Tag Archives: Ursula K. Le Guin

Dylan’s mind and other diversions

Posted on November 16, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

Can AI tell us anything meaningful about Bob Dylan’s songs? What was uncovered when computer scientist Prashant Garg  fed Dylan’s official discography from 1962 to 2012 into a large language model (LLM), building a network of the concepts and connections … Continue reading →

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The problem with despair

Posted on October 22, 2025 by Brian D. Butler

“It may just be a refusal to take the counsel of despair. I think to admit despair and to revel in it — as many 20th- and 21st-century writers do — is an easy way out. Whenever I get really … Continue reading →

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Alien Picnic

Posted on July 11, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

I recently ran across a reference to the fantastic Russian Sci-Fi classic Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky that included a link to a free online version of the novel. You can read or download the book here. The Strugatsky brothers … Continue reading →

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How could they leave it out

Posted on March 18, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

Last week, the Atlantic magazine published a list of great American novels — 136 of them. I’m embarrassed to say that I’ve only read 60 or so novels on the list. However, when I took a closer look at the … Continue reading →

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It is no secret

Posted on March 13, 2024 by Brian D. Butler

It is no secret. All power is one in source and end, I think. Tears and distances, stars and candles, water and wind and wizardry, the craft in a man’s hand and the wisdom in a tree’s root: they all … Continue reading →

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Commodified fantasy takes no risks

Posted on February 22, 2023 by Brian D. Butler

  “All times are changing times, but ours is one of massive, rapid moral and mental transformation. Archetypes turn into millstones, large simplicities get complicated, chaos becomes elegant, and what everybody knows is true turns out to be what some … Continue reading →

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a boundary-line of hate

Posted on August 27, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

“(…) Hate Orgoreyn? No, how should I? How does one hate a country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know … Continue reading →

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Inspired by Jose Saramago

Posted on August 10, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

Frequent visitors to Travel Between The Pages are well aware of my appreciation for the writing of the late Ursula K. Le Guin. If memory serves, I first discovered her work in the magazine Amazing Stories. The first of her … Continue reading →

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all and sundry Sunday

Posted on April 25, 2021 by Brian D. Butler

In reading a novel, any novel, we have to know perfectly well that the whole thing is nonsense, and then, while reading, believe every word of it. Finally, when we’re done with it, we may find – if it’s a … Continue reading →

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Tale for Tale

Posted on September 30, 2020 by Brian D. Butler

The Teller of Tales Gabriela Mistral translated by Ursula K. Le Guin When I’m walking, everything on earth gets up and stops me and whispers to me, and what they tell me is their story. And the people walking on the … Continue reading →

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