Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
49th out of 396 books
—
211 voters
The Wind's Twelve Quarters (Hainish Cycle)
"Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her lyrical writing, rich characters & diverse worlds. The Wind's Twelve Quarters collects 17 stories, each with an introduction by the author, ranging from fantasy to intriguing scientific concepts, from medieval settings to the future." Including a foreword by Le Guin, describing her experience, inspirations & approach to writin...more
Mass Market Paperback, 277 pages
Published
1975
by Bantam Doubleday Dell
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
2,596)
Unlike Four Ways to Forgiveness, this is an uneven collection, a mixed bag of Le Guin's early short stories.
My favorite are definitely the sci-fi stories: from Hainish cycle - Winter's King (a prequel to The Left Hand of Darkness), The Day Before the Revolution (a prequel to The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia), Vaster than Empires and More Slow (humans try to communicate with a different type of intelligence, reminiscent of Solaris); and independent - Nine Lives (about cloning) and The Field...more
My favorite are definitely the sci-fi stories: from Hainish cycle - Winter's King (a prequel to The Left Hand of Darkness), The Day Before the Revolution (a prequel to The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia), Vaster than Empires and More Slow (humans try to communicate with a different type of intelligence, reminiscent of Solaris); and independent - Nine Lives (about cloning) and The Field...more
view all 3 comments
The Wind's Twelve Quarters is a collection of Ursula K. Le Guin's short stories - an early collection, so they're some of her first stories. There were some clunkers ("A Trip to the Head," for one, and "The Stars Below," for another), but they were nicely counteracted by some really great works like "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," "Nine Lives," and "Darkness Box." Plus, it includes the two stories that were the first venture into Earthsea (and she notes in the prologue several inconsistenc...more
Jan 27, 2008
Joshua
rated it
3 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Anyone looking for intelligent yet flawed short stories
Shelves:
sci-fi-and-fantasy
I spent a long time looking for this short story collection without even realizing it. The journey began one day when I was trying to remember the title of a story. All I could remember was that the story was about a Utopian society which kept a young child in a dark room because that was the only way to keep the utopia; one had to suffer unbearable loneliness and silence in order for the rest to live in said utopia. If the child was ever freed, the ideal world would crumble and become ruined. I...more
I love that even in these early works, Le Guin has the neat trick of confusing the heck out of you in the very start of the story, developing the scene and then ~pop~ somehow providing a missing bit that makes it all click.. except now you're in the middle of a story and you want to know more. And there is more! Because you just had one little epiphany and the story isn't over, its just getting started. Much better than telling you everything about the characters & issues up front, then slog...more
Ursula K. LeGuin is an acknowledged master writer in fantasy and science fiction for a reason, even more so, she is a writer who excels beyond the limitations of those genres. The Wind's Twelve Quarters collects LeGuin's "seventeen favorite stories" circa 1975 and tracks her development as a published author over the previous decade.
The only novels I've read by LeGuin so far have been the original Earthsea trilogy, a work in her canon that is overemphasized. I've read many of her stories, and h...more
The only novels I've read by LeGuin so far have been the original Earthsea trilogy, a work in her canon that is overemphasized. I've read many of her stories, and h...more
I've only read one other Ursula Le Guin book (The Left Hand of Darkness, which I loved for making me think so hard), so it was a treat to get a range of her short stories. Collections like these aren't necessarily an author's greatest hits. But after reading The Wind's Twelve Quarters, I feel like I know Le Guin much better and consequently, got a good insight in her creative process. I now conclude that Le Guin is an awesome, awesome lady. I would love to have a drink with her. She's just so sm...more
Perhaps the greatest attraction to Le Guin's writing is that all at once she perceives a bigger picture for her reader and constructs it bottom-up focusing on the small details, the mundanities that dominate life, to frame each cluster of ideas that create her worlds.
Fans of Earthsea, the Disposessed and even other collections of short stories such as 'Worlds of Exile and Illusion' will find their familiar landscapes revisited and expanded upon and, like a true history, enriched as opposed to o...more
Fans of Earthsea, the Disposessed and even other collections of short stories such as 'Worlds of Exile and Illusion' will find their familiar landscapes revisited and expanded upon and, like a true history, enriched as opposed to o...more
My second Le Guin book and I liked this more than The Lathe of Heaven.
It's a collection of her short stories from the early 60s to the mid 70s with a little blurb explaining something about them before each. I don't know if this was done on purpose for this collection but many of these stories have very similar themes and some almost feel like the same story rewritten later on in her career. For instance, "The Stars Below" just seems like a modified take on her earlier story, "The Masters" -- Ma...more
It's a collection of her short stories from the early 60s to the mid 70s with a little blurb explaining something about them before each. I don't know if this was done on purpose for this collection but many of these stories have very similar themes and some almost feel like the same story rewritten later on in her career. For instance, "The Stars Below" just seems like a modified take on her earlier story, "The Masters" -- Ma...more
This MAY be the edition I have: at any rate the cover picture is the same.
Each story in this volume is introduced by a short squib from the author. If you haven't read the stories before, you might want to leave this bit until afterward.
Contents:
(1) Semley's Necklace: This is also the lead-in to Rocannon's World. It's complete in itself, and offers an interesting explanation for why going into Tir Na Nog is so time-consuming: time dilation. But it's not clear whether Semley had any clue of the p...more
Each story in this volume is introduced by a short squib from the author. If you haven't read the stories before, you might want to leave this bit until afterward.
Contents:
(1) Semley's Necklace: This is also the lead-in to Rocannon's World. It's complete in itself, and offers an interesting explanation for why going into Tir Na Nog is so time-consuming: time dilation. But it's not clear whether Semley had any clue of the p...more
Excellent collection of stories spread out over a substantial range of Le Guin's career. Le Guin's stories are very much focused on the psychological and emotional consequences of distance, travel, and alien-ness. She shares this interest with Samuel R. Delany, another science fiction writer with whom i am more familiar, but i would say her characters are more humble, more likeable, maybe even more human.
The early stories showed their age, being simple of plot and touched with sci-fi cliches. Le...more
The early stories showed their age, being simple of plot and touched with sci-fi cliches. Le...more
Good collection of short stories from one of my favorite authors. "Winter's King" and "The Day Before the Revolution" are superb. "Nine Lives" and "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow" (the latter a slightly less fun but more intellectual play on the theme of Bradbury's "Here There Be Tygers" were also great, and the book on is at worst solid, save two clunkers ("The Good Trip" and "Direction of the Road").
I do prefer Le Guin as a novelist - I feel like a longer format suits her better - but this...more
I do prefer Le Guin as a novelist - I feel like a longer format suits her better - but this...more
...The Wind's Twelve Quarter ends on a high, that is for sure. Some of the stories in this collection are no doubt among the best Le Guin as produced. All things considered, it isn't one of those very rare collections that manage a consistently high quality though. It is a collection that shows Le Guin's style, themes and development as a writer however. With links to her most important works and some award winning stories, perhaps it is not so strange this collection has been in print for more...more
It's always a pleasure to be immersed in Ursula Le Guin's prose worlds. Here we have 17 short stories taken from a decade of her work, and it's fascinating to see her writing grow and mature in a mixture of fantasy and science fiction settings. "The Masters," "The Stars Below," and "Winter's King" were my favorites; the first two have a bit of a similar theme (heroic response to the suppression of science and math), and the last one is related to The Dispossessed.
Feb 24, 2013
Maria Longley
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
sci-fi-fantasy
This is a retrospective of early short stories pulled together with a small, informative introduction to each story. The three stories which have really stuck with me on previous readings are 'Direction of the Road', 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas', and 'The Day Before the Revolution' (they all get five stars). Some of the other ones are really interesting as you can see a glimpse of some of the future novels such as 'Rocannon's World' or 'The Left Hand of Darkness'. I wish there were more...more
Ursula K. Le Guin and her writing have had a formative influence on me ever since I first cracked open A Wizard of Earthsea when I was ten or so. She has expanded my mind and expanded my horizons. These are some of her very finest speculative-fiction short stories from 1962 to 1974—I can't believe there were some I had never read before, including a few that are tied to her most famous novels. Among the best in this collection: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Winter's King, Things, The Field...more
I finally read all of it! I'd rate about half of the stories a 5 and the rest were just okay. My favourites are still the stories from Hainish Cycle along with the ones from Earthsea.
----------
I'm not going to rate this because I only read the Hainish cycle stories but I was thoroughly impressed with those. I liked them all at least as much or more than the novels I've read so far.
The Dowry of Angyar/Semley's Necklace is the prologue to Rocannon's World and I think everyone agrees that it's str...more
----------
I'm not going to rate this because I only read the Hainish cycle stories but I was thoroughly impressed with those. I liked them all at least as much or more than the novels I've read so far.
The Dowry of Angyar/Semley's Necklace is the prologue to Rocannon's World and I think everyone agrees that it's str...more
Great book! There were a couple of stories here that were hard for me to get into (a couple of the early SF), but most were impressive. Loved the two origin stories of the Earthsea world - "The Word of Unbinding" and "The Rule of Names." What was particularly interesting to me was reading some of her other SF pieces. What a writer! The dialogue was flawless, and my respect has grown for Ms. Le Guin many fold after this experience. She has earned another devotee and I'm eager to read her other la...more
It was a long time since last time I read from Le Guin. Might be 20 years or so.
All I had was a remembrance of wellness and joy after reading some of her work, although hardly remember any of them (time's toll, I guess), not even the ones from Earthsea. From these ones, I do really remember parts of the first pages, though mostly the joyful sensation of expectation on what will the story be.
This book is a collection of short stories gathered from all along her career. They surely are a nice exa...more
All I had was a remembrance of wellness and joy after reading some of her work, although hardly remember any of them (time's toll, I guess), not even the ones from Earthsea. From these ones, I do really remember parts of the first pages, though mostly the joyful sensation of expectation on what will the story be.
This book is a collection of short stories gathered from all along her career. They surely are a nice exa...more
Vintage LeGuin, with marvelously insightful little introductions. Stories include a couple from the Rocannon's World storyline, one from The Left Hand of Darkness (with female pronouns), and one from The Dispossessed, all remarkable in some way. I'm not really into short stories, in general, but I like additions to familiar worlds, and most of these are just the right length to start and finish before bed. Plus I want to get a tattoo of the pen and ink portrait of her on the flyleaf.
Apr 22, 2011
Jakub Nowak
rated it
4 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
from-the-library
A very solid pack of stories. Only one or did not captivate me much but some did very strongly. The last two ones (Hugo and Nebula winners) were exceptional. The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas chilled me to the very bone. Makes one think how much are we willing to give up for happiness. How much unhappiness does happiness cost? The additions to Earthsea are also interesting. Le Guin has a certain quality in all her works that his hard to put in words. But it's there and I like it.
I'm very partial to Ursula LeGuin. A few of the stories in here are very good; a few are a little too sword-and-sorcery. Overall, lacks some of the burning insight into the everyday that shone in some of her other collections (A Fisherman of the Inland Sea, and some of the edge and fury that strengthened Four Ways to Forgiveness and The Birthday of the World. Thoughtfully done.
This set of short stories had its five-star stories and its one-star stories in my opinion. LeGuin has an annoying habit of starting a story with a page of description which, if you find the item being described boring, really sets a slow tone for the rest of that story.
My favorites of this set are, "April in Paris," "The Masters," "The Rule of Names," "Nine Lives," "Direction of the Road," and "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."
My favorites of this set are, "April in Paris," "The Masters," "The Rule of Names," "Nine Lives," "Direction of the Road," and "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas."
Nov 06, 2009
Pam P
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Everyone,Young people especially
Shelves:
keep
I am so gald to have found this here. I have been looking for a new copy for years now. Gradually the title faded away. Now I will find a new copy. Stories stuck with me and woke me to ideas I would never have come across on my own. Parts of the stories haunt me still, a ghost that wakes me and I begin to think and try to remember. It feels like a very personal thing.
This collection includes what I consider some of Le Guin's best short stories, which is saying a lot. Personal favorites from the collection: "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," a poetic presentation of the tradeoffs of utilitarianism and the nature of prosperity, and "Direction of the Road," a story of what the world is like from the perspective of a tree.
It's been a while since I've read science fiction and this was my introduction to Ursula LeGuin; what a nice introduction! The stories are from when she first started writing to later in her career and you can see a developing maturity and changing interest in subject matter through each successive story. I can't wait to read one of her novels!
These short stories in LeGuin's typical style and pacing were hit-or-miss. It seemed to me that some were slow or confusing, while others were quite enjoyable as I had found LeGuin's other books.
Give it a shot, but be prepared for some slow stories mixed in with the enjoyable ones.
Give it a shot, but be prepared for some slow stories mixed in with the enjoyable ones.
Excellent short stories--works of fantasy and science fiction--from Ursula LeGuin. Sneering empaths, wise wizards, martyred scholars: this is a daring and unflinching look at what makes us human, with magic and mystery as the mirror that reveals us to ourselves.
Oct 21, 2007
Nicholas Whyte
added it
http://nhw.livejournal.com/533226.html[return][return]I've read the collection a couple of times before, but it was nice to be reminded of, say the early Earthsea story, "The Rule of Names", with that great couple of sentences ending the penultimate paragraph:[return][return] But they did stop talking about it, three days later. They had other things to talk about, when Mr Underhill finally came out of his cave. [return][return]Which will mean nothing to you unless and until you read the story....more
My rating is a compromise between the stories which left me cold and those which were excellent. "The Fiield of Vision" was extremely clever. "The Day Before the Revolution" was excellent too. Generally I think she's better in her longer fiction though.
I'm very picky about short stories, usually preferring novels, but this collection is absolutely magical, in every sense of the word. Le Guin's variety of voices and styles is nothing short of amazing, and each of these is a completely realized gem.
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
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
More about Ursula K. Le Guin...
Share This Book
1 trivia question
More quizzes & trivia...
