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The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her lyrical writing, rich characters, and diverse worlds. The Wind's Twelve Quarters collects seventeen powerful stories, each with an introduction by the author, ranging from fantasy to intriguing scientific concepts, from medieval settings to the future.

Including an insightful foreword by Le Guin, describing her experience, her inspirations, and her approach to writing, this stunning collection explores human values, relationships, and survival, and showcases the myriad talents of one of the most provocative writers of our time.

Table of Contents:

• Foreword - essay by Ursula K. Le Guin
• Semley's Necklace - (1964)
• April in Paris - (1962)
• The Masters - (1963)
• Darkness Box - (1963)
• The Word of Unbinding - (1964)
• The Rule of Names - (1964)
• Winter's King - (1969)
• The Good Trip - (1970)
• Nine Lives - (1969)
• Things - (1970)
• A Trip to the Head - (1970)
• Vaster Than Empires and More Slow - (1971)
• The Stars Below - (1974)
• The Field of Vision - (1973)
• The Direction of the Road - (1975)
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - (1973)
• The Day Before the Revolution - (1974)

Grand Master Ursula K. LeGuin has been recognised for almost fifty years as one of the most important writers in the SF field - and is likewise feted beyond the confines of the genre. The Wind's Twelve Quarters was her first collection and it brings together some of finest short fiction, including the Hugo Award-winning 'The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas', the Nebula Award-winning 'The Day Before the Revolution', and the Hugo-nominated 'Winter's King', which gave readers their first glimpse of the world later made famous in her Hugo- and Nebula-winning masterpiece The Left Hand of Darkness.

This is the omnibus edition of the two short story collections The Wind's Twelve Quarters and The Compass Rose.

Table of Contents:

• Introduction - essay by Graham Sleight

The Wind's Twelve Quarters

• Foreword - (1975) - essay
• Semley's Necklace - (1964) - shortstory
• April in Paris - (1962) - shortstory
• The Masters - (1963) - shortstory
• Darkness Box - (1963) - shortstory
• The Word of Unbinding - (1964) - shortstory
• The Rule of Names - (1964) - shortstory
• Winter's King - (1969) - novelette
• The Good Trip - (1970) - shortstory
• Nine Lives - (1969) - novelette
• Things - (1970) - shortstory
• A Trip to the Head - (1970) - shortstory
• Vaster Than Empires and More Slow - (1971) - novelette
• The Stars Below - (1974) - shortstory
• The Field of Vision - (1973) - shortstory
• Direction of the Road - (1973) - shortstory
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - (1973) - shortstory
• The Day Before the Revolution - (1974) - shortstory

The Compass Rose

• Preface - (1982) - essay
• The Author of the Acacia Seeds and Other Extracts from the Journal of the Association of Therolinguistics - (1974) - shortstory
• The New Atlantis - (1975) - novelette
• Schrödinger's Cat - (1974) - shortstory
• Two Delays on the Northern Line - (1979) - shortstory
• SQ - (1978) - shortstory
• Small Change - (1982) - shortstory
• The First Report of the Shipwrecked Foreigner to the Kadanh of Derb - (1978) - shortstory
• The Diary of the Rose - (1976) - novelette
• The White Donkey - (1980) - shortstory
• The Phoenix - (1982) - shortstory
• Intracom - (1974) - shortstory
• The Eye Altering - (1976) - shortstory
• Mazes - (1975) - shortstory
• The Pathways of Desire - (1979) - novelette
• Gwilan's Harp - (1977) - shortstory
• Malheur County - (1979) - shortstory
• The Water Is Wide - (1976) - shortstory
• The Wife's Story - (1982) - shortstory
• Some Approaches to the Problem of the Shortage of Time - (1979) - shortstory
• Sur - (1982) - shortstory

Being the new girl at school is rough. But when the popular girls choose Kerry as the newest member of their ultra-exclusive clique, she thinks her troubles are finally finished. When her three new friends are killed in a horrifying crash, her life seems over as well. But then the texts begin...

Richard Peck returns to his contemporary teen-and-ghost-story roots iun this suspenseful page-turner with a subtle commentary on peer pressure that fans of television dramas such as Pretty Little Liars and Vampire Diaries will devour.

Scout Lieutenant Cassie Suthorn, a cunning and resourceful member of the freewheeling Camancho's Caballeros, suspects danger from a seemingly low-risk assignment, and is forced to use all her skills against the destructive BattleMechs.

Only those born with the Bard's gift could learn to call the kigh--the spirits of earth, air, fire, and water--to do their bidding. For Princess Annice, who could sing the elemental spirits from each of the four quarters, the lure of that magic was too strong to be denied, even if it meant renouncing her royal privileges.

Bannon and Vree, brother and sister, they are assassins of the highest caliber who have long plied their trade for the Havalkeen army. But all their skill and experience cannot save them from a magic-sprung trap that will see the two forced to share one body when the very man they've been sent to assassinate steals Bannon's body for himself. How long brother and sister can coexist in one body neither can guess. And so they set out to catch and defeat this foe who has already bested them once.

But when Bannon and Vree confront this master of a magic beyond their comprehension, he offers them a terrible choice - to continue their new dual existence forever, or to betray the Empire they have served all their lives. For it is not control of Bannon's body which is Gyhard's true goal but rather the body - and with it the identity and power - of the Imperial Prince.

Gyhard and Vree have abandoned the Empire for the kingdom of Shkoder, hoping to enlist the bards' aid in finding Gyhard a body of his own. But there are those who have more insidious plans for them--those who will stop at nothing to exact revenge upon Gyhard no matter whose body he's in.

Queen Jelena of Shkoder has decided to start her reign by commissioning a ship to undertake the exploration of uncharted waters in search of the homeland of the legendary Dark Sailor. When disaster strikes, the bard Benedikt -- who Sings only One Quarter, that of Water -- is hopelessly stranded with no way to get word back to the queen. Washed up on the shores of a distant land, Benedikt is claimed by his rescuers as a pawn in their intricate and perilous game of politics and religion. Can this One Quarter bard find a Song that will let him survive without disturbing the precarious power balance of a civilization he barely understands?