Name: The Left Hand of Darkness
Rating: 4.051987767584098 (327 reviews)

Ursula K. Le Guin

Ursula Le Guin

On behalf of his government, an earthling travels to an alien, backward world whose inhabitants are all ambisexual

The Left Hand of Darkness

'Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new' Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place. As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.

Ik vind het echt crazy dat je dit gewoon kan bedenken in de jaren 60

tara  (she/her)

'A rich and complex story of friendship and love' GUARDIAN 'It's a giant thought experiment that's also a cracking good read about gender' Neil Gaiman 'Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new' Two people, until recently strangers, find themselves on a long, tortuous and dangerous journey across the ice. One is an outcast, forced to leave his beloved homeland; the other is fleeing from a different kind of persecution. What they have in common is curiosity, about others and themselves, and an almost unshakeable belief that the world can be a better place. As they journey for over 800 miles, across the harshest, most inhospitable landscape, they discover the true meaning of friendship, and of love.

martian1138

Fantastic premise, but the plot kind of got lost on me. Nevertheless, the concept of gender neutrality are innovative explored, and i had to remind myself often about how ahead of its time this book was. Definitely recommend, but more for the premise rather than the story.

Hamed Khalidi

lala

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

Having read several sci-fi novels written by men for the past month, I wanted to try reading sci-fi written by women. To my surprise, the leading character in this novel were once again, male. This novel follows Genly Ai, an Envoy from Ekumen— a joint organization including 83 different planets in his attempt to recruit the planet Gethen, to join the Ekumen. He met the natives of the planet, the ambisexual Gethenians, who doesn’t have a fixed gender unless they are in kemmer. The rest of the story focuses on Ai’s attempts to recruit Gethen in the two parts of the planet, Karhide and Orgoreyn, and his friendship with his ally, Estraven. As one of the pioneer of feminist science fiction during the second-wave of feminism, I was surprised that Le Guin does not include more feminine point of view in this novel. Even the ambisexual Gethenians were referenced to using the masculine pronoun he/him. The idea of ambisexual people are important to the trans and non-binary community, however I am still disappointed in the lack of feminine pov. The world-building and Gethenian terms are kind of hard to follow, several chapters in the latter half of the book is too dragging. However, the following chapters toward the ending ties up the story nicely.

laia

Sarah Sammis

I enjoyed Left Hand of Darkness, especially the first two thirds where Le Guin spends her time on the legends, history, culture and biology of the world. Once all these pieces are in place the book peters out with a long chase through the ice and a rather cliched tragic death scene. Were it not the for the last eighty pages, I would have rated this book ten stars.

Humbled by how difficult it was to get into this one! About 60% through, it picked up and I felt incredibly invested. While the pacing and structure weren’t my favorite, the themes and world building made up for it (and of course the groundbreaking history of the novel). This was my first, but not last, by Le Guin.

Emiley Jones

First le guin! It had a very slow build, but once I got about 60% of the way through I was so invested. The last half moved very fast however. Overall a really interesting book with a strange structure I didn’t love, but I’ll be thinking about a lot of the themes for a long time. 

Tobias V. Langhoff

I read this book anticipating a commentary on gender roles in our society, but mostly I found it was a fun adventure.

The premise of an offshoot of the human race where everyone's gender changes in tune with the menstrual cycle is very interesting, and it impacts this human society in many ways, but I felt that it was more of a backdrop to a tale of political intrigue and xenophobia. Which was fine, but not what I was expecting! The story, as it is, is exciting.

Felt like a short story and unfortunately I don't have deeper feelings. Possibly because I'm currently in the grey area of trying to fit in and I'm fighting it.

Dora Tominic

Disclaimer: this is not a review

Felt like a short story and unfortunately I don't have deeper feelings. Possibly because I'm currently in the grey area of trying to fit in and I'm fighting it.

mic shulman

My first book of 2024 and my first Le Guin novel. She does an excellent job of creating a believable and deep world. The second half of the book was especially engaging for me, I couldn’t wait learn more about Genly and Estraven’s journey and didn’t want to put the book down. 

Kyle Kettler

Quinn Tenorio

A science-fiction novel worth its weight. I don't know how else to describe this book so succinctly. Le Guin knows how to do it all: world building, examining ideas and concepts at a large and small level, knowing when to get into the nitty gritty and when to stay broad. It's such an amazing science fiction novel, despite not being so flashy with the more exciting fare like super futuristic technology. The fact of the matter is that she focuses more concepts like sexuality, government, culture, race and as a result, the book is so much more rich in detail.

As others mention, including Le Guin herself, science fiction is a thought experiment. Most well-known titles of science fiction (Dune, Foundation) tend to explore the "what if" on the macro scale but in The Left Hand of Darkness, the micro is our sole focus. From this focus we get an idea of this world, not different from ours except bone-chilling temperatures, that makes you stop to think about how it relates to current day.

However, it does have some flaws. The most clear example is the misogyny of the main character, as pointed out in the afterword by Charlie Jane Anders in my edition of the book. It's certainly an interesting choice to make, but it does contribute to the story, especially considering it's an exploration of sexuality.

I will be reading the others in this series.

A.L.L.

I enjoyed this book in a similar way that I enjoyed One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.

It was stark, in many ways. It was poignant in its way too. 

I was really hoping for more regarding the species ability to change sexes, as that concept was a huge draw for me to the book. I think perhaps the time period this book was written in stymied Le Guin's reach. It felt like she was deliberately holding back in this area, like she felt even having the story involve androgynous hermaphrodites was radical enough and she didn't want to rock the boat more by elaborating further on a society in which gender and sex are fluid things and literally all people are equal. Some of the concepts regarding gender roles are telling of the time period this book was written in too. I wonder how different this book would have been if it had been written now. 

As far as characters went, they drive the story but are difficult to become attached to. They are not characters you fall in love with, nor is the world the story takes place in. Still a great book though.

Varun Jayaraman

Interesting and soulful, just not my cup of tea. 

Madi Van Houten

The  left hand of darkness

Michael Springer

This is the first "soft SF" book I've read, and perhaps the softer side is what I prefer. One of my chief complaints about "hard" science fiction is the lack of character development, and the intense focus on . . . well. . . the science of it. Frankly, I've always been more interested in characters. This book is about characters.

The story follows an ambassador to the planet Winter. The ambassador is human, but the people of Winter are androgynous- they are neither male nor female until Kemmer, a few days each month, wherein they become briefly either male or female. Only during this time do the people of Winter have sex, and the rest of the time, they're devoid of the urge. 

Our main character, Ai, is a man's man. He often refers to things as "womanly" and struggles with coming to terms with the sexlessness of those around him. His mind is continually trying to classify those he meets as one sex or the other, and so do I as a reader. The way people act towards other people is, in so many ways, determined by one's own sex and the sex of the other. As Ai says at one point, the biggest determiner of our course in life is whether we're born a man or a woman. (This isn't a real quote, but the idea is essentially the same as Ai's statement. As usual, I'm too lazy to give you a direct quotation.)

I don't want to ruin the storyline, but I will say that the politics on Winter are very reminiscent of Earthly politics, even though the concept of war doesn't exist. Apparently the people of Winter don't have the necessary testosterone to get into wars. Assassinations, political betrayals, and other unsavory things happen in abundance, though. 

(SPOILER ALERT: Mild spoils ahead) 
This book is definitely worth multiple reads. It wrestles with Big Ideas like duality (between man & woman, man & nature) and sexuality. Ai has some moments of sexual tension with "women," but the fact that they could just as easily have become men hovers over these experiences, and the book ends without him getting any poontang. Perhaps a modern book would've wrestled even more with the sexual ambiguity Ai faced in his time on the planet. But, this was written in the sixties, during the time when Le Guin was still writing as "an honorary man, and not as a woman" (almost a direct quote), so she probably didn't want to delve too deep into an aspect of the book that might become too weird for many of her readers. 

Anyway, I loved this book, and I expect I'll be reading a lot more of Le Guin's work in the future. A lot of science fiction revels in the foreign-ness of other planets and other life forms; in The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin revels in the same-ness of this other planets experience of living. I recommend this book very highly.

Bouke van der Bijl

Unfortunately I cut my losses and stopped reading this book. I just couldn’t keep up with all the different places and characters that were introduced, and that all had inscrutable names. Maybe I will give t another shot down the line

Prashanth Srivatsa

An excellent exploration of gender roles in society, of the pleasure of travel and discovery and of how - as a nation evolves to resist its traditional, climatic enemies, it begins to birth more contemporary, human ones. I went back several times to read Estraven's thoughts on civilization and patriotism. They are constantly struggling to understand the 'human' alien. Or at least to reconcile the misunderstandings between them. The eventual suppression of shifgrethor (the culture's heightened quest for prestige) occurs in a moving sequence.

Beneath the political struggles, the quest for humanity and the great glacial journey towards the end, there's a simmering experience of loyalty, love and what it means to be ignorant of knowledge. There's a beauty in observing the slow progress of the Gethenian culture, a gradual acceptance of their biology and laws. Ultimately, my deepest satisfaction derives from learning how a culture so vastly different from ours can be so alluring, so... natural in aspects that our own society would strive to dismiss.

An absolute masterpiece.

The Left Hand of Darkness

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