—The Onion
“In recent years, no [writer] inside the field of science fiction or outside of it [has] done more to create a modern conscience.”
—New Republic
“Le Guin is as good as any contemporary at creating worlds, imaginary or our own.”
—Time
“I don’t know anyone else who can do what Le Guin does. Her work is simple and brilliantly clear, like a Buddha’s laugh: joyfully serious, delighted with the joke that is life. Le Guin writes about love, pure and simple—love and all the ways in which it refuses to be bound—and she does so beautifully.”
—Nicola Griffith
“Ms. Le Guin has to be accounted a science fiction writer because most of her short stories rocket about outer space, but her knack of translating recognizable states of mind into fantastic action brings her close to the old fairy tale field. She is the ideal science fiction writer for readers who ordinarily dislike science fiction.”
—Atlantic
“One of our finest projectionists of brave old and other worlds.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“[Ursula K. Le Guin] examines the most public of politics and the most intimate of emotions, constantly challenging her readers to reconsider what it means to be human and humane.”
—Mary Doria Russell
“[E]verything Le Guin does is interesting, believable, and exquisitely detailed.”
—Los Angeles Herald Examiner
“Ursula Le Guin is more than a writer of adult fantasy and science fiction . . . she is a philosopher, an explorer in the landscapes of the mind.”
—Cincinnati Enquirer
“For a number of years the only science fiction I read was that of Ursula K. Le Guin. I don’t read science fiction anymore, though I wouldn’t think of missing a book of Le Guin’s. She has transcended the genre to become what it was clear she would become: our wise-woman, our seeress, a writer of infinite range and power. . . . This woman can do anything! Long may she continue to do it all.”
—Carolyn Kitzer
ALSO BY URSULA K. LE GUIN
NOVELS
Always Coming Home
The Beginning Place
City of Illusion
The Dispossessed
The Eye of the Heron
The Farthest Shore
The Lathe of Heaven
The Left Hand of Darkness
Malafrena
The Other Wind
Planet of Exile
Rocannon’s World
Tehanu
The Telling
The Tombs of Atuan
Very Far Away from Anywhere Else
A Wizard of Earthsea
The Word for World Is Forest
STORY COLLECTIONS
The Birthday of the World
Buffalo Gals
The Compass Rose
A Fisherman of the Inland Sea
Four Ways to Forgiveness
Orsinian Tales
Searoad
Tales from Earthsea
Unlocking the Air
The Wind’s Twelve Quarters
BACK ADS
COPYRIGHT
“Semley’s Necklace” originally appeared under the title “The Dowry of the Angyar” in Amazing, 1964.
“April in Paris” originally appeared in Fantastic, 1962.
“The Masters” and “Darkness Box” originally appeared in Fantastic, 1963.
“The Word of Unbinding” and “The Rule of Names” originally appeared in Fantastic, 1964.
“Winter’s King” originally appeared in Orbit 5, 1969.
“The Good Trip” originally appeared in Fantastic, 1970.
“Nine Lives” originally appeared in Playboy, 1969.
“A Trip to the Head” originally appeared in Quark l, 1970.
“Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” originally appeared in New Dimensions l, 1970.
“The Stars Below” originally appeared in Orbit 12, 1973.
“The Field of Vision” originally appeared in Galaxy, 1973.
“Direction of the Road” originally appeared in Orbit 14, 1974.
“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” originally appeared in New Dimensions 3, 1973.
“The Day Before the Revolution” originally appeared in Galaxy, 1974.
Excerpt from A. E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad reprinted by permission of Cambridge University Press.
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imag-ination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1976 by Harper & Row.
THE WIND’S TWELVE QUARTERS. Copyright © 1975 by Ursula K. Le Guin. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Perennial Library edition published 1987.
Reissued in Perennial 2004.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Le Guin, Ursula K.
The wind’s twelve quarters : stories / Ursula K. Le Guin.
p. cm.
Contents: Semley’s necklace—April in Paris—The masters—Darkness box—The word of unbinding—The rule of names—Winter’s king—The good tripNine lives—Things—A trip to the head—Vaster than empires and more slow—The stars below—The field of vision—Direction of the road—The ones who walk away from omelas—The day before the revolution.
ISBN 0-06-091434-3 (pbk.)
EPub Edition January 2017 ISBN 9780062471031
1. Science fiction, American. 1. Title.
PS3562.E42W56 2004
813’.54—dc22 2004056668
* * *
15 16 RRD 10 9
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