Orsinian tales Book

Ursula has mastered me again.

This collection, set mostly in the troubled, fictional Eastern-European country of Orsinia during the early-mid 1900s, is rife with the political philosophy that make Le Guin's work so thematically poignant; yet it's told with such attention to characters, depicted with such a sparse brush, that the reading experience is something like wandering through an art gallery.

Almost entirely absent are elements of science fiction or fantasy, making this the perfect collection to introduce someone otherwise wary of those genres to Le Guin's writing. Meanwhile, the rest of us may simply find it a refreshing return to earth.