Changing Planes
Ursula Le Guin
Ursula Le Guin amazed me when I read Dispossed and the Left Hand of Darkness. I like sci-fi stories with an anthropological, political, and sociological slant like OS Cards’ Ender series (particularly Speaker for the Dead) and Herbert’s Dune. It’s fascinating that they painstakingly imagined what societies would be like if --- there was no male and female, if there was no government, if humans settled on a planet with a developing specie and civilization, if the economy, society, civilization depended on only one resource – wow.
What was very interesting with Changing Planes was that it was based on the premise that people can change planes (dimensional) while waiting for a plane (airplane) – the combination of stress, anxiety, and frustration enables humans to slide to other planes where they can go on a holiday and relax. There’s a “time difference” – days in one plane is only equivalent to maybe an hour in the airport. (For someone who travels often - GOD, I wish this was really possible!) The chapters were observations and stories about different planes – they’re short anthropological or sociological papers about a culture! Well, you can also see it as a travelogue. Either way, it was a very great read.
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