Author(s): Ursula K Le Guin

General Biography

The National Book Award-winning author takes flight with this bestselling collection of speculative fiction where a woman visits fifteen otherworldly-- yet familiar--societies. ARMCHAIR TRAVEL FOR THE MIND: It was Sita Dulip who discovered, whilst stuck in an airport, unable to get anywhere, how to change planes - literally. With a kind of a twist and a slipping bend, easier to do than describe, she could go anywhere - be anywhere - because she was already between planes ...and on the way back from her sister's wedding, she missed her plane in Chicago and found herself in Choom. The author, armed with this knowledge and Rornan's invaluable Handy Planetary Guide - although not the Encyclopedia Planeria, as that runs to forty-four volumes - has spent many happy years exploring places as diverse as Islac and the Veksian plane. CHANGING PLANES is an intriguing, enticing mixture of GULLIVER'S TRAVELS and THE HITCH HIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY; a cross between Douglas Adams and Alain de Botton: a mix of satire, cynicism and humour by one of the world's best writers. Author Biography: Ursula Le Guin has won many awards, literary and genre, adult and children's, including a Newbery Honor and the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. She has just been named a Science Fiction Grand Master. Promotional Information: A cross between Douglas Adams and Alain de Botton 'All le Guin's stories are metaphors for the one human story; all her fantastic planets are this one.' Margaret Atwood 'Philosophical fiction in the manner of Jonathan Swift and Jorge Luis Borges ... she launches her imagination on the wings of a pun' New York Times 'She wields her pen with a moral and psychological sophistication rarely seen' Newsweek 'Eloquent, elegant, insightful, funny, sharp, and nearly always provacative' Washington Post 'Brings a whole new meaning to inter-planetary travel ... Le Guin continues to demonstrate her genius with gentle if caustic tales that throw the world's folly back in our faces' Jon Courtenay Grimwood in the Guardian Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea series is a classic Her Hainish cycle is one of science fiction's master works First published 2003