Changing Planes

Description

The misery of waiting for a connecting flight at an airport leads to the accidental discovery of alighting on other planes--not airplanes but planes of existence. Ursula Le Guin's premise frames a series of travel accounts by the tourist-narrator who describes bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own, and sometimes open puzzling doors into the alien.

Description

"Missing a flight, waiting in an airport, listening to garbled announcements - who doesn't hate that misery?" "But Sita Dulip from Cincinnati finds a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, the long lines at the toilets, the nasty lunch, the whimpering children and punitive parents, the bookless bookstores, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor." "A mere kind of twist and a slipping bend, easier to do than to describe, takes her not to Denver but to Strupsirts, a picturesque region of waterspouts and volcanoes, or to Djeyo where she can stay for two nights in a small hotel with a balcony overlooking the amber Sea of Somue. This new discovery - changing planes - enables Sita to visit bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own and sometimes open doors into the alien."--Jacket.

First Sentence

The range of the airplane—a few thousand miles, the other side of the world, coconut palms, glaciers, the poles, the Poles, a lama, a llama, etc.—is pitifully limited compared to the vast extent and variety of experience provided, to those who know how to use it, by the airport.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Changing Planes: StoriesHardcoverHarcourt2003-01-01
• Changing PlanesAudio CDNew Millenium Audio2003-12-01
• Changing planesHarcourt, Inc.2004-01-01
• Changing planesBerkley Books2004-01-01
• Changing Planes (Gollancz)HardcoverGollancz2004-01-15
• Changing Planes (Gollancz)PaperbackGollancz2005-01-13