Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places » (First Paperback Edition)

Ursula K. Le Guin's first story was rejected by Amazing Stories -- back when she was 11 years old. Since then, Le Guin has become one of science fiction's most critically acclaimed authors, as well as a versatile writer of poetry, children's books, essays, and nonfiction.

“I have decided that the trouble with print is, it never changes its mind,” writes Ursula Le Guin in her introduction to Dancing at the Edge of the World. But she has, and here is the record of that change in the decade since the publication of her last nonfiction collection, The Language of the Night. And what a mind — strong, supple, disciplined, playful, ranging over the whole field of its concerns, from modern literature to menopause, from utopian thought to rodeos, with an eloquence, wit, and precision that makes for exhilarating reading.

Publishers Weekly

Chronologically arranged, these 33 talks and essays and 17 reviews of books and films, dating from 1976 through 1987, record Le Guin's responses to ethical and political climates, the transforming effect of certain literary ideas and the changes of a supple, disciplined mind. Aiming ``to subvert as much as possible without hurting anybody's feelings,'' the noted science fiction writer eloquently discusses feminism, social responsibility, literature and travel. We read her deeply considered views on abortion, menopause, motherhood, family planning; censorship, criticism, myth in contemporary life, women writers, the reciprocity of prose and poetry, the language of power; the advantages and pleasures of travel by Amtrak; heroism in Scott and Amundsen; the ideas of Doris Lessing and Italo Calvino; and how science fiction addresses the issue of nuclear war. (Feb.)