The metaphorical language of fantasy has the capacity to touch us in the most profound ways. But many otherwise great fantasy writers, including J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, fall too easily into the traps of dogma and moral superiority, making their medicine sometimes hard to swallow. The stories of Ursula K. Le Guin manage the sublime trick of touching our hearts while also satisfying our cynical, modern minds. For this reason her stories will pass into legend, to touch many generations to come - GUARDIANSecond of a two-volume set, this bare-bones collection focuses on SFWA GRAND MASTER Le Guin's overtly fantastic visions. Settings of 20 stories, all previously anthologised, include both the science fictional Ekumen, a community of worlds populated by humans shaped by the hubristic Hain of the distant past, to such fantastical realms as the West Reach, "where dragons breed on the lava isles." Le Guin's imagination ranges widely; the most interesting sequence involves the world Seggri, whose gender politics are charmingly different from ours but equally constrained. This short collection, offering samples from across Le Guin's career to date, shows why she has been a major voice in science fiction and fantasy since the 1960s - PUBLISHERS WEEKLYI read her nonstop growing up and read her still. What makes her so extraordinary for me is that her commitment to the consequences of our actions, of our all too human frailties, is unflinching and almost without precedent for a writer of such human optimism. She never turns away from how flinty the heart of the world is. It gives her speculations a resonance, a gravity that few writers, mainstream or generic, can match