Rating: 
Summary: Le Guin at her best
Review: In this collection of short stories, Le Guin returns to her fictional universe of the classics "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Disposessed." The stories in this volume equal the power of her best works. Le Guin discusses superstition and religion in the title story; however, it is surpassed by the novella "Paradises Lost," in which she portrays human nature, sexuality, and deontology vs. teleology in a stunning way. Although this book is not appropriate for young children, all other Le Guin fans and newcomers to her work will certainly enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Le Guin at her best
Review: In this collection of short stories, Le Guin returns to her fictional universe of the classics "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Disposessed." The stories in this volume equal the power of her best works. Le Guin discusses superstition and religion in the title story; however, it is surpassed by the novella "Paradises Lost," in which she portrays human nature, sexuality, and deontology vs. teleology in a stunning way. Although this book is not appropriate for young children, all other Le Guin fans and newcomers to her work will certainly enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: Truly awesome!
Review: This book is brilliant, a perfect combination of revisits to old worlds (Gethen, Werel and O) and introductions to completely new ones. "Unchosen Love" was just beautiful, as was "Paradises Lost", and the tales from Seggri were fascinating, if slightly disturbing. Although "Old Music..." (actually Werel in general) didn't do much for me, I've read all the others over and over. Highly recommended - I think this is easily on par with "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed".
Rating:
Summary: Splendid Short Story Collection from Le Guin
Review: This is a fine mix of stories - some old and some new - set primarily in Le Guin's Ekumen/Hainish cycle of novels and short stories. Without question Le Guin's best works in this series are her great novels "The Left Hand of Darkness" and "The Dispossessed". One of my favorite stories in the current collection - and the very first - is "Coming of Age in Karhide", which is a fascinating, often hilarious look at a character's adolescence on the planet Gethen, taking place a few decades after the events chronicled in "The Left Hand of Darkness". The final tale "Paradises Lost" is set aboard a multigenerational starship whose crew must contend with religious fanaticism and the ship's unexpectedly swift arrival at another world. Most of the rest are just as good as these, exploring Le Guin's interests in cultural anthropology and gender relationships. All are graced with Le Guin's lyrical, often spellbinding, prose.
Rating:
Summary: A story-suite plus one
Review: To coin a term for a form of prose that's lacked one, Ursula K. Le Guin as chosen "story-suite" for a collection of short stories that are connected by theme, location, or events. This book mirrors her last SF story-suite, Four Ways to Forgiveness, in connectivity by theme but diverges from connectivity by place. At least, it makes wide ranges 'round the setting of many of her SF stories, called her "Hainish Universe." (Le Guin, typical of her self-deprecating humor, talks of her laziness in re-using this setting in her forward.)The theme of these stories is relationships. With ourselves. With our lovers. With our society. They use various tools to explore this topic and reveal the complexities of being human. Stories range from a first-contact tale with a deeply anthropological tone to a "comedy of manners" among some of the most complicated relationships in the universe. Along the way, we touch on some familiar settings (the world of Left Hand of Darkness, that of Four Ways) and get a look at some new. The final tale in this collection, a novella entitled Paradises Lost, is a bit of a divergence from the rest. It does not reside in the Hainish universe setting but upon a ship bound for a distant planet. Generations are born and die upon the ship as it crosses the vastness of space towards its destination. We watch one of those generations grow up and deal with a crisis of faith. In the end, we are presented with the answer chosen by the characters through whom we see the story. Typical of her skill, however, Le Guin does not present this solution as an absolute. That these people are protagonists does not make them absolutely right; other choices remain valid and are not demonized. Most refreshing for me, is the number of stories in this collection that have, for at least part of their narrative, the voices of children. For her last couple of books, Le Guin was excercising a mature voice, one of parents, grandparents, rulers burdened with great decisions. I suspected the trend followed Le Guin's own aging; that she was now writing the books of her maturity while previous ones were the books of her youth. In this collection, however, we see that her talent cannot be so easily pigeon-holed. The youthful voices speak with vigor and candor. The ideas are fresh, whole; they make a maddening sense and immerse you fully in their gossamer worlds. With each new release, Le Guin demonstrates that she is master of her craft.
Rating:
Summary: Finally!
Review: Unlike her last three works, "The Birthday of the World" doesn't suck. Before finishing "Birthday" I hadn't realized just how godawful those last two Earthsea books were. Did you feel betrayed by "Stories from Earthsea?" Read "Old Music and the Slave Women" in this volume and you'll see her succeed in what she had failed at in the earlier work. Were you horrifically bored by "The Telling?" The last story in this volume, "Paradises Lost," will enchant you where you could barely finish that earlier work. And the first story in "Birthday" is a return to Gethen! We get inside a kemmerhouse! Oh Grandmother Little Bear Woman, all is forgiven!
Rating:
Summary: Worlds Never Before Seen
Review: What a thrill, what a pleasure, to get two new LeGuin books in the same year! I don't know of that many SF authors who write so exceptionally well in both the novel and short story forms, but LeGuin certainly tops that short list. I'd read her previous collections---The Compass Rose, The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Malefrica Tales---so I knew that I'd be reading some fine work. But as it's been awhile since the last short story collection, I wondered what Ms. LeGuin had been up to, where was she coming from, what was her focus these days? And the answer to that is as complex and as simple as a leaf, as a feather: humanity. Not in a species-chauvanistic sense, but looking deeper, into the very question of what makes us human. Spirituality, freedom, community responsibilities, societal struggle, emotional truth: this is a wonderful (and wonder-full) mix of stories, set on a wonderful mix of planets and cultures, each a small, deceptionally-simple window onto a world never before seen. This is not space- opera-type writing, not wars and plots and violence, but about PEOPLE, living, loving, breathing people, and it makes my mind leap upwards and outwards, wondering what possibilities exist, both in this tiny world of ours and in the great universe surrounding us---not that LeGuin makes me feel small and insignificant! Rather that she makes me want to become large enough to understand and to embarce it all...Really fine writing, highly-recommended.
Rating:
Summary: First time Guin-reader
Review: Wow. I am 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 humans travelling for generations towards a destination set by people who have been long dead. With none of the original people, the memory of Earth becomes more and more alien, and the quiet isolation of the ship entropies the spirit of discovery and adventure, transformed into a religion about the endless journey as the end goal of humanity. A simply amazing story.
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