Changing Planes: Stories

A fantastical travel guide, reminiscent of Gulliver's Travels, from a narrator with the eye of an anthropologist and the humor of a satirist.

Ursula K. Le Guin is at her entertaining, thought-provoking best in this collection of ingeniously linked stories.

Missing a flight, waiting in an airport, listening to garbled announcements—who doesn't hate that misery? But Sita Dulip of Cincinnati finds a way to bypass the long lines, the crowded restrooms, the nasty food, the whimpering children and domineering parents, the bookless bookstores, the plastic chairs bolted to the floor.

With a kind of twist and a slipping bend, easier to do than to describe, Sita travels not to Denver but to Strupsirts, a picturesque region of waterspouts and volcanoes. Or to Djeyo, where she can stay for two nights with a balcony overlooking the amber Sea of Somue. This new method of changing planes enables Sita to visit bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own and sometimes open doors into the thrillingly alien.

Changing Planes is your boarding pass to fifteen worlds that are vintage Le Guin, from a recipient of the PEN/Malamud Award for excellence in the art of the short story.