The Birthday of the World and Other Stories

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The Birthday of the World and Other Stories (Hainish Cycle)

4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 · rating details · 1,314 ratings · 118 reviews

The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, five Hugo Awards and five Nebula Awards, the renowned writer Ursula K. Le Guin 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 gif...more

Paperback, 362 pages

Published March 4th 2003 by Harper Perennial (first published March 1st 2002)

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Nov 20, 2012 Carol rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sf-and-fantasy, shorts, get-at-library, sex

A REVIEW IN PROGRESS

A review must follow after reading this fabulous short story collection. So far I have completed "Coming of Age in Karhide," "The Matter of Seggri," and "Unchosen Love." I have yet to be disappointed within any of these stories.

"Coming of Age in Karhide"

The first story I imagined as an extended and detailed footnote taken out of Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness," an interesting novel I enjoyed but hardly remember anything about. As soon as I began, however, the memories...more A REVIEW IN PROGRESS

A review must follow after reading this fabulous short story collection. So far I have completed "Coming of Age in Karhide," "The Matter of Seggri," and "Unchosen Love." I have yet to be disappointed within any of these stories.

"Coming of Age in Karhide"

The first story I imagined as an extended and detailed footnote taken out of Le Guin's "The Left Hand of Darkness," an interesting novel I enjoyed but hardly remember anything about. As soon as I began, however, the memories of the novel and its bizarre characters with their androgynous natures and unique sexual practices came back to me. The purpose of this little gem is solely to allow Le Guin and the readers to delve further into Gethenian culture and examine, in detail, the idea of Kemmer and the places wherein Kemmering occurs, the kemmerhouses. Le Guin admits in the foreword to this collection that she did not have to work with a plot and could simply explore how Gethenian sex works and "have fun with it." That is just what she did. It was fun to read and sometimes verging on being graphic in nature except...it's speculative fiction by Le Guin, that's just something you get used to when reading her work. The fictional details of a Hainish 's experience with puberty and all the strange and unpleasant changes that come along with it, the differences of kemmering as a man or kemmering as a woman, the nuances of these completely unusual and complex relationships, sharing love and "fucking" were all topics Le Guin discussed and scrutinized while maintaining her sense of humor. It is a dry sense of humor, but humor nonetheless, that enables her to make the characters seem more authentic and sincere. I was disappointed only once while reading this short story...when it ended; I wanted to hear more of this particularly curious world of the Ekumen.

"The Matter of Seggri"

"Paradises Lost"

This is a short but significant novella and a great way to wrap up the short story collection. On the surface this is a story about interplanetary travel; about the middle generations-those who know nothing of their departure and imminent arrival at their destination-and the day to day minutia of life on the ship. The people have created a complex world of their own within the ships' confines, indeed they refer to this environment as "the world." The inhabitants of the ship know nothing about the mother planet (Dichew) other than what is passed from one generation to the next or what the children are taught from the convincing yet detached virtual reality programs they are subjected to as part of their education. Virtual reality programs are the closest these people will get to experiencing the unforgiving brutality of nature, of disease and death, of a world intent on destroying itself which the original generation, Zero Generation so desperately sought to free themselves and their future generations from. And they have succeeded somewhat-the smaller-order world they have created is free of unnecessary bacteria and, as a consequence, free from death due to disease. A considerable portion of the novella is spent discussing the said "unforgiving brutality of nature." It seems the primary motivating factor in beginning this voyage in the first place was to obtain freedom from the savage, primitive, untamed and cruel qualities of the previous world. The people sought to create a world which they could control entirely and thus mold and shape in form as close to paradise as possible. The old-world name "Dichew" (so named by the Zero Generation) came from Ti Chiu, the early voyagers description of Earth...the dirt-ball. "The 'garbage' world. The 'trash' planet," (267). They have gone to amazing lengths to avoid repeating the dangerous and violent histories of the home planet.

"Earth History, that appalling record of injustice, cruelty, enslavement, hatred, murder-that record, justified and glorified by every government and institution, of waste and misuse of human life, animal life, plant life, the air, the water, the planet...History is what we need never do again."

Unfortunately, the middle generations come to realize that it may not have been so easy to distance themselves from the erring ways of the old world. It is true they are no longer confronted with violent unrelenting dangers as they were before. The world and system they have created for themselves, the isolated bubble so scrupulously maintained and controlled, is effective in simulating paradise. Unfortunately, it is inherently flawed. The source of the flaw: humanity. As long as humans are present, the sterile, laboratory-like, pseudo-paradise environment is at risk; it cannot be created free of any and all destruction and negative influence. Boarding a ship and flying off to a destination countless light-years away will never enable the people to be free.
Furthermore, there are doubts that the middle generations begin to have regarding the actions of the Zero Generation. Maybe it was not such a bright idea after all to depart without certainty that a stable and fruitful arrival destination awaits them.

"How will they forgive us? We who took the world from them before they were ever born-we who took the seas, the mountains, the meadowlands, the cities, the sunlight from them, all their birthright? We have left them trapped in a cage, a tin can, a specimen box, to live and die like laboratory rats and never see the moon, never run across a field, never know what freedom is!"

These seeds of doubt give rise to an entirely new and unforseen problem, the creation of a cult-like community, "Bliss" or "Angels of Bliss" with the explicit purpose of spreading the word that "we are the the blessed, the heavenborn, chosen for the eternal voyage." The agents of Bliss, the angels and archangels, successfully convince many others that the destination is not as important as the voyage itself. Although this message may ring partially true, the angels actually believe that an arrival at the new planet constitutes a blasphemous action, that the environment outside of the ship is indeed evil and sin itself. The agents of Bliss manipulate truth in the name of freedom only to perpetuate their erroneous beliefs of being the heavenborn. The use of a religious element in the story provides Le Guin with another avenue with which to explore in depth what I believe this novella to ultimately be about- the invaluable construct of freedom and what it means to be free. Followers of Bliss blindly accept the proposition that...
To Be Continued(less)

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Sep 23, 2012 Dylan Tomorrow rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: high-priority-tbr, science-fiction, read-aloud, favorites, friendship, anthology, gender, sex, fiercely-original, romance

The Matter of Seggri: I would not have expected this one to floor me that much. That's now already two stories that really hit me emotionally, and I haven't even read all of them yet!(view spoiler)...more The Matter of Seggri: I would not have expected this one to floor me that much. That's now already two stories that really hit me emotionally, and I haven't even read all of them yet!(view spoiler)

When I am a grandmother, they say, I may walk under heaven, On another world.

Paradises Lost: This story ... so many feels!!!(view spoiler)(less)

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Sep 20, 2012 Tatiana rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: sciencefiction

This is a collection of short fiction, 8 stories set in UKL's various worlds and universes. I found them all to be engaging, serious, and good. The first one, Coming of Age in Karhide is set on the world of The Left Hand of Darkness, which is a world I've missed. It was cool to get to revisit it and learn more about the culture of Karhide on Gethen. I won't take you through each story, but suffice it to say that some are sad, others are joyous or funny, but all of them are so very real. The char...more This is a collection of short fiction, 8 stories set in UKL's various worlds and universes. I found them all to be engaging, serious, and good. The first one, Coming of Age in Karhide is set on the world of The Left Hand of Darkness, which is a world I've missed. It was cool to get to revisit it and learn more about the culture of Karhide on Gethen. I won't take you through each story, but suffice it to say that some are sad, others are joyous or funny, but all of them are so very real. The characters etch themselves on one's heart. I spend a lot of time thinking about all of them, and about their cultures and situations, and how they relate to ours.

It's no secret that I think UKL is an amazing writer. This collection reaffirmed that opinion.

* * *

Just reread this one and liked it even more than the first time. I love all the different societies, their very different outlooks on life. One I found particularly haunting is the story of the anthropologist who brings her kids down with her to a world so they can crack open the culture that no adult outsider can really experience. Then the girl becomes one of them, truly, and leaves her family forever. Magic in that society meant wielding power over others, I think, and the girl's anguish at being made to leave and her pleas to be allowed to stay were disturbing and touching at the same time. I felt that I didn't know what was right. I saw her mother's view and her own view both at once. Her mother thought that culture was primitive, but I think the girl and maybe the reader realize that it's actually very advanced.

There were 3 or 4 stories set in a world that had a culture which was as abusive of and limiting for men
as many of our patriarchal cultures are of women. It struck home how messed up, how sick and twisted, it truly is to limit human beings so much. It was painful to watch. It is, it should be painful to watch here too in our culture now.

There was one story from the worlds of Four Ways to Forgiveness, with a character we know called Old Music. It was inspired by a visit UKL made to an antebellum slaver estate here in the States, and the crouch cage, the torture, made a deep impression. No doubt that's an accurate detail from the real slave plantation.

I think I'm going to read the whole book again from start to end, another time. It was really good.

(less)

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Feb 16, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011, sf-fantasy, short_stories

I think it’s something of a cliché to say that science fiction is about the here and now. Reading Iain M. Banks or Vernor Vinge, who write (awesome) adventure novels about post humans and super-intelligent computers set in space in the far future, it’s easy to forget just how much light SF can shed on the condition of us earth-bound, unenhanced humans of the early 21st century. And then you read Ursula Le Guin and remember.

For that reason alone, The Birthday of the World is a spectacular book:...more I think it’s something of a cliché to say that science fiction is about the here and now. Reading Iain M. Banks or Vernor Vinge, who write (awesome) adventure novels about post humans and super-intelligent computers set in space in the far future, it’s easy to forget just how much light SF can shed on the condition of us earth-bound, unenhanced humans of the early 21st century. And then you read Ursula Le Guin and remember.

For that reason alone, The Birthday of the World is a spectacular book: each of these stories is set in a society where an alien biology or social/cultural stricture dramatizes some pretty fundamental aspects of the human condition, mainly gender roles, relationships, sex, and sexuality (because what’s more fundamental, really?).

“Coming of Age in Karhide,” which is set in the same world as Left Hand of Darkness, is the first person reminiscence of a Gethenian’s first time in kemmer. But where Left Hand of Darkness was pretty chaste, describing the process by which the androgynous Gethenians temporarily develop sexual organs during kemmer, “Coming of Age in Karhide” takes us inside the Kemmer house and does not shrink from graphic descriptions of what goes on there.

I remember a short while after finishing Left Hand of Darkness the first time I started looking at people differently, trying to force myself to see men or women just as people in a temporarily sexual state who will shortly return to androgyny. It was a pretty revelatory thought experiment: seeing gender as something you move into or out of like that can really make plain all the many hidden ways looking at someone as a man or woman shapes your perception and colors your judgment of them. Kemmer has to be one of the best thought experiments to come from science fiction.

In kemmer, both sexes can be found in the same person. In a few of these stories, though, the sexes are about as far apart as is possible. “The Matter of Seggri” is set on a world where men and women live wholly separate lives, women in small medieval-style villages, men in castles, where they spend their lives competing in sports games for social status. The men sell themselves to the women for sex, and apart from those brief commercial encounters, and from the public games where the woman watch the men compete, men and women lead wholly separate lives. At first it seems like women are marginalized on this world, but it soon becomes clear that they are the real participants in society. This is an extreme dramatization of the way woman in societies on our world have often been pushed to the margins of society where their only role is procreation and competing with one another for status (i.e. Mad Men).

“Solitude” is another, very different, story where the sexes lead wholly separate lives. In a primitive, post-collapse society, women live together in “auntrings” where everyone keeps very much to themselves. The men live semi-solitary lives in the forests at the periphery of auntrings, and their courtship involves the women leaving the auntring and hunting for men for brief encounters. Nothing in this society precludes semi-monogamous relationships, but people are just happier on their own. A small part of me wants to live there right now.

This is just the setting, of course—Le Guin is too good a writer to give us just the trimmings of the world without a story, and her stories are not just ciphers for her intricate and strange societies. In “Solitude,” for instance, we get the story of a mother who takes her young children to an “auntring,” since no one in the auntring really talks to anyone but children, this is her only chance to learn about this society. The effects on the children, the youngest in particular, are predictable.

The strongest (and longest) work in this collection is “Paradise Lost,” a novella about the voyage of a generation ship bound for an earth-like planet. In a ship where five generations have lived knowing nothing of life outside of it, the society on the ship evolves a spiritual system that redefines their purpose as perpetual ship life. Apart from being an illustration of how spirituality evolves in societies as something of a coping mechanism, “Paradise Lost” is also one of the more believable stories of the generation ship sub-genre. Once the ship reaches its destination it’s hard not to suppress a feeling of joy, even through the successive hardships of life on the new planet. It’s a sad and joyful story, and it has a kind of wise maturity to it that science fiction could definitely use more of.(less)

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Jul 02, 2012 martha rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, genre, short-stories

Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea books were some of my absolute favorites while I was growing up, but I found when I came back to them a few years ago that they left me relatively cold; the language was more formal than I like in my books these days. Enter these short stories about life on a number of planets in the same universe. This is scifi anthropology at its finest: really interesting speculative concepts explored and taken to their logical extremes, without sacrificing strong characterization or...more

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Nov 03, 2008 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ursula Leguin is a genius at speculative fiction. What she does is create worlds like little tiny machines, with something at the heart of them that drives them differently from ours. Then she starts them and sees where they go, and writes beautiful, beautiful stories about them.

This collection of stories explores a variety of worlds. It takes us back to the world of "The Left Hand of Darkness," where the inhabitants are genderless most of the time, only becoming male or female for short periods...more

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Oct 05, 2007 Tunde rated it 5 of 5 stars

Wow. I was an anthropology and sociology major at the University of Michigan, and I picked up this book for free at a used book sale. Impressed would be an understatement. Guin's stories are as thorough as the ethnographies that I have to read for my Anthro classes; class, gender, inequality, signification, and more are covered in a writing that envelopes and enchants the reader. My favorite story is "Paradise Lost", a story about the culture and mythology that are created in a space vessel of h...more

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May 06, 2012 Beverly Diehl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fantasy, short-story-novella, sci-fi

LeGuin is SUCH a brilliant writer that on the one hand she inspires me to write, to reach for the stars, on the other hand I despair of ever getting close to her AMAZING, lyrical prose. Her work is filed in Science Fiction, but truly, she is all about who WE are, now.

This is a collection of eight short stories/novellas, what she calls a "story suite," that is, worlds/stories set in the same mythical universe. Her stories simultaneously pose the question, "What would life/society be like if:

All...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

"Coming of Age in Karhide" ~ A pretty straightforward title for a pretty straightforward story. If you read The Left Hand of Darkness and wondered about Kemmer and exactly how it worked, this will clarify things. Fascinating.
"The Matter of Seggri" ~ Seggri is a world where the number of females is greater than males to a magnitude of 6. Males are venerated and cosseted and do little more than compete in games and impregnate females. The females do pretty much everything else and, it could be arg...more "Coming of Age in Karhide" ~ A pretty straightforward title for a pretty straightforward story. If you read The Left Hand of Darkness and wondered about Kemmer and exactly how it worked, this will clarify things. Fascinating.
"The Matter of Seggri" ~ Seggri is a world where the number of females is greater than males to a magnitude of 6. Males are venerated and cosseted and do little more than compete in games and impregnate females. The females do pretty much everything else and, it could be argued, hold all the power in the society. However, when the Ekumen arrive, the world has to decide whether the way they've always done things will continue. A very interesting thought experiment, but also really sad.
"Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways" take place on the planet O, where, in addition to genders, the people also have moieties and enter into marriages in groups of four, two of each gender and two of each moiety. The planet was first featured in the title story of A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, and LeGuin writes in the forward of this book that she did so much work in hashing out the system of relationships that she had to revisit it and explore the complications further. "Unchosen Love" explores what happens when the foursome is made up of two strong twosomes that have to learn to love each other's partners as well in order to make the relationship work. It's also about being a stranger in a strong society and moving somewhere one doesn't feel comfortable in order to stay with his lover. "Mountain Ways" focuses on what happens when, because of a smaller population, a fourth for a relationship is not easily found, but an unsuitable partner is readily available and desired. Again, fascinating. I just love LeGuin's societal and relational experiments. They don't even need to have a plot, just exploring the society is enough, but as a bonus, they do and it's entirely satisfying.
"Solitude" ~ The Ekumen goes to learn about a new planet, but are having a very hard time connecting with the denizens. An enterprising woman decides to bring her kids down to the surface hoping that they'll be allowed to learn from the adults and pass the information back to the stabiles on Hain. The unfortunate consequence of the children growing up on the planet is that they might internalize the teachings and want to stay. The way of life itself on the world is intriguing. I'd like to learn how to starwatch myself.
"Old Music and the Slave Woman" ~ In her book Four Ways to Forgiveness, LeGuin brought us to the joint worlds of Werel and Yeowe who were going through a slave revolution. Old Music was a character that appeared in that book, but was sort of auxiliary. Here, he gets his own tale, having to really get in deep with the folks he's been observing for over 35 years, and becoming a pawn in their power struggle. I'm glad we got to revisit this character, and find out how the revolution is getting on.
"The Birthday of the World" ~ I wasn't as big of a fan of this one. The local religion is the main focus, as well as a power grab. It had a pretty funny punchline, if you will, but the buildup wasn't really worth it.
"Paradises Lost" ~ Almost novella-length, this was the best part of the book for me. I love, love, love stories about colony ships. The description of the ship processes, the relationship of the main characters, and the governing body of the ship's people were almost as enthralling as the main conflict which had to do with a religion devised by the ship's passengers. This is a commentary on how people seem to need something to believe in, even though their ancestors were the most logical and intelligent the world had to offer at the time, and the ship's governing body was formed with a strict attention to the separation of church and state. So, so good. (less)

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May 30, 2010 Cat rated it 5 of 5 stars

I was utterly absorbed in all of the stories in this book. Le Guin is quickly becoming one of my favorite writers, and I look forward to reading more. She approaches science fiction like anthropology or ancient history, considering the cultural bases for our identities, inhibitions, and expectations. By inventing, with meticulous and compelling detail, cultures and bodies, she makes the reader reexamine her own frameworks for understanding the world.

Le Guin is also a master of characterization,...more

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Jun 22, 2012 Natalie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: sci-fi, short-stories, ebook, dystopia, 5-stars

4.5/5 stars

One Saturday afternoon, when I was about twelve years old, my dad put a tape in our VCR and pressed play. After the pounding of the 20th Century Fox drums had faded, there was a quiet pause followed by a second dramatic fanfare. (Even now, nearly thirty years later, the sound of it makes my insides tickle with anticipation!) As the trumpets trumpeted, little blue words appeared on a space-blackened screen: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away … And thus began my love affair with...more

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Apr 21, 2009 Sapote3 rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is my absolute favorite of Le Guin's short story collections. Every single story in it is among my favorites. Unlike some of her early and sometimes difficult and bitter dystopian short stories, these stories generally deal with worlds where things are going right, or at least the way they've always been, and sit in the middle of them comfortably looking around instead of hurrying to arrive at any plot points. Of course every story has a point to make - the first part of "The Matter of Segg...more

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May 21, 2013 David Golding rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is science fiction as the literature of ideas, as Le Guin sketches out some notional societies in these eight excellent stories, which include two Tiptree Award winners. The best description of them is her own: 'I like thinking about complex social relationships which produce and frustrate highly charged emotional relationships.' This is a good collection to give someone who only knows Earthsea or The Left Hand of Darkness. It shows Le Guin in various moods: contemplative, prurient, brutal,...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Alexis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Ursula Le Guin sets aside all sexual, racial, social or religious taboos of mankind in a series of stories set on planets with 'strange' social structure. She calmly and clearly demostrates how all that we consider sacred or appaling is just circumstantial and simply but firmly brings down all reasons why we discriminate against each other by putting the reader in the opposite position, where his 'normality' is considered unnatural. Most stories (except the last one, which is more clearly sci-fi...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Outis rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-fiction, space-fantasy, religion

A mixed bag.
Paradises Lost is much longer than the other stories and is so good it alone makes the collection worth getting. It's one of the rare generation ship stories. It's exceedingly witty yet meaningful. And gimmicks aside, the central theses ring true. The beginning is mostly worldbuilding and has no plot (typical Le Guin) but the story makes good use of the setup once it gets moving.
The anthropological Solitude and to a lesser extent the heavy-handed The Matter of Seggri are also notewor...more

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Oct 26, 2009 Nicole rated it 4 of 5 stars

Some of the stories in this collection were great and some were just fairly good, but I found something I liked about every story and something to think about in each of them. Le Guin skilfully uses societies that are very different from our own to present themes that matter in ours, and only occasionally does it feel like she's hitting you over the head with a moral.

If I read this again I'd try not to read the whole thing in one day, both because it got a bit confusing, especially for the stori...more

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Apr 15, 2009 Reshma rated it 4 of 5 stars

Fabulous! I love the stories Le Guin comes up with! This is not your stereotypical SciFi novel. Le Guin creates new societies, which happen to be on other planets, and write rather simple stories about them so that we, the readers, can gain insight. It is a study in anthropology and sociology. I felt my brain thinking and philosophizing as I read. Felt good.

This collection of short stories, and the novella at the end, is the perfect way to get into this type of science fiction if you're not used...more

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Jun 07, 2009 Jennpants rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first story in this book uses the term, "fuckery," in it. As in, "She went to the Fuckery," or, "The Fuckery was located centrally in the town for better access," or something. I'm sorry. I LOVE Ursula K. LeGuin and really like this collection of stories, but I just couldn't get over that word.

That being said, this collection covers various different planets and directly or indirectly their own unique ideas on human pairing. Aesexual, open relationships, bisexual, gay, straight, four way mar...more

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Jun 05, 2011 Samrat rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, sci-fi, short-stories, anthrosociopology, gender, myth, sexuality

That was really fascinating. It was definitely a different approach to science fiction than I've read before - and I'll attribute a good portion of it to the author's gender. The stories are written with a beautiful tenderness, anthropological explorations of unfamiliar worlds and races and relationships, made real through very relatable themes of love and friendship. They're very curious. Some of the worlds are sketchily described, while Paradises Lost, the final story and the longest by far, i...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Betty rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

The first chunk of stories in the book deal wonderfully with gender and relationships and oppression in the way LeGuin always shines at. Her characters are always human and their relationships are sensitively drawn to the point that no premise feels unweildy or weighed down by any speculative-fiction cheesiness. The story that has the most potential for that kind of pitfall is "The Matter of Seggri", which is roughly just a gender-reversed story about sex-specific abortions and prioritizing one...more The first chunk of stories in the book deal wonderfully with gender and relationships and oppression in the way LeGuin always shines at. Her characters are always human and their relationships are sensitively drawn to the point that no premise feels unweildy or weighed down by any speculative-fiction cheesiness. The story that has the most potential for that kind of pitfall is "The Matter of Seggri", which is roughly just a gender-reversed story about sex-specific abortions and prioritizing one gender over the other. In this case, it's male children who are unlikely to live to adulthood, and are therefore privileged and objectified and used for sex. What keeps it from feeling too goofy a "WHAT IF [x]"-type thing, though, is the care with which LeGuin draws this world, shifting between perspectives from outside the society to those most affected by it, so the reader is left with a real, dimensioned sense of the effects of oppression and sexism and segregation. It's GREAT.

What really blew me away, though, was the closing novella "Paradises Lost", about inhabitants of a generational ship on course to inhabiting a new planet. It's full of details about the lives of people who are four generations removed from living on-world, and yet are trying to grasp vocabulary about tigers and dirt and weather to be able to convey to their children, who will be adults by the time they make their destination. It's also about religion and belief and manipulations of information and power and, again, it's GREAT.

Finally, I love that no matter the subject of her stories, LeGuin always always treats homosexual relationships as a natural, normal thing; she always treats sexuality as a spectrum and family units as a permutable thing that can function with many combinations of adults in sexual or platonic relationships, and many social structures for raising bio or adopted children. After a dozen stories that include these themes it might seem like she's pounding the same drum, but frankly, it's a drum that ought to be pounded? And she handles all of it with such depth of insight that it's never really repetitive, and it's a beautiful example of how LeGuin explores what is possible for humans- not just technologically, but socially. I'm into it. (less)

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May 07, 2013 Pants rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: female-author, science-fiction, short-stories, lgbtq-characters

This is the strongest collection I’ve read so far, and I felt it was worth buying for one specific story. Coming of Age in Karhide is an extension of The Left Hand of Darkness, and it addresses issues about gender and sexuality that the novel dismissed or failed to consider. Le Guin no longer uses masculine pronouns to refer to the gender-neutral Gethenians. She uses feminine pronouns instead, and although this continues to undermine the fact that Gethenians have no fixed gender identity, it cha...more

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Jul 02, 2011 mstan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sf, american, short-stories, src-summer-2011

Many of these short stories take place in the same universe The Left Hand of Darkness does, but Le Guin goes further in exploring matters to do with sex and love for a few of them. More than just being 'experiments', though, her worlds are complete, organic. You can also picture them growing beyond her, the births and deaths and forests extending beyond what we can see on the page.

What if...

- A marriage were a foursome (a sedoretu with a 'Day' male/female pair and an 'Evening' male/female pair),...more

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Aug 09, 2009 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

It was nice to be able to read stories about the different planets of evolving humans that I had encountered in previous novels, but the real crown jewel of this collection is the novella at the end, "Paradises Lost". In it, Di Chew (Di Qiu, the Chinese Pinyin word for Earth) sends an envoy of humans to explore and settle a planet, Hsin Di Chew (Xin Di Qiu, or New Earth) hundreds of years away. As the envoy cycles through a few generations waiting to arrive, some form a religion deeming that exi...more

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Jul 06, 2008 Joanne rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes I wonder what lies within the mind of Ursula Le Guin, that she could explore sexuality and social mores with such graceful leaps and bounds... her ability to traverse chasms of uncomfortable topics with unwavering strength of character never ceases to blow me away. A lesser writer, I would set down the book and veer away from any future works, but Le Guin manages to lead me calmly through the storm, with my faith in her wry feminism acting as an odd sort of comfort I've never experienc...more

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Feb 10, 2009 Becca rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2007, scifi-fantasy

This book contains eight short stories, all of which I enjoyed immensely. I had never read Le Guin before, so I wanted to get a feel for her writing through something like short stories. And I've come to the conclusion that I really like her writing! Not only does she create interesting and intriguing worlds, she brings up social issues that would have never crossed my mind but are almost difficult to think about. It really made me think.

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Jun 24, 2011 Ves rated it 2 of 5 stars

I could not finish this book, possibly because it require more attention than I could give it in the Airport and on the plane. The few stories I read did have very interesting exploration of alternative social structures, but the characters lacked depth to me. I am guessing this book would be better the second time around, since I would not have to relearn so many new terms and ideas. It just did not intrigue me enough to give it another shot.

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Feb 07, 2013 Traci rated it 5 of 5 stars

This was completely fantastic. I loved so many of the stories and Le Guin's imagination continues to blow me away. I was also interested to read in some of the extras on the kindle version that she has children. Her take on child-rearing is so anti-maternal that I was convinced she would have chosen not to have children. I'm completely curious as to what kind of mother she was like given the treatment of motherhood in her stories.

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Apr 07, 2013 Lisa Forman added it

Oh Ursula, how could i have waited this long to know the pleasures of you! Le Guin is an anthropologist of humanity, and writes finely tuned and observed stories about love, war, adulthood, except set on other planets, at different levels of developments with some very different gender and social arrangements. The stories in this book damn near blew my head off. An exquisite gift for lovers of both literature and fantasy.

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May 24, 2010 Diana rated it 5 of 5 stars

The stories in this book by Ursula K. Le Guin force the reader to re-evaluate the way we think about relationships and power. By giving us characters and conflicts from different planets and different times, she breaks all the rules we know when it comes to gender, sexuality, religion, politics, etc. She forces us to see the tensions in the relationships we take for granted. Perfect for scifi geek feminists.

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Dec 27, 2008 Osho rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Birthday of the World is a good book, as were Le Guin's last several. In the present volume, Le Guin explores themes clustered around questions of right action and right being, and explores narrators' and protagonists' relationships to culture, the idea of home, and conscious or unconscious cultural imperatives. And there is a focus on varieties of sex, by which I mean gender, sexuality, sexual acts, and sex as violence. We meet more Hainish, Werelians and Yeoweans (and are reacquainted with...more

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About Ursula K. Le Guin

As of 2011, Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. Forthcoming...more As of 2011, Ursula K. Le Guin has published twenty-one novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. Forthcoming in 2012, Finding My Elegy, New and Selected Poems. She lives in Portland, Oregon.

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Ούρσουλα Λε Γκεν (Ursula Kroeber Le Guin, Berkeley California, 21 Οκτωβρίου 1929 - ) Πολυγραφότατη, πολυδιάστατη και πολυβραβευμένη Αμερικανίδα ποιήτρια και συγγραφέας του χώρου της «Επιστημονικής Φαντασίας» αλλά και των παιδικών διηγημάτων.

ΠΡΩΤΑ ΧΡΟΝΙΑ
Γεννήθηκε στο Μπέρκλεϋ της Καλιφόρνιας από τον ανθρωπολόγο Άλφρεντ Κρέμπερ (Alfred L. Kroeber) και την συγγραφέα Θεοδώρα Κρέμπερ (Theodora Covel BrownKracaw Kroeber), σπούδασε στο «Radcliffe College» και εν συνεχεία Φιλολογία (γαλλική και ιταλική αναγεννησιακή λογοτεχνία) στο «Πανεπιστήμιο Columbia». Το 1953 παντρεύτηκε στην Γαλλία τον ιστορικό Σαρλ Λε Γκεν (Charles A. Le Guin), που έγινε καθηγητής Γαλλικής Ιστορίας στο «Portland State College» του Όρεγκον και απέκτησε μαζί του 3 παιδιά.

«ΕΠΙΣΤΗΜΟΝΙΚΗ» ΚΑΙ «ΜΕΣΑΙΩΝΙΚΗ» ΦΑΝΤΑΣΙΑ
Από τα μέσα της δεκαετίας του 1960 συνέγραψε περισσότερα από 100 διηγήματα (που εκδόθηκαν σε 8 τόμους), 3 συλλογές δοκιμίων, 5 ποιητικές συλλογές, 19 νουβέλες και 13 παιδικά βιβλία, αλλά είναι περισσότερο αναγνωρισμένη για τα έργα της στον τομέα της «Επιστημονικής» και «Μεσαιωνικής» Φαντασίας, όπου συγκαταλέγεται ανάμεσα στους σημαντικότερους σύγχρονους δημιουργούς (πιο γνωστά στην Ελλάδα είναι τα βιβλία της «Ο Αναρχικός των Δύο Κόσμων», Αθήνα, 1992 και «Το Αριστερό Χέρι του Σκοταδιού», Αθήνα, 1990, 1994). Το 1990 αιφνιδίασε το αναγνωστικό κοινό της όταν πρόσθεσε δίχως προειδοποίηση στην έως τότε τριλογία του «μαγικού» «κύκλου της Γαιοθάλασσας» («A Wizard of Earthsea», «The Tombs of Atuan» και «The FarthestShore», 1968 - 1972) το σκληρό «Τεχανού», για το οποίο έλαβε το Βραβείο Nebula.(less)

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“I never knew anybody . . . who found life simple. I think a life or a time looks simple when you leave out the details.” — 41 people liked it

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