- Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Canada / Fiction (July 27 1995)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0061054917
- ISBN-13: 978-0061054914
- Product Dimensions: 16.8 x 10.7 x 2 cm
- Shipping Weight: 113 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,570,035 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
In her introduction to this reprint collection of eight of her more recent SF stories, Le Guin (Tehanu) defends the best work of the genre as "beautiful." It is critics and reviewers, she claims, who miss that beauty by emphasizing SF's role as an expositor of ideas. In any case, it's clear that the stories presented here show the softer side of the genre at its best. "The First Contact with the Gorgonids" and "The Ascent of the North Face," the two entries that Le Guin calls "funny stories, silly stories," are just that-witty, satirical and amusing. Yet it is the author's more serious work that displays her talents best, as she employs recurring themes and elements-cultural diversity, unlikely heroes and heroines, power's ability to corrupt, love's power to guide-and considers characters and types (women, children, the differently sexed and gendered) so often disenfranchised by other, more technologically oriented SF writers. From the briefest nonhumorous story here ("The Kerastion," about a silent flute made of human skin) to the longest, eponymous one, Le Guin ponders the nature of art and how life should be lived. Always, her stories are about people, not technologies, and it is this emphasis, as well as her accomplished prose, that makes this such a classy and valuable collection.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
Foremost among that group of writers who have changed science fiction, Ursula K. Le Guin has created a profound and transformational literature. These award-winning stories range from the everyday to the outer limits of experience, where the quantum uncertainties of space and time are resolved only in the depths of the human heart. Here we have starships that sail, literally, on wings of song...musical instruments to be played at funerals only...ansibles for faster-than-light communication...even orbiting arks designed to save a doomed humanity.
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First Sentence
People who don't read it, and even some of those who write it, like to assume or pretend that the ideas used in science fiction all rise from intimate familiarity with celestial mechanics and quantum theory, and are comprehensible only to readers who work for NASA and know how to program their VCR. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
People who don't read it, and even some of those who write it, like to assume or pretend that the ideas used in science fiction all rise from intimate familiarity with celestial mechanics and quantum theory, and are comprehensible only to readers who work for NASA and know how to program their VCR. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Le Guin's imagination is always a pleasure,
By
This review is from: Fisherman of the Inland Sea (Hardcover)
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.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read it if only for the last story,
By
This review is from: Fisherman of the Inland Sea (Hardcover)
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.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.4 out of 5 stars (19 customer reviews) 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Read it if only for the last story,
By Karen Abraham - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Fisherman of the Inland Sea (Hardcover)
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. 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best. These are the way stories should be.,
By Sam N. Keyes - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea: Science Fiction Stories (Hardcover)
Le Guin's talent is diverse, but Science Fiction stories seem to be her best. And oh she is agile. This collection has everything. There's a small humorous story, a workshop story, an idea story, but finally there are the most important: the churten stories. Le Guin's Hainish universe has appeared in most of her other scifi novels, but these stories are probably the best. "The Shobies Story," "Dancing to Ganam" and "Another Story" (I think that's all) are all separate, but they all deal with 'churten,' Le Guin's brand of instantaneous travel. As usual, though, she doesn't focus on technology. She's a people writer, and the science is only there to bring out all of the psychological, emotional and spiritual questions with the characters. The title story, or "Another Story" is about a man who is caught in two places at once as a result of the churten. A delight to read. Each word is perfectly placed. Exquisite.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A refreshing change - both for LeGuin and SF in general.,
By Alex - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (Mass Market Paperback)
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. |
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