Le Guin

So, I've been trying to not buy anymore books. It's not that I'm worried about the cost or anything. It's just that I recently organized my books, and bought a new bookshelf so I could actually see all of them. And I realized that there are tons of that I haven't read. Needing something to read during lunch at work, I grabbed "The Birthday of the World" off my shelf. I'd started it at one point, and it's a collection of science fiction short stories, so I was able to pick it up and just make sure I was at the beginning of a story. Perfect lunch reading. I had forgotten how absolutely incredible LeGuin's writing is. I of course read the Earthsea books fairly early on. Most fantasy readers I know did the same. As I was reading this book, though, I was just constantly amazed at her world building skills. She makes the familiar seem strange. She makes the alien seem familiar. These stories are almost all of different cultures colliding, or how one person reacts when immersed in a different environment, or of how our perception of what is real and right can shift depending on our circumstances (or all of the above). These are all my favorite sorts of things (which is why Sheri S. Tepper is my favorite author -- it's a favorite subject of hers as well) and I knew that LeGuin wrote about these things, but I suppose it never really hit me until I was reading Birthday. So what did I do when I was done with Birthday? I went right out and picked up "Changing Planes" which is LeGuin's newest book, another collection of shorts where multiple worlds and cultures are viewed through a very human (Earth human) lens. And it's turning out to be just as excellent. Technorati Tags: Books Fantasy Literature Le Guin