, and moral vision. The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and five Hugo and five Nebula Awards, this renowned writer has, in each story and novel, created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.
Here are stories that explore complex social interactions and troublesome issues of gender and sex; that define and defy notions of personal relationships and of society itself; that examine loyalty, survival, and introversion; that bring to light the vicissitudes of slavery and the meaning of transformation, religion, and history.
The first six tales in this spectacular volume are set in the author's signature world of the Ekumen, "my pseudo-coherent universe with holes in the elbows," as Le Guin describes it -- a world made familiar in her award-winning novel The Left Hand of Darkness. The seventh, title story was hailed by Publishers Weekly as "remarkable . . . a standout." The final offering in the collection, Paradises Lost, is a mesmerizing novella of space exploration and the pursuit of happiness.
In her foreword, Ursula K. Le Guin writes, "to create difference-to establish strangeness-then to let the fiery arc of human emotion leap and close the gap: this acrobatics of the imagination fascinates and satisfies me as no other." In The Birthday of the World, this gifted literary acrobat exhibits a dazzling array of skills that will fascinate and satisfy us all.
Review
"That Le Guin continues to be a master of literary sf is brilliantly borne out in these stories." Sally Estes, Booklist
Review
"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." Publishers Weekly
Review
"'First to create difference to establish strangeness then to let the fiery arc of human emotion leap and close the gap: this acrobatics of the imagination fascinates and satisfies me as almost no other,' writes Ursula K. Le Guin in a foreword to her latest batch of stories, "The Birthday of the World." The foreword is helpful for many reasons, mainly for those readers unfamiliar with Le Guin's complex universes, but especially for this glimpse of the author's mind and enthusiasm. The people, places and emotions in Le Guin's stories are typically strange, but her careful, sudden turns toward the familiar emotionally, psychologically seem like revelations of what's really important or fascinating about human life." Suzy Hansen, Salon.com (read the entire Salon review)
About the Author
Ursula K. Le Guin is the author of more than one hundred short stories, two collections of essays, four volumes of poetry, and nineteen novels. Her best-known fantasy works, the Earthsea books, have sold millions of copies in America and England, and have been translated into sixteen languages. Her first major work of science fiction,
The Left Hand of Darkness, is considered epochmaking in the field because of its radical investigation of gender roles and its moral and literary complexity.
Three of Le Guin's books have been finalists for the American Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and among the many honors her writing has received are the National Book Award, five Hugo Awards, five Nebula Awards, the Kafka Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and the Harold D. Vursell Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
Table of Contents
Coming of age in Karhide -- The matter of Seggri -- Unchosen love -- Mountain ways -- Solitude -- Old music and the slave women -- The birthday of the world -- Paradises lost.