A Fisherman Of The Inland Sea by Ursula K. Le Guin

When I was summing up my reading habits in 2022 I said:

I think the lesson this year is: you can’t go wrong with Octavia E. Butler or Ursula K. Le Guin.

I stand by that. But maybe I’d recommend some Ursula K. Le Guin books more than others.

A Fisherman Of The Inland Sea is a good collection of short stories. But it’s not a great collection of short stories. If you’re looking for a great collection of short stories, read The Unreal and the Real.

When it comes to Ursula K. Le Guin, the standard is always going to be high so even when the stories aren’t her best, they’re still better than the output of most other sci-fi writers.

My slight disappointment with A Fisherman Of The Inland Sea isn’t so much with the stories themselves but with the collection.

To begin with, there are four unconnected short stories. That’s fine. It’s a short story collection after all.

But then after that there are three interconnected short stories from the Hainish cycle. They’re the best part of this book. That just makes the preceding stories look like filler.

If those three stories had been released as little collection, it would be a miniature classic. As it stands, you get more of a mixed bag.

But still, it’s worth reading this collection for those three stories alone.