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The Birthday Of The World and Other Stories (Gollancz S.F.) | 
 enlarge | Author: Ursula Le Guin
Publisher: Gollancz
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £2.19
You Save: £4.80 (69%)
New (24) Used (21) Collectible (1) from £0.78
Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 342109
Media: Paperback
Edition: New Ed
Pages: 362
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 0575075392
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780575075399
ASIN: 0575075392
Publication Date: January 8, 2004
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.co.uk Review
Ursula Le Guin's latest title, The Birthday of the World, is her first short story collection since The Wind's Twelve Quarters (available in the Gollancz yellow jacket edition) and one of the most essential SF short story volumes published in many a while. Long-time fans of Le Guin will be delighted that several of the pieces are set in the already superbly realised worlds of her Hainish cycle, and there is a brand new novella called Paradises Lost. This is the SF of ideas, a lyrical, organic collection that explores visions of worlds where women outnumber men, where there exist societies without order and lands where sex is not determined at birth, but people slip between genders at a whim and are neither male nor female in between. While the word controversial doesn't really do it justice, the stories and the ideas Le Guin presents are certainly challenging to say the least, and she has some interesting ideas on the evolution of society and our own place in it. All in all a daring and bold collection, breathtaking and beautiful, that confirms why Le Guin is one of the genre's most celebrated writers. --Jon Snow
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| Customer Reviews:
Enchanting and thought-provoking September 29, 2004
salenku (england)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was the first Le Guin I read - although it encouraged me to read much more of her work - and I thought it was wonderful. The stories all share the themes of gender division and of political/social division, and this serves to create a unified thread running through the book, so that ideas produced in one story recur or develop in another. However, at the same time, each story stands on its own and has its own unique feel to it. The title story is quite a simple, feelgood little tale, for instance, whereas parts of 'Paradises Lost' are genuinely chilling. I thought the one piece that really stood out in this collection was the one entitled 'Solitude', which is written from the perspective of a female child brought up in a 'society' that has rejected social ties in favour of, as the title suggests, solitude. It is a weird and wonderful story, and I think it's is one of Le Guin's best.
wonderful,thought provoking sci-fi June 11, 2004
as in "the winds twelve quarters", the stories in this collection are at once genuinely alien yet wonderfully humane.these stories are as much philosophy as sci-fi, Le Guins main interest being the nature of sexuality and gender- so don't expect ray guns or space battles.Don't let this turn you off however as Ms. Le Guin is above all a great storyteller.
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