A Fisherman of the Inland Sea is a collection of eight of Ursula Le Guin's short stories, originally published between the early 1980s and early 1990s. The first five stories are all standalones; two short humorous stories ('The First Contact with the Gorgonids' and 'The Ascent of the North Face'), two longer, more thoughful stories ('Newton's Sleep' and 'The Rock that Changed Things') and one short but serious vignette ('The Kerastion'). I enjoyed all of these, particularly 'Newton's Sleep', but the real meat of the collection is the final three stories, which are all set in Le Guin's Hainish continuity and centre round the development of the instantaneous-travel "churten" drive. Le Guin being Le Guin, the technology may be the reason for the stories but it's never their focus; the stories are about the intersection of different cultures, about communication and the lack of communication, about the narratives we choose to make of our lives and how those intersect with the narratives of other people's lives (and what happens when they don't), and about how the things we think we want aren't always the things that will make us happy. Le Guin's writing is always beautiful, of course, and although this collection probably doesn't attain the heights of The Wind's Twelve Quarters or The Compass Rose, it was still a delight to read.