Reading Order
Changing Planes Reading Order
Changing Planes (2003) by Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the most formally delightful books she ever wrote — a linked collection of short stories presented as a travel guide to various planes of existence, visited from airports during interminable layovers (the conceit is that the tedium of airport waiting, practiced correctly, allows one to 'change planes' — to slip sideways into other worlds). Each of the sixteen stories describes a different plane, exploring a different aspect of human (or human-adjacent) culture, biology, language, or social organization. Changing Planes is Le Guin in her most playful and most varied mode: some stories are serious anthropological speculations (a world where people have lost the ability to dream; a world whose people live in their language, literally, so that speakers of different languages inhabit different physical spaces), some are satirical (a world obsessed with genealogy to the point of social paralysis), and some are purely whimsical (a world where people grow wings and the wing-growing is going wrong). The book is illustrated by Eric Beddows and is one of Le Guin's most approachable books for readers new to her work. It is also the fullest expression of what Le Guin called the 'thought experiment' mode of SF: each story poses a single speculative premise and traces its implications.
Where to start
Changing Planes — any Harcourt or Ace edition. The stories can be read in any order, but reading them in sequence creates a cumulative effect. Each story is under 20 pages; the book is ideal for reading in short sessions.
Complete Changing Planes Book List
- 1Buy
Changing Planes
Ursula K. Le Guin·2003·The collection — sixteen stories presented as a travel guide to alternate planes visited from airports; Le Guin's most playful and formally varied short fiction, each story a thought experiment in a different speculative premise. - 2Buy
The Wind's Twelve Quarters
Ursula K. Le Guin·1975·Le Guin's first major story collection — the companion in her short fiction; seventeen stories from the 1960s and 70s, including 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas' and key Hainish and Earthsea stories. - 3Buy
The Left Hand of Darkness
Ursula K. Le Guin·1969·Le Guin's Hugo-winning Hainish SF — the novel-length expression of the same thought-experiment mode that Changing Planes works in story form; the Gethenian thought experiment about ambisexuality is the extended version of what each Changing Planes story does in miniature. - 4Buy
The Dispossessed
Ursula K. Le Guin·1974·Le Guin's Hugo-winning anarchist utopia — the companion in her speculative-social-imagination mode; the Anarres thought experiment at full novel length is what Changing Planes stories do in 15 pages. - 5Buy
Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang·2002·Chiang's debut collection — published the year before Changing Planes, the most important companion in the thought-experiment short SF tradition; Chiang's stories each pose a speculative premise and trace its implications with the same rigor and care that Le Guin uses in Changing Planes. - 6Buy
The Illustrated Man
Ray Bradbury·1951·Bradbury's linked short story collection — the predecessor in the form of a framing device linking short SF stories; the illustrated man's tattoo stories are the earlier American version of the linked-stories-as-world-travel that Changing Planes perfects. - 7Buy
Invisible Cities
Italo Calvino·1972·Calvino's speculative fiction — the companion in literary fiction organized as a collection of short, conceptually distinct world-visions; Marco Polo's cities are the closest literary predecessor to Le Guin's planes, both books organized around the premise of a traveler describing places that exist outside normal reality. - 8Buy
How Long 'til Black Future Month?
N.K. Jemisin·2018·Jemisin's debut story collection — the most important recent companion in the short SF tradition; Jemisin's range of premises and tones is the 21st-century version of what Le Guin demonstrated across a career in short fiction.
Changing Planes — Frequently Asked Questions
What is Changing Planes?
Changing Planes is a collection of sixteen short stories presented as a travel guide to other planes of existence. The framing conceit is that a travel writer named Sita Dulip has discovered that the peculiar conditions of airport waiting — the combination of boredom, displacement, and desire to be elsewhere — enable a kind of lateral movement: if you practice correctly, you can 'change planes' from the airport into other worlds entirely. Each story is a report on one of these worlds. The stories range from purely comic (the genealogy-obsessed world, the wing-growing world) to genuinely moving (the world without dreaming, the world whose language determines physical space) to darkly satirical. The book was illustrated by Eric Beddows.
What are the most notable stories in the collection?
The most celebrated stories include: 'The Royals of Hegn,' about a world so obsessed with genealogy that the genealogies have become their culture; 'The Silence of the Asonu,' about a people who speak less and less as they mature, until the wisest elders say nothing at all; 'Woeful Tales from Mahigul,' four cautionary tales in the manner of folk tales; 'The Fliers of Gy,' about a world where people grow wings, but the wing-growing has gone wrong; and 'Seasons of the Ansarac,' about a migratory people whose society is organized entirely around a migration cycle. The consensus best story is 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas' — but that story was written 30 years before Changing Planes and is more often anthologized separately.
How does Changing Planes demonstrate Le Guin's thought-experiment method?
Each story in Changing Planes begins with a speculative premise and traces its implications. 'The Silence of the Asonu' begins: what would a society look like where the wisest people speak least, where silence is the mark of wisdom? The story follows this premise to its consequences: writing is considered a low art (because it preserves what wise people would not bother saying), tourists misinterpret the silence as either profundity or stupidity, and the Asonu themselves find all the interpretation amusing. This method — pose a premise, trace its implications seriously, don't resolve it too neatly — is the core of Le Guin's speculative method across her career. Changing Planes distills it to its essence because each story has only 15–20 pages to pose and explore a premise.
Is Changing Planes a good entry point into Le Guin?
Yes — Changing Planes is one of the best entry points into Le Guin for readers who are not sure they will like her longer novels. The stories are short, formally varied, and immediately engaging. The airport framing is a joke that works and removes the need for the reader to take the world-building too seriously from the start. The range of the collection also gives readers a sense of Le Guin's range: she can be whimsical, serious, satirical, anthropological, and moving, sometimes in the same story. Readers who love Changing Planes and want more of Le Guin's thought-experiment mode should go to The Left Hand of Darkness next; readers who want more of her playful short fiction should try The Wind's Twelve Quarters.
What should I read after Changing Planes?
After Changing Planes, The Wind's Twelve Quarters (1975) is the most important companion in Le Guin's short fiction — her first major collection, containing 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas' and key Hainish stories. The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed are the essential next steps in her SF novels. For the short SF thought-experiment tradition, Ted Chiang's Stories of Your Life and Others and N.K. Jemisin's How Long 'til Black Future Month? are the most important recent companions. Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities is the closest literary predecessor in the form.
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