The Birthday of the World: And Other Stories
Ursula K. Le Guin
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0060509066
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, five Hugo Awards and five Nebula Awards, the renowned writer Ursula K. Le Guin has, in each story and novel, created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in The Birthday of the World, this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.
Wong girls and then her mama would be right here in Quadrant Two, that would have been so nice for all of us. But I know you have to do things your way. And I must say even if Hsing is only half Chinese Ancestry nobody would ever know it, and what a beauty she’s getting to be, so I suppose you did know what you were doing, if anyone ever does when it comes to falling in love or having a child, which I doubt. It’s basically luck, is all it is. Young 5-Li has an eye on her, did you notice
To many people the idea of navigation was a little threatening. They explained it by saying that in most jobs you could make a mistake and of course it would cause trouble (any event in a glass bowl is likely to affect everything in the glass bowl), but in jobs like atmosphere control and navigation, a mistake could hurt or even kill people — hurt or kill everybody. All the systems were full of failsafes and backups and redundancies, but there was, notoriously, no way to failsafe navigation. The
back down. “You saw her? You talked with her?” “Twice. I never went back after you told me who she was. I was afraid. . . . Not of her. Only afraid she wouldn’t be there.” “What did she do?” Duun asked softly. “She saved us from drowning,” Hadri said. MOUNTAIN WAYS Note for readers unfamiliar with the planet O: Ki’O society is divided into two halves or moieties, called (for ancient religious reasons) the Morning and the Evening. You belong to your mother’s moiety, and you can’t
a school, a swarm, in and out of our warren of rooms, tearing up and down the staircases, working together and learning together and looking after the babies — in our own fashion — and terrorising quieter hearthmates by our numbers and our noise. As far as I know we did no real harm. Our escapades were well within the rules and limits of the sedate, ancient Hearth, which we felt not as constraints but as protection, the walls that kept us safe. The only time we got punished was when my cousin
be fully coordinated. When I come back, I’ll need to know if you will give us the help I’ve asked you for. Our response will depend largely on that. On your voice. It is known that you’re here in the East Provinces — known to the insurgents, I mean, as well as our people — though your exact location is of course kept hidden for your own safety. It is known that you may be preparing a statement of a change in the Ekumen’s attitude toward the conduct of the civil war. A change that could save