The First Contact with the Gorgonids : She has got the dynamic of the sexist, racist jerk and the woman who's grown up in an oppressive society and performs traditional femininity but really isn't so stupid as she lets men believe down to perfection. An ending fuelled by incandescent rage.

Newton's Sleep : This is a rather bleak and depressing tale... Ike is a man who is deeply afraid and clings to rationality to deal with his existential worries. He has led his family onto a space station that was created to escape a disastrous earth by a community of elite, extremely intelligent and rational people. Except things begin to go wrong in a way Ike can't understand. I was there for the ideas and the unflinching description of some horrible attitudes that exist in our society, but the ending left me completely puzzled. Usually Le Guin is one of the only authors who can give me a vague, open ending that I can still understand and feel closure with. Here though I really can't work out what happened

except possibly Ike just went mad? But somehow that doesn't feel like enough to give meaning to all the rest.

so clearly this flew over my head.

The Ascent of the North Face : This is extremely short and more of a joke than anything else. It's funny but not in a giggle or belly laugh way, more in an absurd, slightly silly kind of way. Not very memorable.

The Rock That Changed Things : Aah, this one I liked. Set in a strange, completely different world, with a dominant and an oppressed class, with a society centred around patterns of stones. But what happens when one of the oppressed finds the perfect stone for her pattern? This one was SO alien and yet enchanting.

The Kerastion : This one is so very short, set in a rigid, ritualistic society with castes and taboos. It deals with art and music too. I found it to be very bleak and hopeless, what a truly dreadful society.

The Shobies' Story (Hainish) : Another story with a lot of interpersonal relationships between the crew, leading to a bizarre and chillingly absurd situation. It was strangely heartwarming to see Gethenians and Annaresti again.

Dancing to Ganam (Hainish) : Very layered story with that subtle sense of wrongness and dread Le Guin creates so well. I love how it showed the very different perspectives of the members of the team. A subtle sendoff of a certain kind of entitled, sexist hero complex type of character. I predicted the ending and yet it was very impacting anyway.

A Fisherman of the Inland Sea (Hainish) : Strange tangled story of an oblivious, slightly too self involved but well intentioned man who almost wrecks his life. An ode to home and family with a fascinating marriage system. An old Japanese tale, churten, long distance travel and time weirdness.

This collection felt more disparate and choppy than The Wind's Twelve Quarters. There are four great stories, three that are all right but missing that spark of absolute brilliance, and one completely forgettable. It's mostly worth it for the Hainish stories and the Rock one.