Semley's Necklace: A Story

by Ursula K. Le Guin

The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her spare, elegant prose, rich characterization, and diverse worlds. "Semley's Necklace" is a short story originally published in the collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

Genres: Short Stories, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, Audiobook, Classics

37 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 1964

About the author

Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two 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. She lived in Portland, Oregon.

She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.

Reviews

[Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Semley, dark-skinned and yellow-haired like all of her people who live on a remote, unnamed planet (called Formalhaut II by Hainish scientists from the League of All Worlds) is a queen of her people. She and her beloved husband are poverty-stricken, but Semley remembers that once her family owned a fabulous necklace that was stolen in her great-grandmother’s day. That necklace could restore her pride and social standing.

Finding this necklace again becomes a passion for Semley, even though she know her husband disagrees with her putting so much importance on a (admittedly incredibly valuable) thing, so she secretly leaves one night to find her lost inheritance. Her travels will take her farther than she could have imagined. This is an impactful story, and a tragic one.

"Semley's Necklace” was originally published as a stand-alone short story. It's an imaginative retelling of the myth of Freya’s necklace Brísingamen, and how her obsession with it ultimately brings her great sorrow. But in her travels, Semley met a Hainish scientist, Gaverel Rocannon, who never forgets Semley. Rocannon later travels to her planet as part of a scientific team doing cultural exploration. His story, and Semley's, form Le Guin's first published novel Rocannon's World.

[Peter Tillman · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Semley's Necklace" (1964, Cele Goldsmith's Amazing): we sometimes forget UKL got her start as a writer of planetary romances -- at the time she was sometimes called "the new Leigh Brackett." "Semley" is a good example, and a wonderfully romantic and haunting story:

"Semley the Fair, Semley the Golden.... the Clayfolk had bent to her will, and so had even the Starlords....

He slipped the necklace over her hair. It lay like a burning fuse along her golden-brown throat. She looked up from it with such pride, delight, and gratitude in her face that Rocannon stood wordless..."

Le Guin reused this as the Prologue to "Rocannon's World (1966), her first novel, still a worthy planetary romance. But "Semley's Necklace" remains one of the most haunting stories I've ever read. Arguably her best-ever short. My God, this was her apprentice-work!

Le Guin wrote in "A Wind's Twelve Quarters"(1975) that this was her 8th published story and "the most romantic of them all. ... I am still a romantic ... and glad of it."

Review written circa 1999 for Infinity-plus, paired with another Le Guin : http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfict... Reread many times.

Many, many reprints: http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/title.cg...
First published as "The Dowry of Angyar" (clunk), and wisely retitled by the author in her 1975 "Wind's Twelve Quarters" collection.

[Efka · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great sci-fi'ish fairytale. And it has a lot in common with celtic myths, especially those about having a "one night with the fairies" adventure. It's not funny or jolly, and it is too short to be called gripping, but still it is a really nice short story.

[Hayat · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars!
Semley's Necklace: A Story is just a few pages but it packs quite the emotional punch, and I loved it. It definitely makes me want to give her longer stories a try.

[Lojicholia · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a fantastic mix of SciFi and High Fantasy; absolutely love the world building here…

[Tessa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful.

[RJ - Slayer of Trolls · Rating 4 out of 5]

prologue to Rocannon's World works just fine as a stand alone story

[Erich Franz Linner-Guzmann · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a wonderfully written short story. It tells a lot in just 18 pages short. This short story latter became the prologue of Rocannon's World. Another fantastically great story by Ursula K. Le Guin!

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's easy to tell how much Tolkien influenced Ursula K. Le Guin's writing (which is a welcome and refreshing discovery!). This is my first introduction to Le Guin's style and I have to say, this has been an intriguing combination of medieval - style high fantasy with a futuristic sci-fi. I have heard this is pretty much a retelling of Freyja's missing necklace from the Prose Edda, which is also on my list of to-read books. All in all, I'm looking forward to reading more of Le Guin's works!

[Jim Mcclanahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting tale of a quest by a member of a once dominant race to re-acquire a valuable family heirloom. I found it intriguing to note that Ms. Le Guin, the daughter of Alfred Kroeber (known as the father of American anthropology), has the main character in this short story forced to interact with an Earth born ethnologist to reclaim her artifact. I also found it interesting to note the physical appearance of Semley and her close relatives paralleled that of the Tutsi in Africa. They too, once powerful and looked up to, fell from grace after a great deal of exposure to western explorers and the wrath of the neighboring Hutu. In the story, the Angyar are a tall, dark skinned and golden haired group, in contrast to the other races, including the short, dark troglodytes who have the most productive contact with the Earth explorers. I immediately thought of the 1950 film version of King Soloman's Mines in which the Tutsi were cast members: http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rc...

I wonder if Ms. Le Guin also had them in mind.

[Nina · Rating 4 out of 5]

one thing ursula k le guin is gonna do is CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE.

[Derek Ross · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is in one way such a familiar one that most readers will recognize the trope and know the ending within a page or so. Yet foreknowledge of the ending actually adds to the emotional impact as we read. Anyone with a little science education will know that Semley is doomed long before she does. And anyone with a heart will feel that mounting sense of horror as Semley does the Right Thing blissfully unaware of the true personal cost of her actions.

This short story can be read and re-read and still retain its emotional impact. One of the best.

[Nick Landry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read Semley's Necklace as the prologue to Rocannon's World, not realizing it was originally published as a standalone short story. The story and the journey sound overly simplistic at times. How could finding such a fabled necklace have been so easy? Why hadn't others tried? But then I remembered these are jot humans, this is not Earth, and to project our own beliefs and mannerisms upon these "aliens" simply reflects our arrogance. I loved it for what it was. Ultimately, it was all about the cost. A great read.

[Aaron White · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short story in the Hainish cycle, about a world with three races which has been visited by the Star People (interstellar humanoids). Semley, a queenly woman whose family and people have lost their wealth and purpose with the coming of the off-worlders, undertakes a journey to recover a lost family heirloom. She is taken to retrieve it, but does not understand the nature of space travel, or the cost of relative time passing. It is a perfectly told story, true legend, sympathetic and heart breaking.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tidy little parable that was originally published as a standalone short story, but was later incorporated into the novel, Rocannon's World, as its prologue. Seems to draw upon Norse mythology and blends in the concept of time dilation.

It is now considered the first work in the "Hainish Cycle", although LeGuin herself has repeatedly said that the stories that make up the "Cycle" are not necessarily meant to be connected.

[Marion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read Rocannon's worl then discovered this short story. If it had been the other way around I would have clamored for more.
I do clamore for more Ms LeGuin and look forward to discovering more.

[Daniel Granville · Rating 5 out of 5]

The language that structures this story is intelligently constructed, in such a manner that the import of the tale grows in the reader’s mind and inculcates the reader in the demonstration of its themes.

[Rose · Rating 5 out of 5]

I absolutely love this story. The implications are consequential. So many levels of meaning, and a fantastic tale just on the surface with great characters and an intricately designed world. The world building is immaculate, and I imagine many of her ideas were reused.

[Austin Wright · Rating 5 out of 5]

Found in Rocannon's World.

[Kinch · Rating 5 out of 5]

An utterly perfect little story blending high fantasy and spacefaring scifi breathtakingly

[Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this story, but I didn't love it. It was a bit boring and I wasn't that interested in it. I did like the fantasy aspects of it though.

[Abram Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exploration of what it might mean should we contact an alien world with multiple civilizations. Le Guin is a master of giving a voice to the less-understood.

[Whisprose · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love this story so much. Hurts my heart every time. True wealth is in love

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quick read, very innovative for being a female author sci-fi story written in 1963. Love Ursula K Leguin!

[Quinton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't like the ending - but then I loved it.

[Aaron · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well written, but like a Grimm's Fairy tale, its a story that is a moral tale with a sad ending, and I just never like that kind of story.

[Carole]

Read in a collection.

[Océane Reads · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this well written short story. Curious about the novel that the story inspired her to write, rocannon urged her to tell.

[H.A. Leuschel · Rating 4 out of 5]

The writing is fabulous, and this is a compelling little story full of imagination and fascinating characters. I wanted more though, so will reach out to one of the author's novels very soon.

[Prakash Rajendran · Rating 5 out of 5]

… and just like that I found another gripping and captivating author. She’s amazing and instantly felt certain that I am going to read lot more of Ursula 😵‍💫