Books › Changing planes
Changing planes
[stories]
313 pages
A wry, imaginative travelogue through bizarre alternate realities that holds a gentle funhouse mirror up to our own world.
What it feels like
Reading this collection feels like sitting next to a brilliant, well-traveled anthropologist who is recounting her most bizarre and fascinating trips over a cup of tea. The pace is delightfully meandering, inviting you to wander through surreal landscapes and peculiar societies without the pressure of a driving plot. It is a deeply curious and contemplative experience, steeped in a dreamy atmosphere that makes the impossible feel entirely mundane. The prose is elegant and wry, delivering sharp satirical observations with a gentle, empathetic touch. It will thoroughly delight readers who prefer their speculative fiction to be a playground of ideas, offering a series of imaginative thought experiments that ultimately reveal the strange, beautiful absurdities of our own human nature.
- Mood
- dreamy
- curious
- surreal
- contemplative
- Tone
- wry
- observant
- philosophical
- satirical
- gentle
- Pace
- meandering
- Themes
- cultural relativism · the absurdity of human nature · the essence of travel · societal structures · alien anthropology
- The writing
- Elegant, precise, and gently humorous, reading like a beautifully crafted anthropological journal.
- The arc
- Moves from the mundane frustration of modern transit into a state of expansive, bemused wonder at the infinite varieties of existence.
- Who it's for
- Readers who love speculative fiction that prioritizes ideas, intricate world-building, and sociological thought experiments over propulsive action.
Content notes
- existential themes
- allegorical prejudice
About the book
The misery of waiting for a connecting flight at an airport leads to the accidental discovery of alighting on other planes--not airplanes but planes of existence. Ursula Le Guin's premise frames a series of travel accounts by the tourist-narrator who describes bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own, and sometimes open puzzling doors into the alien.
Description from Open Library.
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