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Changing Planes

Stories

By Ursula K. Le Guin

(17)

| Hardcover | 9780151009718

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Book Description

"Then came a child trotting to school with his little backpack. He trotted on all fours, neatly, his hands in leather mitts or boots that protected them from the pavement; he was pale, with small eyes, and a snout, but he was adorable."
--from Changing Planes

The misery of waiting fContinue

Critics

Changing Planes By Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula K. Le Guin is considered by many observers to be one of our finest science fiction writers, but she is actually so much more. Although her best-known books including The Lathe of Heaven, The Dispossessed and The Left Hand of Darkness have pige ... (read full critics)

bookpage published on Fri, 17 Sep 2010

4 Reviews

1 person find this helpful

Amazing small stories, so different one from another that is hard to believe they were all written by the same writer.
A book that everyone should try, even if they usually don't like scifi.

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Mag said on Jul 30, 2010 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Viaggiare tra i piani

Changing Planes è una raccolta di racconti unita da un filo comune: la scoperta di poter viaggiare su piani diversi dal nostro quando ci si trova nelle sale d'attesa degli aeroporti. Dopo la breve cornice iniziale sulla scoperta del “metodo Sita Dulip”, ogni racconto della raccolta è dedicato a un p ... (continue)

Changing Planes è una raccolta di racconti unita da un filo comune: la scoperta di poter viaggiare su piani diversi dal nostro quando ci si trova nelle sale d'attesa degli aeroporti. Dopo la breve cornice iniziale sulla scoperta del “metodo Sita Dulip”, ogni racconto della raccolta è dedicato a un piano diverso.
Gli stili variano: si va dalla cronaca di viaggio in prima persona, allo pseudo-trattato etnografico, passando per le interviste informali con uno o più nativi del piano. In ogni caso, nei racconti non predomina mai o quasi l’azione; in puro stile LeGuin, si tratta più che altro di un “ideario”, una raccolta di descrizioni di possibili mondi immaginari, che seguono regole o costumi diversi dal nostro. Nel bene e nel male.
Pecca principale: troppa poca fantasia nell'ideazione della maggior parte dei piani, e stile troppo statico.
Leggi la recensione completa su Tapirullanza:
http://tapirullanza.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/i-consigli…

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Tapiroulant said on Jan 1, 2012 | Add your feedback

Changing Planes can be considered Le Guin's version of Gulliver's Travels. Like Swift's utopian satire, a similar satiric vein can be found in all the stories here, especially in "Porridge of Islac" and "Great Joy." Nevertheless, such satiric vein also causes some weak points. It reinforces binary o ... (continue)

Changing Planes can be considered Le Guin's version of Gulliver's Travels. Like Swift's utopian satire, a similar satiric vein can be found in all the stories here, especially in "Porridge of Islac" and "Great Joy." Nevertheless, such satiric vein also causes some weak points. It reinforces binary oppositions--the ones between man and woman, alien and native culture, capitalist and pre-modern life mode--instead of deconstructing them. Therefore, men in the stories tend to be bad and like to make war. Women generally are peace-loving, and become the target of satire only when they are co-opted by the capitalist system (as in "Great Joy.") Perhaps it has to do with the Janus-faced feature of satire to criticize the wrong and indirectly show the right. It's just sometimes the binary oppositions are a bit too simplistic to me. Perhaps the short story form limits Le Guin from developing ideas more provocative and challenging as she does in her other novels.
Aside from the above point, I enjoy reading these stories. While the quality of the stories may differ--some very good and some so-so--in her best stories of this collection, they convey a special kind of grace in describing the culture of the exotic plane. My favorite ones are "The Silence of the Asonu," "Seasons of the Ansarac," "Great Joy" and "The Fliers of Gy."

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yuuyh said on Jun 12, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

I think this would be of more interest to someone particularly interested in anthropology. And fantasy. Basically, this is a book of brief studies of the people of various worlds in a universe full of other worlds.
The only story I was particularly interested by was "The Nna Mmoy Language," w ... (continue)

I think this would be of more interest to someone particularly interested in anthropology. And fantasy. Basically, this is a book of brief studies of the people of various worlds in a universe full of other worlds.
The only story I was particularly interested by was "The Nna Mmoy Language," which described a a bizarre, but fascinating language that I think anyone interested in linguistics would be interested by.

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Hold Your Spin said on Dec 2, 2006 | Add your feedback