Rating: 
Summary: Sumptuous!
Review: I picked this up at a bargain table at my college bookstore when I was just getting into Ms. Le Guin's work. What a talent! What skill! The stories range from "slap-you-upside-your-head" funny to hauntingly thought-provoking that you feel so deeply and disturbed. And the last gem: I have read and enjoyed many short stories but never one that was so sumptuous I could sink my teeth into it like a blueberry pie. Le Guin should become synonymous with "lyrical". She must compose her own music, or goes into a meditative state to create a prose that ebbs and flows like the sea, wraps you snug in warm familiarity, then pulls back a curtain to let in the light, thus waking you out of your complacency. I don't care what people (who think they know speculative fiction) say. Sure the genre has its space operas, slapstick, and other subcategories, but if you wish to go "deep", you MUST pick up "A Fisherman of the Inland Sea". Look, even the title shimmers as so many pearls!
Rating: 
Summary: Buy it, if only for the last story
Review: I read this book two years ago, and honestly, I didn't find most of the stories to be memorable. However, the last story had a profound effect on me. Ursula LeGuin is one of my favorite authors, and "A Fisherman of the Inland Sea" is definitely my favorite LeGuin story. It makes one think about what is really important in life, what makes life worth living (and indeed, liveable at all). It also begs one to ponder the aspects of personal relationships in our society which are often taken for granted. Buy the book if only for the last story. Then read _The Disposessed_ for another side of LeGuin, and another terrific story.
Rating:
Summary: A refreshing change - both for LeGuin and SF in general.
Review: I was almost ready to give up on LeGuin after reading "The Telling", "Tehanu", and "Tales from Earthsea" in consecution, when I noticed this collection of short stories. I was pleasantly surprised. The heavy-handed moralizing and the sour tone are replaced with a sense of harmony, energy. One gets the impression that the writer simply let herself write to her heart's content.The first few are short word-sketches, demonstrating LeGuin's surprising versatility. "First Contact with the Gorgonids" is written with prosaic wit, "Kerastion" is powerfully poetic, "Newton's Sleep" is a cautionary, postapocalyptic parable, etc. The book also includes a mini-cycle of three Ekumen stories, centered on instantaneous travel and its startling side effect: when intelligent beings are teleported, reality breaks down into individual perceptions (think Rashomon). The first, "Shobies' Story", documents the first-ever experimental flight. The second, "Dancing to Ganam", documents an exploratory expedition where every member gets different impressions of the natives' intent: where one sees ritual, another sees deceit. The last is possibly the first and only of LeGuin's time travel stories, telling of a homesick man who decides to correct the choice he made eighteen years ago. The second and third stories are especially well-written, keeping the reader guessing until the very end. A very nice collection for disillusioned readers.
Rating:
Summary: A refreshing change - both for LeGuin and SF in general.
Review: I was almost ready to give up on LeGuin after reading "The Telling", "Tehanu", and "Tales from Earthsea" in consecution, when I noticed this collection of short stories. I was pleasantly surprised. The heavy-handed moralizing and the sour tone are replaced with a sense of harmony, energy. One gets the impression that the writer simply let herself write to her heart's content. The first few are short word-sketches, demonstrating LeGuin's surprising versatility. "First Contact with the Gorgonids" is written with prosaic wit, "Kerastion" is powerfully poetic, "Newton's Sleep" is a cautionary, postapocalyptic parable, etc. The book also includes a mini-cycle of three Ekumen stories, centered on instantaneous travel and its startling side effect: when intelligent beings are teleported, reality breaks down into individual perceptions (think Rashomon). The first, "Shobies' Story", documents the first-ever experimental flight. The second, "Dancing to Ganam", documents an exploratory expedition where every member gets different impressions of the natives' intent: where one sees ritual, another sees deceit. The last is possibly the first and only of LeGuin's time travel stories, telling of a homesick man who decides to correct the choice he made eighteen years ago. The second and third stories are especially well-written, keeping the reader guessing until the very end. A very nice collection for disillusioned readers.
Rating:
Summary: MagiclalTales
Review: Le Guin's previous short story collections ("The Wind's Twelve Quarters", "Orsinian Tales" and "The Compass Rose") demonstrated that she is, if anything, an even more accomplished writer of short fiction than novels. This latest collection has some memorable tales; perhaps none more so than the title story. Three stories in particular link together around the development of a new method of faster than light space travel. However, this does not mean we are in for essays on obscure areas of physics, but rather for fables illustrating that how we share meanings and experiences help shape the reality around us. The title story takes this further by adding a time travel twist in the tail, and looks at how the choices we make in life shape us and those around us. As ever there is strong anthropological streak in her work, with some uniquely pictured societies (the complex marriage arrangements in the title story are especially fascinating!). The other stories vary from very brief vignettes, to traditional sci-fi, to more tongue in cheek fantasies. Le Guin retains an impish sense of humour in all her best work, no matter how serious the intent of the story. It is perhaps this that marks her out as one of the most human of all science fiction authors. Maybe not her greatest collection, but well worth reading, especially if it leads you to discover her other works.
Rating:
Summary: Enchanting...Marvelous...Another Masterpiece!
Review: LeGuin 's Earthsea Cycle was the best in fantasy. This collection of short stories is just the same. Great science fiction. I loved each one. Hidden Meanings and well built characters. Great! Go out and but it!!
Rating:
Summary: Read it if only for the last story
Review: The final story in this book, "Another Story," is almost certainly my favorite short story ever, and I've read a lot of them. Her writing is wonderful, and a lot of the best elements of both her writing and usual themes come together wonderfully in the final story. The other ones are worth reading, too, but the final story stands on its own and is alone worth finding this book now that it is, sadly, out of print. (I found two copies in a bookstore's bargain stack 6 year ago, luckily for me!) Find the book, and at least read the last story. It's truly wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Read it if only for the last story
Review: The final story in this book, "Another Story," is almost certainly my favorite short story ever, and I've read a lot of them. Her writing is wonderful, and a lot of the best elements of both her writing and usual themes come together wonderfully in the final story. The other ones are worth reading, too, but the final story stands on its own and is alone worth finding this book now that it is, sadly, out of print. (I found two copies in a bookstore's bargain stack 6 year ago, luckily for me!) Find the book, and at least read the last story. It's truly wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Read it if only for the last story
Review: The final story in this book, "Another Story," is almost certainly my favorite short story ever, and I've read a lot of them. Her writing is wonderful, and a lot of the best elements of both her writing and usual themes come together wonderfully in the final story. The other ones are worth reading, too, but the final story stands on its own and is alone worth finding this book now that it is, sadly, out of print. (I found two copies in a bookstore's bargain stack 6 year ago, luckily for me!) Find the book, and at least read the last story. It's truly wonderful.
Rating:
Summary: Le Guin's imagination is always a pleasure
Review: These eight stories run the gamut from whimsical to cautionary, most including elements of both. The three last and longest deal with "churten" travel, which allows instantaneous space travel or "transilience." Le Guin makes no attempt to explain this in technological terms and all three stories explore the early, experimental phases of the churten. The most interesting, "The Shobies' Story," concerns the pioneering churtenists. Initially, the experiment seems a success, if somewhat disorienting. But soon gaps in perception appear - events change according to who narrates them and in the face of this perceptual chaos the human psyche begins a panicky unraveling. The most humorous story is "The First Contact With the Gorgonids" in which the ugly American meets the aliens and the grimmest is "The Kerastion," in which an artist's desire for permanence leads to tragedy. These are also the shortest. Le Guin often deals with hubris. In "Newton's Sleep" a smugly rational man, driven to isolate his family from the pollution of Earth, is himself isolated by his inability to incorporate the irrational. In one of the churten stories, "Dancing to Ganam," a man's oversized vision of himself leads to a not entirely unexpected fate. Le Guin's writing is, as always, fluid and evocative. While some stories are more predictable than others, each is a pleasure.
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