The Fliers of Gy by Ursula Le Guin

Majestic.

I’ve been trying to review Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Fliers of Gy for a few years now, and every single attempt has ended in frustration with the thought that I’ll never do this story justice. And honestly? That feeling hasn’t gone away. But after yet another re-read (yes, it’s that good), I feel compelled to at least try—however clumsy my words may be—to capture what makes this short story so utterly brilliant. 

Let’s start here: The Fliers of Gy is easily one of the best short-stories that I have ever read and I just want to share it with others. I think many would agree that Le Guin is a great writer, but it is her anthropological and historical narrative style here that is utterly remarkable. The story bursts with detail and imagination, making Gy feel like a real place with its own unique traditions, social structures, and quiet mysteries. It’s the kind of storytelling that feels so effortless you almost miss how intricate it is, like a master artist sketching with a casual hand.

At its core, the story tackles themes of fate and tradition, and it does so with a complexity that’s nothing short of novelistic. The fliers themselves—those fragile, angelic beings who transform during adolescence—are an extraordinary metaphor. They embody freedom, individuality, and the bittersweet beauty of living apart from the ordinary. Le Guin doesn’t spoon-feed you these ideas, though. Instead, she layers them in, inviting you to reflect on what it means to accept your fate, to break from tradition, or to pay the price for being truly yourself.

What makes The Fliers of Gy soar (pun fully intended) is how Le Guin’s prose feels both grounded, inviting and transcendent. Her writing captures the deep emotional weight of the fliers’ existence while maintaining the kind of distance you’d expect from an anthropological account. It’s a balancing act that few writers could pull off, but Le Guin does it with such grace, brevity and masterful storytelling. 

This is a short-story masterpiece. It’s meditative, profound, and achingly beautiful.