Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin
Illustrated by Eric Beddows
247 pages
Published 2003
Read from March 15 to March 18
Rating: 3 out of 5
I’ve read more books by Le Guin than by any other single author — nineteen as of
So Far So Good. (This one makes twenty.) I’ve read all of her major fantasy novels, all but one of her major sci-fi novels, and two collections of her poetry. Yet somehow I’ve avoided all of her short story collections, even though I often adore her short fiction and I’ve owned a copy of
Tales from Earthsea for years.
Someone on a Discord channel mentioned this book the other day, and by coincidence it was one of the handful of Le Guin titles at my library, so I decided to give it a go. I’m going in knowing nothing about it.
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“Sita Dulip’s Method” (2003). Half thesis statement for the collection, half humorous fictional essay reminiscent of newspaper columnists of yore, this throwaway piece was (Le Guin assures us) written before 9/11, when the main airport concerns were boredom and bad food. A shrug.
“Porridge on Islac” (2003). More of the same here, as our narrator arrives on a plane where genetic engineering became an irresponsible fad, the effects of which still trouble society. You can just tell this was written around the turn of the millennium.
“The Silence of the Asonu” (1998). A more explicitly anthropological yarn, not so much a story as a report on a culture wherein the adults speak only rarely. I enjoyed it, though I confess I didn’t clock whatever allegorical through-line Le Guin intended here. I do, however, begin to grasp something of the conceit of this collection, belatedly: anthropological notes from across the multiverse, each entry keyed into a Le Guinian allegory for life or society.
“Feeling at Home with the Hennebet” (2003). I quite liked this one, in which our narrator (who seems to be Le Guin herself) visits a plane where everyone is a lot like her, except for their conception of self and the universe. Perhaps a reader grounded in Taoist philosophy would be better able to unpack it. As it is, I appreciated that the way the Hennebet perceive themselves was never fully explained.
“The Ire of Veksi” (2003). Another anthropological report instead of a story, this one explores a violent yet somehow largely cooperative culture. An interesting line of thought. Not to be a shallow dork about it, but this could be a good starting point for a barbarian PC’s backstory
“Seasons of the Ansarac” (2002). Quite lovely piece of writing, documenting a culture inspired by migratory ospreys on a world of years-long seasons. Evocative and charming. I liked it.
“Social Dreaming of the Frin” (2003). A fun look at a culture with communal dreaming, and the various ways the inhabitants adapt to, avoid, or avail themselves of the implications.
“The Royals of Hegn” (2000). I read and reviewed this entry along with
the issue of Asimov’s where it was originally published. There I wrote: “It’s a droll, satirical affair set in an island kingdom where the population is so small, and so interrelated, that almost everyone is an aristocrat or king in some way. All of these royals are obsessed with the doings of the single family of inbred commoners.” I gotta say, “Hegn” makes way more sense in the context of this collection than by itself in a magazine.
“Woeful Tales from Mahigul” (2003). Right in the middle of this themed collection of stories is a story that’s a themed collection of micro fiction, a string of thoughtful fables on tyranny, genocide, and war. Stays with you.
“Great Joy” (2003). A satire on the empty consumerism of the Dubya Bush era, as well as the predatory colonialism underpinning tourism. Having begun my own journey toward political awareness around this time, it’s frustrating how the fundamental soullessness of American Christian conservatism was so clearly evident way back when, and has only gotten worse since then. I liked the understated viciousness of the satire, though the faintly paternalistic ending — in which the plane gets liberated by outside authorities — feels particularly dated.
“Wake Island” (2003). A takedown of the turn-of-the-millennium fad for ascribing genius to people who don’t sleep. It could apply equally well to our contemporary fad for eugenicist Silicon Valley assholes, a parallel which isn’t a result of Le Guin’s gift of prophecy but rather due to how predictable and rote the tech entrepreneur “We’re intrinsically better than you” mentality has always been. My quibble with this story is the way it reads like a news-magazine investigative tell-all, never my favorite storytelling voice. We could always use more anti-eugenics writing, though.
“The Nna Mmoy Language” (2003). What begins as a fascinating conceptual piece on linguistic anthropology evolves into a cautionary tale of industrial destruction. I liked it.
“The Building” (2002). Another anthropological piece, this time documenting an ecologically devastated world where two sentient species have evolved a culture of avoiding each other, except for the strange, mysterious work on the Building: the largest single edifice known from any world. Fascinating stuff. (The Building itself would be an amazing artifact to adapt to a Dying Earth story or TTRPG.)
“The Fliers of Gy” (2000). In a world of feathered people, only some few develop wings late in adolescence. I parsed this entry as a sympathetic allegory for neurodivergence, perhaps schizophrenia or something along those lines. Whether I was on the mark or not, it’s an interesting concept, tenderly depicted.
“The Island of the Immortals” (1998). One of the more surreal and haunting pieces I’ve read from Le Guin, in which immortality is a virus spread by a biting fly. I won’t spoil what the effects of immortality are, but this is a solid and memorable story.
“Confusions of Uñi” (2003). As a sort of closing catch-all, this surreal number sees our narrator flit her way across a thoroughly changeable plane. This could have been horribly precious and self-indulgent in less skilled hands, but it was okay here. For all its dream logic, it is perhaps more autobiographical than anything else in this collection.
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And that’s it! Having gone in with no notion of what these stories would be, I was thrown at first by the lack of conventional storytelling — character development, plotting, and so forth. But once the vibe clicked, I mostly enjoyed the anthropological approach. Planes has me excited to read Always Coming Home, the last of Le Guin’s major SFF novels that I’ve yet to read.
