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Ursula K. Le Guin

Orsinian Tales Mass Market Paperback – June 4, 1991

by Ursula K. Le Guin (Author)

4.3 72 ratings

Part of: Orsinia (2 books)

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The universal need for human freedom and love and the horrors of government oppression are recurring themes in this collected short fiction

Part of series

Orsinia
Print length

224 pages
Language

English
Publisher

HarperTorch
Publication date

June 4, 1991
Dimensions

4.25 x 0.75 x 6.75 inches
ISBN-10

0061001821
ISBN-13

978-0061001826
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ HarperTorch (June 4, 1991)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Mass Market Paperback ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0061001821
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0061001826
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 4.25 x 0.75 x 6.75 inches

Customer Reviews:
4.3 72 ratings

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Ursula K. Le Guin

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Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (US /ˈɜːrsələ ˈkroʊbər ləˈɡwɪn/; born October 21, 1929) is an American author of novels, children's books, and short stories, mainly in the genres of fantasy and science fiction. She has also written poetry and essays. First published in the 1960s, her work has often depicted futuristic or imaginary alternative worlds in politics, the natural environment, gender, religion, sexuality and ethnography.

She influenced such Booker Prize winners and other writers as Salman Rushdie and David Mitchell – and notable science fiction and fantasy writers including Neil Gaiman and Iain Banks. She has won the Hugo Award, Nebula Award, Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, each more than once. In 2014, she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. Le Guin has resided in Portland, Oregon since 1959.

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Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5

72 global ratings

5 star		63%
4 star		17%
3 star		11%
2 star		5%
1 star		4%

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Strange tales by an elegant writer

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 13, 2020

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The stories are of a fictional Italianate kingdom Orsinia (Venice? Florence? Naples?) and go by dates throughout the centuries. The struggles of the times are sketched in tiny tales. These tales a carved like exquisite Japanese netsuke, each a polished gem and a minuscule world in itself.

In a way it's a shame Ursula Le Guin got classified as science fiction writer (though she was among the best) because her earlier work, such as these Orsinian Tales, was not science fiction and would place her among the great American writers, genre discounted.

These are tales in the most elegant English-lit tradition, with the writer showing her consummate skill in constructing each and every sentence. Even how the word order and clause order is arranged leaves you hanging on every word. A sort of tension-release technique.

If you want to know how to write, you have to read and read GOOD writing. This is one writer who is a must-read. Her book "Steering the Craft" talks about the craft of writing and would even give you insight as to how she created these tiny masterworks.

One person found this helpful

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michaelfarris10

Le Guin has assembled some of her best

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 23, 2019

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This collection of stories is among some of the best I have read. After years and years of reading, thousands of pages, I have to say these have the most life in them, the most power. I am appreciative of the works themselves, and the people who helped bring them to me. These characters have their names, but in this version of life, they go by other names as well. I meet them here for the first time, but looking back through the wake of my life, I know I've met them before as well.

6 people found this helpful

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Mvskoke

Not good

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 25, 2020

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Couldn't finish it and it’s from one of my favorite authors . Too bad.

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J. Sae

Just the way I like it.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on November 10, 2014

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A bunch of short stories. Just the way I like it.

3 people found this helpful

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Bernd Lambert

A great writer's versatility

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 7, 2014

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Ursula Le Guin demonstrates that her imagination and sympathies extend beyond science fiction to mainstream short stories. As someone once wrote about another fictional land, Orsinia is not on any map; real places never are.

5 people found this helpful

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J.N.Cameron

Boring

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 18, 2018

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This was a well written and beautiful collection of the most boring short stories I have ever read. I wouldn't recommend you waste your time with it.

3 people found this helpful

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Anna Midkiff

A World of Wonder

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 6, 2011

This is a wonderful collection of short stories, interweaving in subtlety and setting, but never redundant or dependent on each other. I read them out of order, on and off whenever I felt like it, taking time to appreciate the stories.

The stories range in immediate setting from cities to country towns to castles to gardens, but all are set in the fictional country of Orsinia. The characters range from kings to doctors to blinded soldiers to twice-divorced women returning to their original love, but all are richly drawn in a surprisingly minimalist fashion. Ursula K. Le Guin writes with superb mastery of human nature, sucking her readers into the stories in a remarkably short amount of time--extremely necessary in such a short story.

Probably my favorite stories in the collection are "The Lady of Moge" "Conversations by Night" or "The Barrow." Definitely worth buying and reading. These stories will never get boring.

10 people found this helpful

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Written with style and care - A winner!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 23, 2015

I must confess that I'm a big fan of Ms. Le Guin. I was interested in a collection of short stores, so I read this one.

It's a collection of 11 tales set in an imaginary country apparently in Eastern Europe. The stories generally involve romances between men and women against a background of rural and urban, aristocratic and plebeian. There are tales of stone cutters, doctors, farmers, musicians, and wounded veterans. They vary in length from a few pages to several dozen. My favorites include 'Ile Forest' about a doctor, a farmer, and a doomed love, and 'Conversations at Night' about a blind veteran and the girl across the hall.

Le Guin is best known as an award-winning science fiction/fantasy writer. Change a few locations in this book, and they'd fit nicely as science fiction tales. She writes both with the same fine line, drawing out her melancholy tales slowly and with care.

A fine book, easy-going (I read it in one day on a trip)., and highly recommended.

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Roly Williams

Mediochre

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 9, 2019

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Not up to Ursula's usual high standard

Pensato

Another Country

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 4, 2012

Verified Purchase

A subtle collection of tales set in a fictional country, somewhere in Central Europe (I was reminded in part of Prague in the city descriptions but also Slovenia) and set at different dates throughout history from 1130 to 1965. Political events are alluded to (clearly an authoritarian regime is in place post-WWII) but the emphasis is always on 'ordinary' humans and their extraordinary feelings. Destinies are seized, lost or simply endured. The characters come beautifully to life in Le Guin's limpid prose.

2 people found this helpful

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Orsinian Tales Mass Market Paperback – June 4, 1991

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