The Wind's Twelve Quarters

This collection gathers 17 short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin, spanning science fiction, fantasy, and surrealistic tales. Many connect to her novels, fitting into her broader future-history framework or into the fantasy world of Earthsea.

The collection opens with "Semley's Necklace," set on a planet orbiting Fomalhaut. Semley, a proud noblewoman, seeks her family's lost treasure, a gold necklace called the Eye of the Sea. After the Fiia, a small sun-loving people, deny having it, the Gdemiar, a cave-dwelling people, transport her through space to a distant museum world. There, Rocannon, an ethnologist, and Ketho, a curator, return the necklace. When Semley arrives home, nine years have passed due to near-lightspeed travel. Her husband is dead, and her infant daughter is now a young woman. Devastated, she drops the necklace and flees.

"April in Paris" pairs a lonely professor, Barry Pennywither, in a Parisian garret in 1961, with Jehan Lenoir, a frustrated fifteenth-century alchemist occupying the same room. Lenoir summons Barry through a spell, and further invocations bring a Gaulish slave woman from Roman times and an archaeologist from 7,000 years in the future. The four form a community, united by the loneliness that powers the spell.

In "The Masters," a young mechanic named Ganil lives in a world of perpetual cloud cover where scientific knowledge is hoarded by secretive Lodges. His Co-Master, Mede Fairman, introduces him to forbidden mathematics and a clandestine community of learners. When Mede is arrested for heresy, Ganil is tortured but refuses to betray him. Mede saves Ganil by lying at trial. Ganil watches Mede burned at the stake, then walks into exile carrying Mede's hidden papers.

"Darkness Box" takes place in a fantastical world where time has stopped and no shadows exist. A witch's son, Dicky, finds a box of darkness washed up by the sea and gives it to Prince Rikard. When Rikard opens it, darkness floods the world, shadows appear, and the clocks begin to strike. The witch's cat tells him that day and night will now follow each other, but only one brother, Rikard or his exiled rival, will survive.

Two linked stories explore Earthsea. In "The Word of Unbinding," the wizard Festin is imprisoned by Voll the Fell, a malevolent sorcerer who travels the islands enslaving men and sealing opposing wizards in underground tombs. After failed escapes, Festin dies deliberately, entering the land of the dead to confront and defeat Voll's spirit. "The Rule of Names" is lighter. On isolated Sattins Island, the timid Mr. Underhill is the only wizard. A stranger called Blackbeard arrives, claiming to be the Sealord of Pendor and seeking a treasure stolen from his domain by an unknown wizard. In Earthsea, knowing a person's true name grants power over that person; Blackbeard uses black magic to learn Mr. Underhill's true name and commands him to reveal his true shape. Mr. Underhill transforms into a great black dragon and kills Blackbeard.

"Winter's King" is set on the planet Gethen, whose inhabitants are androgynes, beings without fixed sex. King Argaven XVII of the kingdom of Karhide is kidnapped and brainwashed. Recognizing the conditioning will compel her to tyranny, Argaven flees to the distant planet Ollul. Due to near-lightspeed travel, 60 years pass on Gethen while she ages only a dozen. Specialists undo the brainwashing, and she learns about the Ekumen, a confederation of human worlds. When her heir, Emran, proves a disastrous ruler, the Ekumen sends Argaven home to find civil war and Emran dead by suicide. She goes out to restore her kingdom.

"The Good Trip" follows Lewis, a young man whose wife Isobel has been institutionalized for schizophrenia. Preparing to take LSD with friends, he instead experiences a visionary journey up Mount Hood without chemical assistance. On the mountain he finds Isobel, who describes a dream from the sanitarium in which she called his name and he answered. Lewis returns to his apartment to find the drug packet still sealed in his hand. He gives it away and walks into the rain.

"Nine Lives" is set on the planet Libra, where two explorers, Owen Pugh and Martin, receive a 10-member mining team that is a clone: 10 individuals grown from the cells of a dead genius named John Chow, sharing one face and effortless mutual understanding. When a quake collapses the mine, nine die. The lone survivor, Kaph, experiences their deaths one by one in seizures that nearly kill him. Withdrawn for weeks, Kaph slowly learns to recognize other people as real. When Pugh risks his life to rescue Martin from a second quake, Kaph's experience of waiting and fearing for them opens him to genuine human connection.

"Things" follows Lif, a brickmaker on a dying world, who dreams of green Islands across the sea and begins building an underwater causeway, one barrowload at a time. A widow with a baby helps him. When the bricks run out, they walk into the sea at dawn. At the causeway's end, a white sail appears, and voices call them aboard.

"A Trip to the Head" is an experimental piece in which a man without a name or memory tries to construct an identity through action and naming. Each attempt fails. When he finally remembers a name, the companion who might have helped him has vanished.

In "Vaster than Empires and More Slow," a misfit survey team explores a planet covered entirely in plant life. Their Sensor, Osden, has autism and total empathic receptivity: He involuntarily absorbs the emotions of everyone around him. Osden discovers that the planet's biosphere is one interconnected consciousness and surrenders himself to this vast plant-mind. The team departs, listing him as a colonist.

"The Stars Below" tells of the astronomer Guennar, whose observatory is burned by soldiers enforcing religious orthodoxy. Hidden in an abandoned mine, Guennar builds a crude telescope and claims to see constellations in the rock. After he disappears into the deepest caves, the miners dig where he directed and strike rich silver ore shining in the stone.

"The Field of Vision" follows the crew of a Mars mission who return shattered after studying a mysterious ancient structure. Dr. Hughes sees blinding light whenever he opens his eyes; Captain Temski hears an overwhelming harmony. Hughes concludes the structure reprograms minds to perceive God directly and takes his own life. The subsequent Psyche XV mission returns with materials that Temski interprets as sacred texts, making him the "First Apostle" of a new church.

"Direction of the Road" is narrated by an oak tree describing its experience of apparent motion as travelers pass. When a speeding driver crashes into it and dies seeing the tree as eternal, the tree protests: It is mortal, not a symbol of death or eternity.

"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" describes a radiant utopian city whose happiness depends entirely on keeping one child in filth and misery in a basement. All citizens know about the child. Most accept the arrangement. But some, after seeing the child, walk out of the city alone into the darkness and do not come back.

The collection closes with "The Day Before the Revolution," following Laia Asieo Odo, the elderly founder of the anarchist philosophy called Odonianism, on the day before the revolution she spent her life working toward. Weakened by a stroke, she wanders the streets, feeling at home among the poor. Back at her cooperative House, young Odonians plan a demonstration. Asked to speak, she says she will not be there tomorrow. She climbs the stairs slowly, seeing in her mind the white flowers of a field whose name she never learned.