Compass Rose and Other Stories

One describes how a tyrannical bureaucracy gets undone by mysteriously rising sea levels "The New Atlantis" and another delves into the secret diary of a lab technician whose job of probing mental patients' minds secretly aids a despotic government "The Diary of the Rose".

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Others are more lighthearted. But no sooner do you acquaint yourself with the futuristic tack than Le Guin swings you in fantastic and speculative directions. And finally, lest we become too comfortable with genre, The Compass Rose leads to literary pieces, too.

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Two men ponder relatives' deaths with radically different results "Two Delays on the Northern Line". A theoretical physicist loses his mind trying to quantify the number of the earth's dead "The Water Is Wide". And an exploratory group composed entirely of South American women becomes the first expedition to reach the South Pole in "Sur".

Compass Rose

More impressive than Le Guin's range of vision is the skill with which she executes almost every story. That very range becomes both the collection's bane and blessing. The wildness of subject matter almost guarantees that many won't be to your liking -- and that a few may find your heart's true North. Over the years I have always thought of Ursula Le Guin as a very brave and non-conforming sort of person.

I have kept her photograph on my wall for the last 15 years. The reason for my admiration was that I felt and feel that she is a writer of major talent who decided to enter the field of science fiction and get labelled as a "sci-fi writer" when she could have won many honors and perhaps a more lasting place in history in mainstream literature.

Her works do not cater to the broad popular tastes in fiction, but such novels as "The Left Hand of Darkness", "The Lathe of Heaven", "The Dispossessed" and "Always Coming Home" plus her works of juvenile fiction and collections of short stories add up to a body of spectacularly well-written material that is denied its place in the annals of American literature by the peculiar prejudice that segregates certain kinds of fiction into closed cells.

I read most of Le Guin's books as soon as they hit the shelves, long ago, before science fiction became reality with the Internet and Amazon. I must say that it was largely disappointing.

In general, Le Guin is at her best when she creates new worlds or postulates possible futures. Her blend of anthropology and fiction has always thrilled me. As she moves away from that, into more general fiction on the contemporary world, unless she crafts the story carefully, as with "Two Delays on the Northern Line"--a real gem--she loses her edge.

Her stories become filled with sunshine, conversing rocks, and whispering leaves, but without much punch. Half a dozen are up to her fine standard, others-perhaps the humorous pieces-may please many readers, but a few probably should have been kept in the drawer. Though if I had written them, I would have been quite proud, no doubt.

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Dreams of the Compass Rose is a story-cycle in which we keep coming back to the same characters, except from different viewpoints and different times in their lives. Some of the stories are brutal, some are like dreams. It reminded me of those wonderful, dream-laden story-cycles that Clark Ashton Smith and Lord Dunsany were writing around the turn of the last century. Dreams of the Compass Rose has a similar stately lyricism, a compelling and visionary voice that speaks to the heart of the reader.

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Fancher , Author of Dance of the Rings. What she does in Dreams of the Compass Rose is use both old threads and new to weave fresh myths — and vigorous myths at that: It is rare these days to find a high fantasy that is more than a rehashing of tired themes. Dreams of the Compass Rose is one of those rarities — and a rarity to be treasured. This book breathes the true stuff of fantasy. Dreams of the Compass Rose original edition website.

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Learn how your comment data is processed. Vera Nazarian immigrated to the USA from the former USSR as a kid, sold her first story at the age of 17, and since then has published numerous works in anthologies and magazines, and has been translated into eight languages. After many years in Los Angeles, Vera lives in a small town in Vermont, and uses her Armenian sense of humor and her Russian sense of suffering to bake conflicted pirozhki and make art.

A young woman whose career is in free fall in the aftermath of a love affair. Human fallibility and resilience unfold against various Scottish backgrounds including the city of Edinburgh, a square rigger bound for the Hebrides, and the wild majesty of the Scottish Highlands. Electronic book text ISBN Review This Product No reviews yet - be the first to create one!

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