The left hand of darkness

An orbit book

by Ursula K. Le Guin

256 pages

English language

Published July 3, 1981 by Macdonald Futura.

ISBN:: 9780708880814

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(6 reviews)

[Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website][1]: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969)

One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. For more than 40 years I've been recommending this book to people who want to try science fiction for the first time, and it still serves very well for that. One of the things I like about it is how clearly it demonstrates that science fiction can have not only the usual virtues and pleasures of the novel, but also the startling and transformative power of the thought experiment.

In this case, the thought experiment is quickly revealed: "The king was pregnant," the book tells us early on, and after that we learn more and more about this planet named Winter, stuck in an ice age, where the humans are most of the time …

[Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website][1]: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969)

One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. For more than 40 years I've been recommending this book to people who want to try science fiction for the first time, and it still serves very well for that. One of the things I like about it is how clearly it demonstrates that science fiction can have not only the usual virtues and pleasures of the novel, but also the startling and transformative power of the thought experiment.

In this case, the thought experiment is quickly revealed: "The king was pregnant," the book tells us early on, and after that we learn more and more about this planet named Winter, stuck in an ice age, where the humans are most of the time neither male nor female, but with the potential to become either. The man from Earth investigating this situation has a lot to learn, and so do we; and we learn it in the course of a thrilling adventure story, including a great "crossing of the ice". Le Guin's language is clear and clean, and has within it both the anthropological mindset of her father Alfred Kroeber, and the poetry of stories as magical things that her mother Theodora Kroeber found in native American tales. This worldly wisdom applied to the romance of other planets, and to human nature at its deepest, is Le Guin's particular gift to us, and something science fiction will always be proud of. Try it and see – you will never think about people in quite the same way again.

[1]: www.theguardian.com/books/2011/may/14/science-fiction-authors-choice

24 editions

Courts reviewed The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

Not Sure About this One

4 stars

I have mixed feelings about this book. I think it was the best of the three Hainish novels I've read so far, and I can appreciate the fact that the theme of a gender-changing alien race was somewhat revolutionary at the time.

However, I have to admit that I had to push through this book. I've read another review that likened it to homework, and that sums it up quite well for me, too. Maybe my expectations were too high and I have read it at the wrong point in time, just like in school when you have to read something that you cannot appreciate at the moment, but strikes you as profound at a different time.

So yeah, this novel leaves me a bit stumped about what to say. I liked it well enough to not stop reading, but have to admit that it could have been half as …

So yeah, this novel leaves me a bit stumped about what to say. I liked it well enough to not stop reading, but have to admit that it could have been half as long. The journey over the ice was the most exciting part.