Across the Spectrum

by Ursula K. Le Guin, Vonda N. McIntyre, Patricia Rice

Book View Cafe celebrates its fifth anniversary with an anthology of our favorite stories. From the fantasy and science fiction of our roots to steampunk, romance, historical and mainstream; from humor to life's hardest challenges, across the spectrum from light to dark.

Table of Contents:

"Shapeshifter Finals", by Jeffrey A. Carver
"Feef's House", by Doranna Durgin
"Ukaliq and the Great Hunt", by David D. Levine Parsley
"Space, Rosemary, and Time", by Katharine Kerr
"Monsoon Day", by Mary Anne Mohanraj
"The Fiddler's Price", by Sarah Zettel
"Solstice" by Jennifer Stevenson
"Cuckoo" by Madeleine E. Robins
"Nine White Horses", by Judith Tarr
"Handing on the Goggles", by Brenda W. Clough
"Litany of Hope" by Irene Radford
"By the Sea" by Shannon Page
"Climbing to the Moon", by Ursula K. Le Guin
"The Cornfield" by P.G. Nagle
"Ducks" by Katharine Eliska Kimbriel
"Short-Timer" by Dave Smeds
"Terminal" by Chaz Brenchley
"Suraki" by Dave Trowbridge
"The Honor of the Ferrocarril" by Sylvia Kelso
"Transfusion" by Deborah J. Ross
"Survival Skills" by Nancy Jane Moore
"Of Mist, and Grass, and Sand" by Vonda N. McIntyre
"The Deaths of Christopher Marlowe" by Marie Brennan
"Lady Invisible" by Patricia Rice
"Mom and Dad at the Home Front" by Sherwood Smith
"Perfect Stranger" by Amy Sterling Casil
"The Alzheimer's Book Club" by Jill Zeller
"Betrayal" by Mindy Klasky
"Art & Science" by Sue Lange
"Genuine Old Master" by Marion Zimmer Bradley.

Read by Aaron Abano, Tess Van Horn, Paula Hoffman, Christopher Price, J. Paul Guimont, Corey Gagne, Eric Pollins, Kymberly Dakin, Marguerite Vine, Christine Marshall.

Genres: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Audiobook

1 pages, Audible Audio

First published November 5, 2013

About the author

Ursula K. Le Guin published twenty-two novels, eleven volumes of short stories, four collections of essays, twelve books for children, six volumes of poetry and four of translation, and has received many awards: Hugo, Nebula, National Book Award, PEN-Malamud, etc. Her recent publications include the novel Lavinia, an essay collection, Cheek by Jowl, and The Wild Girls. She lived in Portland, Oregon.

She was known for her treatment of gender (The Left Hand of Darkness, The Matter of Seggri), political systems (The Telling, The Dispossessed) and difference/otherness in any other form. Her interest in non-Western philosophies was reflected in works such as "Solitude" and The Telling but even more interesting are her imagined societies, often mixing traits extracted from her profound knowledge of anthropology acquired from growing up with her father, the famous anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber. The Hainish Cycle reflects the anthropologist's experience of immersing themselves in new strange cultures since most of their main characters and narrators (Le Guin favoured the first-person narration) are envoys from a humanitarian organization, the Ekumen, sent to investigate or ally themselves with the people of a different world and learn their ways.

Reviews

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a mixed bag - some of the stories I really liked, some not so much. I suppose that's in the nature of short story collections.

[Beauregard Bottomley · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is free for audbile members, and at that price it is well worth it, and the audible narrators perform quite well. Overall, this book is better than TV and some stories are quite good, others just are and that's okay.

Good writers often save the not completely thought out story for the short stories and as a listener that left me grateful that some of these stories won't be made in to novellas.

I do appreciate that these short stories do go across the spectrum and it's not easy to pigeon hole this book as a whole.

Two of the stories really stood out for me, 'Lady Invisible', and 'Genuine Old Master'. Obviously, it's up to each individual to relate in their own special way to the short stories. My bet, it would be the rare individual who doesn't feel strongly about at least two or more of the stories within this free to audible member short stories.

[Cookie M. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a review of an Audible Original edition. These are short works of speculative fiction. Some of them fantasy, one or two science fiction; a couple didn't seem to be any speculative genre at all. I would label all of them as "soft," tending toward new age. They were mostly enjoyable, but not of a type I would seek out again.

[Darbin O’Gill · Rating 5 out of 5]

A collection of stories that were read by multiple people. Great collection.

I recommend to those that need to try a varied tasting of sci-fi and fantasy because they may not know what they like.

[Sarah Scherer · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories ranged from one to five stars. I didn't like how inconsistent they were, but I guess that was part of the point of the book.

[Kitty · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is patchy. Some good stories, some just OK. Some good narrators, some not so much.