 First edition | |
| Author | Ursula K. Le Guin |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Science fiction |
| Publisher | Harper Prism |
Publication date | 1994 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| Pages | 191 |
| ISBN | 0-06-105200-0 |
| OCLC | 30895953 |
| 813/.54 20 | |
| LC Class | PS3562.E42 F57 1994 |
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a 1994 collection of short stories and novellas by the American author Ursula K. Le Guin. The collection was second in the 1995 Locus Award poll in the collection category. [1]
The collection comprises eight works:
"The Ascent of the North Face" is a story written by Ursula K. Le Guin. The story is mock-heroic in character. Told in the style of Victorian Boys Own Ripping Yarns, the joke is in the fact the north face is not of some Himalayan mountain being scaled by westerners but Indian climbers and that the north face refers to the north face of a suburban house in Portland Oregon near where Le Guin lived.
"The First Contact with the Gorgonids" is a running joke within Le Guin's work. The stand-alone story is set in present-day Australia, and depicts an arrogant but stupid American man and his downtrodden wife. This strongly feminist story has the couple make contact with aliens who the husband mistakes for Australian Aboriginals. The resulting farce sees the husband put in his place and for the triumphant wife the spoils of the encounter.
In a postcataclysmic earth, society is rebuilt on an orbiting space station in the form of a new Utopia ruled by an elect group of scientists who have established reason as the guiding principle. The story tells of the conflict that arises when a resurgent religion begins.
"The Shobies' Story" is set in Le Guin's Hainish universe, and follows the protagonists of the first successful jump to a planet using Churten theory. They discover that their experience and memories of the planet are radically different. This matters because Churten theory is more philosophical than scientific. The dissonance between their perceptions of the planets creates massive existential rifts in the fabric of space and time. The story tells of the protagonist attempt to reconcile their perceptions of what happened and mend the rift.
"Dancing to Ganam" is a story written by Le Guin in 1993. The story is set in the Hainish universe, and forms a sequel to "The Shobies' Story" of the same series.
Two humans (Shan and Tai) from a far future Earth, have arrived on the fictional planet Hain, heroes due to their being crew members of the first faster-than-light space flight, depicted in "The Shobies' Story". When they arrive, another Earth human called Dalzul has also arrived. Dalzul is charismatic and diplomatic and known for having saved thousands of children. He has just flown the same faster than light technology to a new planet but without the "distortions" of reality found in "The Shobies Story". When he arrived he found a planet called Ganam, an isolated world inhabited by pre-industrial humans.
Dalzul suggests that they join him on a return flight, Tai declines and Shan accepts. He suggests that during the flight they sing together to synchronize their perceptions of the flight, and this strategy seems to be successful. When they arrive they are honored and Dalzul is treated as a god-king. The longer they stay on the planet however, the more the crew find dissonances in reality causing confusion and uncertainty.
Dalzul is treated as a god and is taken to a ceremony he perceives to be a coronation but at which he is a sacrifice. It turns out that although their flight was successfully without distortions in the perception that plagued the Shobies' flight, Dalzul's ego had shaped his perception of Ganam culture away from reality.
"Another Story or A Fisherman of the Inland Sea" was written by Le Guin in 1994, and is set in the Hainish universe. The title is a reference to the legend of Urashima Tarō, which is described in the story.
The plot follows a scientist from the fictional planet O who turns his back on the quiet rural life of his planet to join in the development of a faster than light technology called Churten Theory. To do this he leaves for another planet called Hain, a journey that will take a long time and as a result he must say goodbye to everyone and everything he has ever known.
When he arrives there is a message waiting for him which he does not read because it is too garbled. Gripped with a great remorse for what he has left he pours himself into his work and manages to make a massive leap in the understanding of Churten theory, but which unintentionally transports him back to the time and place that he left his home. There he re-establishes his life and relationships that he left behind and lives out his life in his home world. Many years in the future, on the day he would arrive in Hain he sends a message to himself, the garbled message he himself received so many years ago. That message is the story of his life and is itself the content of the story we are reading.
Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was an American author best known for her works of speculative fiction, including science fiction works set in her Hainish universe, and the Earthsea fantasy series. She was first published in 1959, and her literary career spanned nearly sixty years, producing more than twenty novels and over a hundred short stories, in addition to poetry, literary criticism, translations, and children's books. Frequently described as an author of science fiction, Le Guin has also been called a "major voice in American Letters". Le Guin said she would prefer to be known as an "American novelist".
The Dispossessed is a 1974 anarchist utopian science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, one of her seven Hainish Cycle novels. It is one of a small number of books to win the Hugo, Locus and Nebulas Awards for Best Novel. It achieved a degree of literary recognition unusual for science fiction due to its exploration of themes such as anarchism and revolutionary societies, capitalism, utopia, and individualism and collectivism.
The Hainish Cycle consists of a number of science fiction novels and stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. It is set in a future history in which civilizations of human beings on planets orbiting a number of nearby stars, including Terra ("Earth"), are contacting each other for the first time and establishing diplomatic relations, setting up a confederacy under the guidance of the oldest of the human worlds, peaceful Hain. In this history, human beings did not evolve on Earth but were the result of interstellar colonies planted by Hain long ago, which was followed by a long period when interstellar travel ceased. Some of the races have new genetic traits, a result of ancient Hainish experiments in genetic engineering, including people who can dream while awake, and a world of androgynous people who only come into active sexuality once a month, not knowing which sex will manifest in them. In keeping with Le Guin's style, she uses varied social and environmental settings to explore the anthropological and sociological outcomes of human evolution in those diverse environments.
Rocannon's World is a science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, her literary debut. It was published in 1966 as an Ace Double, along with Avram Davidson's The Kar-Chee Reign, following the tête-bêche format. Though it is one of Le Guin's many works set in the universe of the technological Hainish Cycle, the story itself has many elements of heroic fantasy. The hero Gaveral Rocannon encounters lords who live in castles and wield swords, and other races much like fairies and gnomes, in his travels on a backward planet.
Tales from Earthsea is a collection of fantasy stories and essays by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, published by Harcourt in 2001. It accompanies five novels set in the fictional archipelago Earthsea.
Planet of Exile is a 1966 science fiction novel by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, part of her Hainish Cycle. It was first published as an Ace Double following the tête-bêche format, bundled with Mankind Under the Leash by Thomas M. Disch. In 2017, the rights for a movie were acquired by Los Angeles Media Fund.
Four Ways to Forgiveness is a collection of four short stories and novellas by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. All four stories are set in the future and deal with the planets Yeowe and Werel, both members of the Ekumen, a collective of planets used by Le Guin as part of the background for many novels and short stories in her Hainish Cycle. In 2017 it was reissued in the second volume of Hainish Novels & Stories and as an e-book, augmented with a fifth related story by Le Guin, as Five Ways to Forgiveness.
The Word for World Is Forest is a science fiction novella by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the United States in 1972 as a part of the anthology Again, Dangerous Visions, and published as a separate book in 1976 by Berkley Books. It is part of Le Guin's Hainish Cycle.
The Telling is a 2000 science fiction novel by Ursula K. Le Guin set in her fictional universe of Hainish Cycle. The Telling is Le Guin's first follow-up novel set in the Hainish Cycle since her 1974 novel The Dispossessed. It tells the story of Sutty, a Terran sent to be an Ekumen observer, on the planet Aka, and her experiences of political and religious conflicts between a corporatist government and the indigenous resistance, which is centered on the traditions of storytelling, locally referred to as "the Telling".
Changing Planes is a 2003 collection of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. Each chapter describes a different world and the society that inhabits it; these societies share similarities to Earth's cultures in some respects, but may be notably dissimilar in other respects. Many of the chapters are brief vignettes or ethnographic profiles of the societies they describe.
"A Man of the People" is one of four connected short stories in Ursula K. Le Guin's Four Ways to Forgiveness. It details the early life, training with the Ekumenical Envoy service, and activities on Yeowe and Werel of Mattinyehedarheddyuragamuruskets Havzhiva, nicknamed "Zhiv", a native of the planet Hain. It contains Le Guin's most extensive description of Hain's environment and culture in her work.
"The Shobies' Story" is a 1990 science fiction novella by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, describing the story of the first human crew to participate in a newly invented faster-than-light mode of space travel. It was first published in the anthology Universe 1 and subsequently appeared in A Fisherman of the Inland Sea published by Harper Prism in 1994.
The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by U.S. writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Published in 1969, it became immensely popular, and established Le Guin's status as a major author of science fiction. The novel is set in the fictional Hainish universe as part of the Hainish Cycle, a series of novels and short stories by Le Guin, which she introduced in the 1964 short story "The Dowry of Angyar". It was fourth in sequence of writing among the Hainish novels, preceded by City of Illusions, and followed by The Word for World Is Forest.
"The Matter of Seggri" is a science fiction novelette by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. It was first published in 1994 in the third issue of Crank!, a science fiction – fantasy anthology, and has since been printed in number of other publications. In 2002, it was published in Le Guin's collection of short stories The Birthday of the World: and Other Stories. "The Matter of Seggri" won the James Tiptree Jr. Award in 1994 for exploring "gender-bending" and has been nominated for other honors including the Nebula Award.
"Coming of Age in Karhide" is a science fiction short story by Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1995. The story is set on the fictional planet of Gethen, the same as Le Guin's 1969 novel The Left Hand of Darkness, and is a part of Le Guin's Hainish cycle. The story explores themes of growing into adulthood on a planet where individuals have no fixed gender identity. Reviewers stated that the story went further than Left Hand in its exploration of gender and sexuality, and was a "quietly feminist" work. It was also described as lacking the "dizzying impact" of Left Hand. In 2002, it was anthologized in the volume The Birthday of the World, along with many other stories exploring marriage and sexual relationships.
"Vaster than Empires and More Slow" is a science fiction story by American author Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in the collection New Dimensions 1, edited by Robert Silverberg. It is set in the fictional Hainish universe, where Earth is a member of an interstellar "League of Worlds". The anthology was released in United States in 1971, by Doubleday Books.
"The Dowry of Angyar" is a science fiction short story by American writer Ursula K. Le Guin, first published in 1964. It is the first work of the Hainish Cycle. The story is set on a fictional planet of the star Fomalhaut, and follows a highborn woman as she tries to track down a family heirloom. It was framed by commentary from ethnologists studying the intelligent life-forms of the Fomalhaut system. The story drew from Norse mythology, and explored the concept of time dilation. "The Dowry of Angyar" drew comments for its stylistic devices, while a review praised Le Guin's writing as "crystalline prose". It was later used as the prologue to Le Guin's 1966 novel Rocannon's World. In later publications, the story was given the title "Semley's Necklace".
Paradises Lost is a science fiction novella by American author Ursula K. Le Guin. It was first published in 2002 as a part of the collection The Birthday of the World. It is set during a multigenerational voyage from Earth to a potentially habitable planet. The protagonists, Liu Hsing and Nova Luis, are members of the fifth generation born on the ship. The story follows them as they deal with members of religious cult who do not believe in the ship stopping at its intended destination. They also face a crisis brought on by a drastic change in the ship's schedule. The novella has since been anthologized as well as adapted into an opera of the same name.
Universe 1 is an anthology of original science fiction short stories edited by American writers Robert Silverberg and Karen Haber, the first volume in a series of three, continuing an earlier series of the same name edited by Terry Carr. It was first published in hardcover and trade paperback by Doubleday Foundation in June 1990. A standard paperback edition was issued by Bantam Spectra in April 1991.
"Old Music and the Slave Women" is a science fiction story by Ursula K. Le Guin. It was first published in the 1999 collection Far Horizons, edited by Robert Silverberg, and anthologized multiple times in collections of Le Guin's works. The story is set on the planet of Werel in the fictional Hainish universe, created by Le Guin. That planetary system is also the setting for Le Guin's 1995 story suite Four Ways to Forgiveness. The economy of Werel is based on slavery, and during the period in which the stories are set, the society is experiencing upheaval and revolution.
