The framing device for these connected short stories from sci-fi/fantasy legend Ursula Leguin is that bored air travelers can slip out of airport lounges into alternative worlds or planes. So, while travelers are waiting to change planes, they can take little side trips by changing planes. The collection is one traveler’s accounts of her visits to alternative planes.

Reading Changing Places is like getting a series of letters from a traveling friend with newsy reports of her latest stops. But these are not your usual colorful locals and odd customs. The narrator meets people who are mostly human (and part plants and animals), entire populations who migrate north to breed and return south when their young are grown, people compelled to build stone structures that no one uses, people cursed with flight where flyers are considered deformed, and others—each more outlandish than the last.

The collection showcases LeGuin’s world-building talent. Sixteen stories each present a unique world with one or more species of cool, outrageous, thought provoking, or weird sentient beings. It’s good these various being we meet are interesting because not much actually happens in any of the stories. This gives the collection something of a contemplative mood, like a series of miniature studies in extraterrestrial sociology.

So, for LeGuin’s fans, this collection offers two things she does best: build worlds and examine their social structures. Few writers come up with so many and so varied new ways to imagine life. And few make it interesting enough you want to keep turning the pages to see what the next plane change will bring. ( )

A standard quality collection, coming in at 3.25. The best work is in the last three stories. Planes here does not refer to the big metal sausage with wings variety, but the extra-world type.

Changing Planes : Sita Dulip's Method - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : Porridge on Islac - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Silence of the Asonu - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : Feeling at Home with the Hennebet - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Ire of the Veksi - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Seasons of the Ansarac - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : Social Dreaming of the Frin - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Royals of Hegn - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : Woeful Tales from Mahigul - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : Great Joy - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : Wake Island - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Nna Mmoy Language - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Building - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Fliers of Gy - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : The Island of the Immortals - Ursula K. Le Guin
Changing Planes : Confusions of Uñi - Ursula K. Le Guin

Alternate travel.

3 out of 5

Bear bowling.

3 out of 5

Plane saying.

3 out of 5

Not like me.

3 out of 5

Violence unvisited.

3 out of 5

Migratory pattern.

4 out of 5

Projecting power.

3 out of 5

Party secrets.

3.5 out of 5

Area examination.

3 out of 5

Restricted yankish.

3 out of 5

Smarter group.

3 out of 5

Safe but dull.

3 out of 5

Stonewalling.

3 out of 5

Winged handicap ritual.

3.5 out of 5

Carbon based longlife.

4 out of 5

Interplanary virtual reality craft.

4 out of 5

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/09... ( )

After all those crime books, I thought it was about time for some fantasy! This is a collection of short stories set in parallel planes of existence (yes, the title is some sort of pun). The introduction says that a method for travelling to other worlds was discovered, but it only works if you're in an airport. So when people are stuck waiting for a delayed plane or missed transfer, they can go travelling for a while and not miss much time here.

Each story is set in another world, and they do somehow have the air of travel writing about them. I enjoyed all of the stories here, but I would have liked to see some trips to more high-technology worlds - the majority of them were set in peaceful, less technologically developed planes, or worlds that have reverted after some kind of event turned them away from that sort of thing. Still, on the whole a very good read. ( )

When someone discovers how to 'change planes' while waiting in an airport for a flight, a whole universe of possibilities is opened up. This tells the experiences of some of the planechangers, the planes (or planets) they visit and the societies and cultures they find.

From the satirical tale of The Holiday Plane, where islands have been converted to cater for different holidays (such as Christmas with the villages of Noel, O Little Town etc), to the amusingly cynical (Hegn, where everyone is royalty apart from a small group of commoners), these stories and accounts are sometimes illuminating, disturbing, sad and peaceful all at the same time.

It is difficult to pick a favourite chapter out of this (each chapter tells of a different world), I have found the place I would most love to sit and read: The Library Gardens of Mahigul.

"In spring, during the mild steady rains, big awnings are stretched from one library arcade to the next, so that you can still sit outdoors, hearing the soft drumming on the canvas overhead, looking up from your reading to see the trees and the pale sky beyond the awning."

and

"In winter it's often foggy, not a cold fog but a mist through which and in which the sunlight is always warmly palpable, like the colour in a milk opal. The fog softens the sloping lawns and the high, dark trees, bringing them closer, into a quiet, mysterious intimacy."

I have the feeling I will read these stories again and again and again. The power they provide, the thought they provoke and the rush of emotions they produce are extraordinary. And all done in such a gentle way that you don't realise you're being touched until you take a breath at the end of each one.

I would highly recommend this. I never expected it to be as good as it is, and I am surprised I had never heard of it before.

4.5 out of 5 ( )

"Confusions of Uni" was my favorite story in this collection about visits to other planes. They are accessed from the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floors of airport terminals, and a two-day trip takes only minutes in our time. ( )

Classic SciFi, and a delight to find. Each chapter examines the inhabitants of a different plane (world), as seen through the eyes of an interplanary traveller from Earth. Some may be already familiar having appeared as short stories in other SciFi publications previously, while others may be reminiscent of some aspects of our own history. ( )

This is a light read, but a good one. I highly recommend it for while traveling. Le Guin's writing here is consistent with what would be expected, but the darker themes she usually employs aren't as prominent in this novel. Indeed, the novel itself is hard to classify as such since it reads much more like a collection of short stories strung together by a narrator whose story doesn't seem to really be the point of the novel.

The point of the novel, in fact, seems to be rather thinly veiled commentary on modern society. Society in general is fun to comment on, and she gets fairly wild with some of the alternate worlds she introduces to us in this book. The tone remains throughout one of an anthropological, somewhat distant discussion and study of these fictional cultures. For those who enjoy this style of exploring cultures, this will be a delight. For those who find this style displeasing, I recommending picking up a book by a different author entirely.

As a whole, this is both an entertaining read, and a fun examination of how cultures work. ( )

I love this book - its a collection of short stories written almost as an allegory or fable feel to them, each story is about a different plane, and that you can only get to these plains by waiting at airport terminals. ( )

Changing Planes is a collection of stories. They are united by a silly backstory: while waiting in an airport while changing planes, a woman named Sita Dulip has invented a method of changing planes - that is, traveling between realities. Thus we get fifteen travel stories that describe strange, new worlds.

The idea is funny, but once you dig in to the stories, you'll find more proof of Le Guin's skills as an author. The worlds are fantastic. Some are relatively simple satires, others more subtle explorations of various themes, real social anthropology of the invented. The book is at the same time light and entertaining, yet deep and thoughtful.

There are many really excellent stories in the collection, but I think the one I enjoyed most was Seasons of Ansarac, which tells a story of a curious society of remarkably bird-like people. It's very Le Guin, indeed. Oh, and I must mention The Building, which is another real highlight, a wonderful and fascinating little story of a rather cryptic world. Le Guin's literary talent is something to envy.

(Original review at my review blog) ( )

8 odd short and light tales. Le Guin I feel doesn't like flying, particularly not the hassle involved with airports and making connections, and in this ever pressured environment who can blame her. These are tales of differen planes - places that can be reached when the desperation and indegestion of the airport gets sufficently burdensome that anywhere else is better. Anywhere being the key point.

Populated with odd types living their lives as they have always done, and interacting with the travelling tourist through the Interplanetary Travel Agency. Vaguely dark, cycnical tales, but not particularly thought provoking. Despite finishing the book only yesterday I can only really remember that bird people featured in a couple, and that there was a fantastic library planet which had had a dark history.

Easy reading, enjoyable, weird but ultimately nothing special. Good for travelling! ( )

http://nhw.livejournal.com/59559.html...

This collection of short stories by one of my favourite authors is, of course, simply superb. (And I hate to carp on prices, but excellent value too, a 200-page hardback for £8.95.) The very first story reveals that "changing planes" in this case means changing between different planes of existence, which on our world can apparently be only done in airports. I'd read a couple of these before in other collections, but they do make for a good unified whole. Best of the bunch perhaps is "Seasons of the Ansarac", tying in all the great Le Guin themes of unusual socialisations of sexuality, the dangers of meddling with technology, and damn good old-fashioned story-telling. Some of the others are just straight parables or satires, but no less effective for that; I particularly smiled at "The Royals of Hegn".

The author comments that "this book was written when the miseries of air travel seemed to be entirely the doing of the corporations that ran the airports and the airlines, without any help from bigots with beards in caves". ( )

This is my first book by Ursula K. Le Guin, and I'm very pleased at this introduction. I'd found this in a bargain stack, so it's double the luck! Changing Planes is a collection of interconnected stories about interplanary travel. It is quite a fascinating concept, and sounds wonderful to experience! The planes and people in these pieces may be very different or similar to ours, but each has something to say about humans and our society. A witty and clever observation! ( )

A neat and amusing collection of fantasy short stories. Quite light, but enjoyable nonetheless. ( )

This is a collection of sketches of alternate universe worlds that LeGuin uses to say some fascinating things about the nature of... not humans necessarily, but beings. Each world is related to our own, but the people or the lifestyle differ in ways that make for some fascinating commentary on our own reality. What if we lived in a world without language? What if we shared our dreams with our neighbors every night? Each story has a different character and some are more whimsical than poignant, but the collection works. A thought-provoking but not too heavy read. ( )

Interesting look at other worlds. ( )

[fr] http://www.cafardcosmique.com/Changin... ( )

A great collection of short stories describing the narrator's visits to alternate realities (planes) while stuck in airports waiting to change...um...planes. A triumph of the freedom of the mind even though the body may be bound to our own humble plane. These are individual stories, but they are bound together by this common theme, and it could be viewed as a fantasy travel book, a collection of sociological studies, or a biting satire on parts of our own culture. ( )

Wicked satire of American consumer and political culture. Le Guin at her humane best - a great read for the stress of air travel! ( )

You can just tell how much fun Le Guin had writing this book. Many of the stories have an irreverent tone. But many also explore serious themes in a novel way. How would you like to sprout wings and fly? Live without any need for sleep? Be immortal? Explore the downsides. But mostly, just enjoy the ride. ( )

Amusing contrasts to reality Many "places " may someday be available to visitors