This is the second short story collection I've read from Ursula K. Le Guin and this is like the sci-fi speculative fiction story book of all time to me. My favorite fiction from Le Guin from sampling from the previous short story book I read -- "The Wind's Twelve Quarters" and with this book... I find her speculative scifi the most compelling. I feel like after reading all these stories relating to the Hainish Cycle Canon, I will likely really enjoy that series 😂 I must stress that the genres are all strictly speculative SF b/c of the Hainish Cycle Stories dominating this and that there's a prevalent emphasis on society and how the setting shapes the culture and vice versa. There's grand explorations of gender, sexuality, relationships, love, social hierarchy, religion, information, communication, and war. I find most stories can be explicitly dealing with heavy topics -- Sexual Assault and Violence are liberally mentioned and happens in these stories. So read with caution as I did not know going in. If you are in the head space to read this and these topics interest you, this may be the short story collection for you!

This will be a long review like for "The Wind's Twelve Quarters". Most short stories in this book (total of 8) are minimum 33 pages (ebook) aka longer than some of the past book collection I read being as little as 12 pages. In this way, these stories were more dense and thoughtful than the ones scattered throughout "The Wind's Twelve Quarters". Most of these stories are fully conceptualized compared to some of the snippet of stories I read previously to my absolute delight! My average overall rating for all 8 stories after rating each one was 4.97 which i naturally rounded up to 5 stars. Naturally, so if I rated 5/8 of them 5 stars. The 5 Stars being: **- The Matter of Seggri

• Mountain Ways
• Solitude
• The Birthday of World
• Paradises Lost**

The 3 standouts without 5 stars are the following w/ why... (usually tdlr; not as fully developed and as deeply explored and complete as a narrative. for all 3 in its own way.)

• Coming of Age in Karhide - it's a short story from the world of Gethen (the book The Left Hand of Darkness)... wonderful view UNobscured by Genly Ai -- alien. However, just a snippet of life which is realistic, but it's not a full story entirely even if it does very much focus true to the name "coming of age in Karhide". It does was it needs flawlessly and it titillates... That's all. I simply wanted more, leaving me wanting given there is a greater context story that exists. Rating it alone leaves room for more (4.86) even though it is in itself complex and fantastic.
• Un Chosen Love - same problem as above and it's focused on a different planet (Planet O which also is the setting of Mountain Ways). It's a simpler plot surrounding a culture that has enforced polygamy of mixed gender & "ethnicity" couples which plays where one is forced to move into the different culture's land to be with the one he loves but feeling ostracized and making peace with it. It focuses on a very simple plot and kinda doesn't address all the issues with a sort of happy ending that didn't satisfy me entirely when it comes to the complexity she is able to work in usually!
• Old Music & the Slave Women - it's an experience piece that draws on the American Civil War but in a foreign planet that includes the Hainish's meddling or lack of meddling both simultaneously. When it comes to experience pieces, it gives a snippet vibe. It was an immersive and painful piece, but man. Me when I want more!!!

All the 5 Star stories have a hand with the Hainish EXCEPT Paradises Lost. It is encapsulated in it's own amazing close up look into living on an intergenerational ship that was such a way to end off the entire collection. These stories overall has really reframed certain concepts to me that already exist like the "intergenerational ship to a faraway planet" type of trope. I know it's been done, but the way Le Guin does it focuses on philosophy and psychology of the passengers and what happens when they do arrive in specific circumstances which surprised me. The Birthday of World resembled other stories with centralized religion that's ritualistic and doomed to fall, but with a scifi twist and the DETAILS of their rich inner life in this religion and experiencing the breakdown of it was EVERYTHING.

Matter of Seggri & Mountain Ways (Planet O) and Solitude (Eleven-Soro) talk of gender structures very heavily. The separation of genders oftentimes PHYSICALLY and the separation by gender roles and expectations. She plays with these in vastly 4-5 different ways. In Matter of Seggri alone, she has like 3-4 narratives because they come with at least 3 different perspectives to give a full view of a "simple concept" of women and men live separately in a world where men are coveted as a low population gender. Women are in charge and both monitor and fawn over the men who enact toxic masculinity in the act of natural selection. It is less than simple when visitors are caught up in it and their world opens up to worlds that don't live like them. Society being a cage and being ripped out of them are such amazing and prominent themes Le Guin is able to cultivate over and over in a fresh and jarring way each time in this book and with the abundance of context which is huge for her, I was not really lost in these stories... like the other shorter snippet ones I've read that felt more conceptual / experimental than whole. These all felt even the non-5 star short stories as stories that have been ruminated and given time to marinate and flower.

Besides gender, the exploration of sexuality and openness of what is known as "queerness" here is the norm for most of these worlds. Same sex relationships are oftentimes of little consequence or natural/expected. The bigger picture is specific circumstances and loopholes and complications by tradition and expectation that even overcoming homophobia cannot overcome (if it ever even existed in that society).

Sorry for any run on sentences, but man... I've been finishing the rest of Paradises Lost since like 6 am because of my intrigue!! This book has my heart absolutely and I would need to go back and reread and note quotes one day. I hope anyone reading this far got something from this! Thank you!!