The Unreal and the Real: Selected Stories, Volume 1

October 15, 2012
The first of a two-volume collection focuses on stories that are occasionally tinged with magic but remain primarily realistic. Drawing from works already printed in well-known collections, Le Guin looks at lives in such settings as desolate blue-collar towns and the crumbling Soviet empire, often constrained and oppressed, offered promises of liberation betrayed by politics and weakness but not without occasional moments of hope. “Buffalo Gals, Won’t You Come Out Tonight” provides a moment of the fantastic, though it leads only to a bitter denouement. This volume shows that SFWA Grand Master Le Guin can make as great a mark outside genre fiction as she did within it, but her fans will find no exciting rarities or additional critical or biographical material that might make the collection stand out from its predecessors.

December 15, 2012
This two-volume collection contains 41 of the author's personal favorites among her short stories, plus introductions giving some idea of the criteria for selection. The first volume, Where on Earth, employs largely terrestrial settings (although seen through the author's rather original vision); the second, Outer Space, Inner Lands, reaches farther afield in both fantasy and sf. Only Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight and The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas are among the author's well-known classics. On the other hand, read Hand, Cup, Shell or The Matter of Segri. Then consider that there may really be no such thing as minor Le Guin, particularly if one is disposed to savor a command of the English language that remains nearly unequaled in the ranks of English-language sf and fantasy. Equally good as an introduction to the author's short fiction or to fill in gaps that may remain in larger collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)

October 15, 2012
Second of a two-volume set, this bare-bones collection focuses on SFWA Grand Master Le Guin’s overtly fantastic visions. Settings of 20 stories, all previously anthologized, include both the science fictional Ekumen, a community of worlds populated by humans shaped by the hubristic Hain of the distant past, to such fantastical realms as the West Reach, “where dragons breed on the lava isles.” Le Guin’s imagination ranges widely; the most interesting sequence involves the world Seggri, whose gender politics are charmingly different from ours but equally constrained. This short collection, offering samples from across Le Guin’s career to date, shows why she has been a major voice in science fiction and fantasy since the 1960s, but it suffers from lack of a scholarly introduction and other materials that might draw the interest of fans who have encountered these stories elsewhere.