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The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin
- 6 Ratings
- 51 Want to read
- 1 Currently reading
- 15 Have read
Previews available in: English
Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website:
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.
Subjects
Ciencia-ficción, Hugo Award Winner, award:hugo_award=1970, award:hugo_award=novel, human nature, gender, space travel, ice age, Science fiction, American literature, Fiction, science fiction, general, LGBTQ gender identity, LGBTQ science fiction & fantasy, collection:otherwise_tiptree_award=winner, award:nebula_award=novelPlaces
Winter (fictional planet)Showing 6 featured editions. View all 59 editions?
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1
The left hand of darkness
2003, Ace Books
in English
- Ace mass-market ed., [50th anniversary ed.].
0441478123 9780441478125
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Book Details
Published in
New York, USA
First Sentence
"I'LL MAKE MY REPORT AS IF I TOLD A STORY, FOR I WAS taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination."
Table of Contents
Introduction | xi | |
1. | A Parade in Erhenrang | 1 |
2. | The Place Inside the Blizzard | 21 |
3. | The Mad King | 27 |
4. | The Nineteenth Day | 43 |
5. | The Domestication of Hunch | 47 |
6. | One Way into Orgorein | 71 |
7. | The Question of Sex | 89 |
8. | Another Way into Orgoreyn | 97 |
9. | Estraven the Traitor | 123 |
10. | Conversations in Mishnory | 129 |
11. | Soliloquies in Mishnory | 147 |
12. | On Time and Darkness | 161 |
13. | Down on the Farm | 165 |
14. | The Escape | 185 |
15. | To the Ice | 201 |
16. | Between Drumner and Dremegole | 221 |
17. | An Orgota Creation Myth | 237 |
18. | On the Ice | 241 |
19. | Homecoming | 263 |
20. | A Fool's Errand | 285 |
The Gethenian Calendar and Clock | 301 |
Edition Notes
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Feedback?History
- Created April 29, 2008
- 10 revisions
October 4, 2021 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
August 6, 2021 | Edited by Jenner | Merge works |
August 6, 2021 | Edited by Jenner | Merge works |
October 8, 2010 | Edited by Brant Gibbard | Place of publication, table of contents, pagination, dimensions, weight |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record. |