Birthday of the World: And Other Stories

Publishers Weekly

Deeply concerned with gender, these eight stories, although ostensibly about aliens, are all about ourselves: love, sex, life and alienation are all handled with illuminating grace. Le Guin's overarching theme, the journey, informs her characters as they struggle to come to terms with themselves or their worlds. The journey can be literal, as in "Paradises Lost," set on a generational ship, where the inhabitants, living in a utopia, learn they will land on the planet their ancestors set out to colonize 40 years earlier; and as in "Unchosen Love," where a young man falls in love with someone in another country and must decide if he can build a new life in a new place. Or the journey can be figurative, as in "Coming of Age in Karhide," in which an adolescent in a genderless society enters sexual maturity; and in "Solitude," as outsiders visit and study a planet where the men and women live apart and a young woman seeks to perfect her soul in the only place she knows as home. In "The Birthday of the World," the nature of God is considered as hereditary rulers, literal gods to their subjects, give up their power when new gods aliens come, throwing their culture into chaos. Gender is a constant concern: "The Matter of Seggri" takes place on a planet where women greatly outnumber men, and in "Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways," society is based on complex marriage relationships comprising four people. Le Guin handles these difficult topics through her richly drawn characters and her believable worlds. Evocative, richly textured and lyrically written, this collection is a must-read for Le Guin's fans. (Mar. 13) FYI: Winner of five Hugo and five Nebula awards as well as a National Book Award, Le Guin published two major books last year, Tales from Earthsea and The Other Wind. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

VOYA

Le Guin's newest story suite is a collection of thought-provoking, lyrically written tales that further explore the worlds of her writings and the individuals who populate them. Anthropological in tone, these stories delve into relationships between lovers, friends, mothers, and fathers, and propose and answer questions of gender, sexual relations, and the journey through life. The effects of a gender imbalance on a world are contemplated and fascinatingly presented in The Matter of Seggri. The story, told in reports from Ekumen visitors and through the literature of the Seggri people themselves, focuses on the ramifications of a society in which women greatly outnumber the men and hold all the power. Gender plays an equally important role in the first story, Coming of Age in Karhide, which takes place on Gethen and chronicles a youth's first sexual experience. The remaining stories continue with the same themes and perfectly complete the collection. Exquisite examples of excellent storytelling, these tales will engage most mature readers. Although the frank sexual content might not fit in high school libraries or some public library young adult fiction collections, there is much to interest teens within these pages. Fans of Le Guin's other works will no doubt enjoy this book, as will sophisticated teens who appreciate well-written fiction. VOYA Codes: 5Q 4P S A/YA (Hard to imagine it being any better written; Broad general YA appeal; Senior High, defined as grades 10 to 12; Adult and Young Adult). 2002, HarperCollins, 362p,
— Blayne Tuttle Borden

Library Journal

From a tale of a youth's sensual and bittersweet initiation into the world of adults on the planet Gethen ("Coming of Age in Karhide") to a story of a child's spiritual and political journey into womanhood ("The Birthday of the World"), this collection of eight short works, including a never-before-published novella, "Paradises Lost," reflects the storytelling expertise of one of the genre's most intelligent and courageous authors. Le Guin grapples with gender roles, religion, politics, and social concerns in prose at once luminous and graphic, tender and incisive, never backing down from difficult situations or selling her audience short. A good choice for sf collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/01.] Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

New Yorker

Le Guin made her name as a writer of science fiction and fantasy, but -- like John le Carré's spy novels, or Larry McMurtry's Westerns -- her work transcends the usual limitations of the genre, and this collection is no exception. Some of the imagined worlds here are ancient civilizations governed by sun or sea, and some are highly controlled, synthetic environments floating through space, but all of them offer a stimulating counterpoint to the way we live now. Le Guin appears to have the most fun with her investigations of sex and gender -- the ghettoization of men on Seggri, the elaborate marital quartets on the Planet O -- but the costs of revolution, religious bliss, and technology are also provocatively explored, and one returns to the current headlines with a fresh awareness of the exotic, provisional nature of human arrangements.

Kirkus Reviews

Eight stories, including seven reprints and a never-before-published novella, by the masterful Le Guin (The Telling, 2000, etc.), who has racked some SF and fantasy classics onto her shelf since receiving her first rejection slip, at age 11, from Amazing Stories. The first six tales take place on the world of Ekumen: "Coming of Age in Karhide" spells out societal differences among the androgynes that confused Le Guin 36 years ago when they arrived piecemeal into her imagination for The Left Hand of Darkness. "The Matter of Seggri" gathers documents by the Historians of Hain about Earth's Seggri society and turns on the killing of female fetuses and babies. The amusing "Unchosen Love" and "Mountain Ways" are set on a world near Hain. The standout, charmingly limpid title story tells of the daughters of God and the infant Tazu, who will be four tomorrow on "The Birthday of the World" (see The Year's Best Science Fiction 2001). In the wry "Solitude," an ethnologist's daughter discusses gender, sexuality, and the lack of marriages among introverted people of Hainish descent who survive a gigantic population crash. "Old Music and the Slave Women" connects with four stories in Four Ways to Forgiveness (1995), chronicling a revolution in the slave-based social economy on the planets Werel and Yeowe. Longest by far, the blissful novella "Paradises Lost," written for this collection, tells of a generation of 4,000 space-voyagers aboard the ship Discovery. Their parents, born earlier on that paradisiacal dirtball Earth, did not live to see New Earth, the planet the ship sails toward; perhaps only their grandchildren will. And these new Adams and Eves, upon arrival at New Earth, must of course startnaming things before innocence fades. Pure starlight.