#the matter of seggri

[l3st1b0urn3s-707]

I promised a Birthaday of the world review (because this book was amazing) and here it is!

The birthday of the world and other stories is a collection of short stories by Ursula K. Le Guin. All of these stories are about gender rols, and they specially talk about women, and most of them are part of the Hainish Cycle. Let's talk a bit about each of them:

Coming of age in Karhide was probably my favourite one. I might be biased because I love The left hand of darkness and this story is also set in Gethen, but it was trully amazing. It's about how a young Gethenian goes through their first kemmer and loses their virginity. I just love this world so much and the cultures in it, and this is a great story to learn about their society and how sexuality works there.

The matter of Seggri is set in a world where the male population is significally lower that the female, which leads to segregation and a reversion of gender roles. Men are just seen as trophies and only have reproductive purposes. That's it until some Ekumen mobiles arrive to Seggri and everything starts to change. It was so good, it had various points of view and deals with such interesting topics!

Unchosen love and Mountain ways are set in O (same planet as A fisherman of the inland sea, which I have yet to read), where marriages or sedoretu involve 4 people. The first one's about a couple between 2 boys looking for the rest of their sedoretu. One of them, tho, feels a bit trapped in the relationship and doesn't know what to do. The other story's about a sedoretu formed unconventionally. Both of them were so fun, I really enjoyed them and they made me want to know more about O.

Solitude's narrated by the dauhter of a mobile from the Ekumen, who talks about her experience growing up in a world where men and women are separated. I found this one a bit more boring than the previous ones, but it's still really interesting.

Old Music and the slave women was also so good. Old Music's a mobile from the Ekumen living in a planet where slaves have rebelled against their owners. He meets some slave women who are still working for some government officials and tries to protect them and survive through an incoming war.

The birthday of the world wasn't really for me, I didn't like it than much. This one's set in a world ruled by God, which is actually a couple between a man and a woman. The male part is dying, so two of their children will have to marry and become God themselves.

The last one, Paradises Lost, is actually a short novel. It's the only story which isn't part of the Hainish Cycle, and is set on a spaceship traveling through generations to a planet safer than Earth. Some members of the last generation that will live in the ship before its landing will have to deal with the members from a religious group that don't belive the ship's actually going to stop. This one was really interesting. The main characters were really cool, and I loved how the story changed from just showing you the everyday life in the ship to a much bigger conflict. It was great.

So, the book in general was super cool. I really liked how the themes are treated in it, it all just works so well. Some stories were better than the others, but overall they were all really enjoyable. I think that it's really worth reading, even if you haven't read anything by the author or the Ekumen series, because it's simply perfect. I loved it so much!

[gender-void-partially-stars]

just finished the matter of seggri by ursula k le guin good short story 👍

[terramythos]

This isn't like a deep analysis but I like that Ursula K Le Guin wrote a novella with the premise of men being oppressed in the same way women are in our world (The Matter of Seggri). And there are so many disingenuous and mean-spirited ways to do something like that but she didn't do any of them. Instead she portrays structural sexism for the life ruining horror it really is. She places a strong emphasis on how horrible it is for everyone, including the group that supposedly benefits from it. She portrays gay men as the greatest heroes imaginable in such a society, which considering it was published in the 90s is pretty significant in and of itself. LeGuin never frames it as a gotcha against men but also never softens how horrible the events of the story are, nor how they apply to women in the real world. If you want to read it, just about every common trigger warning applies, it is VERY disturbing, but I think it's an incredible and wrenching story. Like it's the kind of thing that makes you deeply uncomfortable, but that's a good thing.

[dreamy-conceit]

How you play is what you win.

— Kohadrat (character), Ursula Le Guin, 'The Matter of Seggri'

[iantimony]

vacation tuesday

in the grandma zone this week! technically evangelion spoilers in the watching section skip that if u care

listening: more just king things, started listening to sangfielle again but i need to go read recaps or wiki pages for the first few arcs because i listened to them sooooo long ago...

reading: read more short stories in the birthday of the world! finished "unchosen love" and read "mountain ways".

"unchosen love": sooooo good and cute. the "why, old man jenkins died fifty years ago!!"-style twist was very charming and it was really delightful seeing how quickly personalities and motivations can be established in such a short word count. 8/10.

"mountain ways": GENDER. the ending was a little confusing (was she gonna like. kill herself?? kill them????) but i think it tied itself up nicely. 9/10.

(the first few stories that i read a few weeks ago and didn't review:

"coming of age in karhide": i haven't finished left hand of darkness so it took a minute to get into it but i thought this one was good. interesting society/worldbuilding, the characters felt kinda secondary but it was very cool flavortext. 6/10.

"the matter of seggri": it could be very easy to misread this one as a weird "what if MEN were oppressed, wouldn't that be wild"-style thought experiment but i think it goes a little deeper than that. definitely a Societal Commentary. it made me a little sad. 7/10.)

watching: FINISHED evangelion (didn't watch ep 26, we watched 25 realized it was bizarre and not in a fun way and watched the movie instead). i understand now why people were pissed about the original ending. very unsatisfying. the movie was very weird but i liked it. my predictions (quote from texting my brother about it "i think the robot is his mom. don't tell me if im right. i also think rei is his mom. also don't tell me if im right.") i mainly think it's hilarious that the creators were like "uhhh we dont know shit about christianity or kabbalah or anything we just thought it was ~~exotic~~ and cool. if we'd known how popular this would get in the west we might have rethought that one. oops". the freud shit was ... fine ....... kinda hate it but ykno. good for analysis or whatever.

making: i brought the tank top knitting project that i need to finish with me to visit my grandma but i have instead been neocities website brainstorming! the purple/bottom left will be the homepage, weekly roundup will be top left, and top right will be some sort of interests/hobbies directory maybe?? i may also link those individual pages (poems i like, fandom interests, etc etc) directly from the home page instead of making it its own directory, not sure yet. also i designed a page in progress graphic hehe

webbed site.....oh shit i forgot a lil mongoose tail. gotta add that

misc: visiting my grandma is fiiiine, she is so old and so fragile which makes me stressed but obviously i'm glad i'm getting a visit in. my mom is also down here visiting my other grandma (her mom) so i'm getting to see other family too which is good :)

oh and i got a late valentines present in the mail from my bf and oughhhh aughhh it's SO good. i'll post pics soon my mom just got here :)

[lizabethstucker]

The Year's Best Science Fiction, 12th Annual Collection

3.5 out of 5

A collection of twenty-three of 1994's best science fiction stories as selected by editor Gardner Dozois.

The book begins with Dozois' extensive summary of the year in science fiction and his concerns for the future of science fiction as a genre. Reading his 1994 observations in 2024, thirty years later, is both jarring and sad when you consider how many of the magazines mentioned no longer exist. I know most genre fiction (mystery, science fiction, fantasy in particular) go through moments where writers, critics, and anthologists are worried/predicting its destruction. I can remember hearing that worry in the late 1960s (science fiction), the 1970s (fantasy), and pretty much every decade for mystery. It never really happened, although there were always growing pains as the tropes changed. I've stopped worrying about it.

There's a fair mix of humor and angst, tragedy and farce within these pages, which I personally appreciate as it keeps the reading experience from becoming monotonous.

Contents

"Forgiveness Day" by Ursula K. Le Guin, 4 out of 5. "The Remoras" by Robert Reed, 4.5 out of 5. "Nekropolis" by Maureen F. McHugh, 3 out of 5. "Margin of Error" by Nancy Kress, 4.5 out of 5. "Cilia-of-Gold" by Stephen Baxter, 2.5 out of 5. "Going After Old Man Alabama" by William Sanders, 3.5 out of 5. "Melodies of the Heart" by Michael F. Flynn, 5 out of 5. "The Hole in the Hole" by Terry Bisson, 3.5 out of 5. "Paris in June" by Pat Cadigan, 2 out of 5. "Flowering Mandrake" by George Turner, 3 out of 5. "None So Blind" by Joe Haldeman, 3 out of 5. "Cocoon" by Greg Egan, 4 out of 5. "Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge" by Mike Resnick, 4.5 out of 5. "Dead Space for the Unexpected" by Geoff Ryman, 3 out of 5. "Cri de Coeur" by Michael Bishop, 3 out of 5. "The Sawing Boys" by Howard Waldrop, 2 out of 5. "The Matter of Seggri" by Ursula K. Le Guin, 4 out of 5. "Ylem" by Eliot Fintushel, 3 out of 5. "Asylum" by Katharine Kerr, 4.5 out of 5. "Red Elvis" by Walter Jon Williams, 3 out of 5. "California Dreamer" by Mary Rosenblum, 3 out of 5. "Split Light" by Lisa Goldenstein, 3 out of 5. "Les Fleurs du Mal" by Brian Stableford, 3 out of 5.

Some of my favorites include: "Margin of Error" which had a particularly satisfying revenge; "Melodies of the Heart" almost killed me emotionally; and "Asylum" which is frighteningly close to what we are facing in 2024.

A few of the stories disappointed me greatly, having such wonderful plots, terrific flow, and interesting characters, only to crash and burn the endings. No matter how great a story might be, if you can't stick the ending, it's all for nothing. Despite that, I'm still glad that I picked up this collection at the Friends of the Library store.

[vitos-ordination-song]

Le Guin must-read short stories:

The Matter of Seggri

Mountain Ways

The Shobies’ Story

Dancing to Ganam

Paradises Lost (more of a novella but you know)

Seasons of the Ansarac

Vaster Than Empires and More Slow

Solitude

The Stars Below

[gallium-spoon]

Time for the March reading report!

First off, I finished the last 400 pages of The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson! Woohoo!

Other books for this month:

Animorphs books 18 - 22 by K.A. Applegate (combined 325 pages)

The Matter of Seggri by Ursula k la guin (35 pages)

The Shining by Stephen King (650 pages)

And finally, I am about 230 pages into Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir!

All page numbers are approximate, but I'm right around 1,600 for this month!

[a-honap-leanya]

reading The Matter of Seggri rn and I thought back to the night when I couldn't fall asleep bc of the insect-like inhabitants of Rocannon...

the Hainish were something else fr

as Merriment put it:

My ancestors must have really had fun playing with these people's chromosomes.

BOY the ancient Hainish messed with so many human planets’ genetics.

[makiruz]

Generic love songs become so weird while analyzing “The Matter of Seggri” a story about a world where there’s more men than women so men are treated as cattle and women only love other women

[terramythos]

top 5 books you've read in the past year?

Ooh thank you for the ask! 💖

In no particular order:

1. A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine -- incredible followup to an already good first book (A Memory Called Empire). I love how this book plays with the theme of plural identity in a boggling number of ways and makes it feel natural to the story/characters and not contrived. I'm rereading it with my sister and am still constantly surprised by how pervasive and layered it is. Definitely ambitious to add three new perspective characters but I think Martine pulls it off well. The character i was most skeptical about (Eight Antidote) became my favorite by the end. I highly recommend this duology.

2. Be the Serpent by Seanan McGuire - October Daye is a series built on long cons, twists, and hidden identities. This book contains the most shocking one yet, an incredible payoff built up for fifteen (15!!!) books. I'm impressed by the level of foreshadowing involved because it's obvious in hindsight but a dreadful surprise in the moment. My sister and I have figured out the next (possibly final?) reveal for the series and are 100 percent certain we're right, but I'm definitely looking forward to that one as well.

3. The Hourglass Throne by KD Edwards - I liked the first book of The Tarot Sequence, but had some issues with it. Edwards is very friendly and responsive to criticism and quite literally addressed all my problems by the second book. This third book is a doozy; intense and upsetting, but with some great developments and food for thought. I've enjoyed the character development and the general trajectory of the series and am super excited for more. Also I'm 90 percent sure I've figured out who the Mystery Woman is and am excited to see if/when that gets revealed.

4. The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson - I'm new to Sanderson's work but have seen mostly universal praise for it. I liked the first book but this second one has an absolutely stellar narrative twist to it. I love how you can figure it out very early if you're paying attention. I figured it out shortly before the reveal because I noticed a small detail and went completely insane. I'm a sucker for that kind of thing. In general I've found Mistborn to be a creative take on epic fantasy. I still need to read the third book though lol

5. The Unreal and The Real by Ursula K Le Guin - This is a short story/novella collection but has some incredible works that I'm still thinking about constantly. Le Guin was just an incredible author and way ahead of her time in many respects. Favorites from this collection: The Diary of the Rose (maybe the best short story I've read, I've reread it a dozen times and break down in tears every time), Hand/Cup/Shell, Nine Lives, The Shobies' Story, The Matter of Seggri (major content warning), The Wife's Story, and The Jar of Water.

[thekickinside78]

heterosexuality is unnatural men arent capable of love 😵‍💫😵‍💫

[iantimony]

tuezdai

i was thinking about crossposting this to dreamwidth and THEN i remembered that ive been looking for an excuse to make. a neocities website. so. :3 i am going to make a neocities page for weekly roundup hehe

relatedly look at this bizarre captcha i got when i went to make an account. like. any of these fools could be robots.

listening: not a lot of music this week but ive been listening to rangedtouch's just king things podcast! i'm listening in order from the beginning and im at about halfway through ep 8 (the dead zone). i really enjoyed their homestuck reread podcast so when that finished i was like. well. i want to listen to these clowns (appreciative) hang out more. time to peruse their back catalog. and ive been enjoying it so far! i wouldn't call myself a huge king-head, i've read carrie, salem's lot, the shining...pet sematary? cujo? a few other misc king stories. there's a short story about a cat that crawls its way down someone's throat i think was stephen king and that one lives in my head rent-free. so definitely a lot of books ive never even heard of in here, and i definitely haven't read the Big King books (the stand and dark tower, mainly) but it doesn't matter too much for podcasting :)

sidebar, i told my roommate about the podcast and she misunderstood the premise and thought it was like. audiobook style. like they were reading the books out loud. i was like babe the stand episode is less than 4 hours long. do you think it's on like 10x speed. lololol

music-wise, @delta-orionis has some DELICIOUS synthwave playlists that ive been working out and studying to. it's like 40 hours long. go nuts

reading: i went to the library with the intention of wandering the nonfiction section until i found something that looked fun but they're remodeling soon so a ton of the stacks aren't open for wandering rn...i can reserve stuff and pick it up but they're not accessible to the public :( the fiction section is though so i grabbed "the birthday of the world", a short story collection by ursula le guin! i thought short stories would be nice because of my lack of time to properly get engaged in a Book and i was right, it rules. i read the first three or so last weekend when i took myself to brunch at a new tea place on main street (3/5 for the brunch, the restaurant is brand new so there are definitely some things that went wrong - food took forever to come out, i was frequently forgotten, after i was seated i waited for like 10 minutes to be noticed by waitstaff, when i finally got my food the rice was crunchy, etc. i would go back to eat there but not any time soon, maybe in a few months after theyve been open for a while. the tea RULED though. their gimmick is like...travel? airplane? so all the staff introduce themselves as flight attendants, and their rewards card is formatted like a passport book where once you get a row of stamps for a certain continent you get a free tea, and once you fill out the whole book you get another free tea........it's so cute.......) actually now im not sure if it's the location the tea came from or the Type of tea? because that top column goes from japan to england which is not exactly a Region. eurasia????? idfk. still cute

anyways. the short stories. i read the first three ("Coming of Age in Karhide", "The Matter of Seggri", and "Unchosen Love") and really enjoyed them! i never finished Left Hand of Darkness (i will return to her one day i promise) but it definitely wasn't required reading even though the first story was set on that same planet. the next story is "Mountain Ways" which is actually available online for those interested :)

watching: more evangelion, and my roommate put on "cunk on earth" for me and it rules it's so funny. obsessed with her.

making: embroidery progress! about halfway done filling in the headphone cord.

as a self reminder, the task list for finishing this is:

fill in headphone cord

words along the side

fill stitch for hair

color in eyes

add misc hair flyaways

misc: quantum midterm thursday......it's open note so im not as frantic as last semester's exams but still. ah. ahhhh. :(

[renamusing]

6, 18, 38, 44, 61, 66, 71, 86, & 135 🧐✍️

for the book recs ask game ! 💕

omg rae tysm i didnt expect so many !!!!!!!

6) a book with a pink cover:

convenience store woman by sayaka murata. my edition has a pink cover. it's a super short book about a social-misfit woman who finds her purpose working at a convenience store. very humbling and heartwarming story. i adore it.

18) your least favorite book ever

not gonna include 'trash books' here cause we all read those from time to time and they are what they are. so i would probably choose a little life by hanya yanagihara. absolute slog to get through. even though i enjoy angst, this was misery porn. the more i read the more i wanted to end it all. reminded me a bit of the goldfinch but without any payoff, anything redeeming story-wise. same reason i also have a long-standing beef with wuthering heights.

38) your favourite series

OKAY NOT THE EASIEST QUESTION FOR ME because i love so many and all of them for different reasons. i guess ursula le guin's earthsea series might be my favorite because i relate a lot to the way she approaches characters and relationships, but i also love her hainish cycle (books 1-3 link very nicely to each other!), and i have to mention asimov's foundation trilogy for the ingenious way he weaves politics into the plot and grrm asoiaf series for the sheer size and scope of what he tries to achieve.

44) your favourite fantasy novel

tolkien's the lord of the rings. it's part of my identity.

61) your favourite horror novel

yo i need to read a lot more horror yet but bram stoker's dracula is a classic for a reason. i also really enjoyed the vampire lestat by she who must not be named.

66) a book that fucked you up

george orwell's animal farm! and honorable mention to ursula's novella the matter of seggri. that was some fucked up shit! and octavia butler’s kindred! tf happened there?

71) your favourite LGBTQ+ fiction

i dont know that it's my favorite but i've recently read the house in the cerulean sea and it was pretty cute. my favorite lgbtq+ fiction spiritually? the heart is a lonely hunter by carson mccullers.

86) a book with an insane plot twist

anthony bourdain's kitchen confidential is bonkers from beginning to end. that man lived 100 lives and i miss him a lot.

135) recommend any book you like!

piranesi by susanna clarke. read this book immediately! no summary, no spoilers. just inject this book into your eyeballs!

[incognitajones]

I learned that the story has no beginning, and no story has an end. That the story is all muddle, all middle. That the story is never true, but that the lie is indeed a child of silence.

Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Matter of Seggri”

[elenajohansenreads]

Books I Read in 2020

#166 - The Found and the Lost: The Collected Novellas of Ursula K. Le Guin, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Mount TBR: 143/150

Rating: 4/5 stars

I bought this several years ago as a boxed set with the similar short-story anthology, and since then, I've actually read most of these novellas as part of other sources: when I sat down to tackle this monster of a collection, it turned out only three of the thirteen novellas were new to me. Between Tales of Earthsea which I own, and my 2018 reading of the entire primary Hainish Cycle, which includes several anthologies, I had most of this book covered.

So it was the first three stories I read, and of those three, I only really liked the first one, "Vaster Than Empires and More Slow." "Buffalo Gals" was okay, but a departure in some ways from the usual Le Guin oeuvre, tackling Native American-style folklore. "Hernes" I absolutely did not like, because it felt disjointed and strange with all that time- and character-hopping, I'll be honest, I didn't really get the point of it.

As for the rest, well, to get an overall rating I blended together my memories of Tales and how much I liked it, and my more recently read and reviewed works that provided stories for these, balanced against my lackluster reception of the three "new" novellas and the simple weirdness of including two previous anthologies nearly wholesale in this one. (I'm also mystified that "Buffalo Gals" and "The Matter of Seggri" are included in both this novella anthology and the short-story one, when they're clearly intended to be a matched set. Possibly others as well, I only skimmed the table of contents out of curiosity and didn't notice others, which doesn't mean they're not there.)