Le Guin, Ursula K. - Changing Planes
Fri, Dec. 31st, 2004 04:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
oyceterI got this at the airport because several people mentioned it in the airport post. I got quite a few kicks out of reading it at the airport and on the airplane because I am very easily amused.
The book is more a collection of short stories centered around the conceit that Sita Dulip has found a method of travelling between planes of existence while at the airport (ergo the title), and each story is about a particular planar society that the author has visited. I'm not quite sure if we're supposed to think of it as Le Guin herself visiting each plane or some other unnamed POV character, but the consistent first-person narrative throughout the short stories is interesting.
I didn't like it so much as a storybook, but as a travel guide, it's terrific. Ace has the label "fantasy" on the back, but it feels much more like sci-fi to me, mostly because of the tone. There is no real narrative structure to the book; instead, Le Guin focuses on aspects of each society and writes like an anthropologist.
My favorite societies included Gy, in which some people sprout often life-threatening wings; the Island of the Immortals, which is chilling and perfectly fits in the way good sci-fi does; the plane of the Hennebet, which has an interesting concept of self and identity; and the plane of the Ansarac, who migrate.
Le Guin also has a biting description of airports that is so very, very true.
The book is more a collection of short stories centered around the conceit that Sita Dulip has found a method of travelling between planes of existence while at the airport (ergo the title), and each story is about a particular planar society that the author has visited. I'm not quite sure if we're supposed to think of it as Le Guin herself visiting each plane or some other unnamed POV character, but the consistent first-person narrative throughout the short stories is interesting.
I didn't like it so much as a storybook, but as a travel guide, it's terrific. Ace has the label "fantasy" on the back, but it feels much more like sci-fi to me, mostly because of the tone. There is no real narrative structure to the book; instead, Le Guin focuses on aspects of each society and writes like an anthropologist.
My favorite societies included Gy, in which some people sprout often life-threatening wings; the Island of the Immortals, which is chilling and perfectly fits in the way good sci-fi does; the plane of the Hennebet, which has an interesting concept of self and identity; and the plane of the Ansarac, who migrate.
Le Guin also has a biting description of airports that is so very, very true.
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