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“Light is the left hand of darknessand darkness the right hand of light.Two are one, life and death, lyingtogether like lovers in kemmer,like hands joined together,like the end and the way.” This was written in the sixties, though it feels like it was written yesterday. Ursula K. Le Guin creates a vivid culture of ambisexual humanoids that come with a detailed history and culture. And it is truly fascinating to read about because such discussions and representations of gender and sex are str
I've become rather bitter with sci-fi over the years, as it used to be my favorite genre. But you can only read so many space operas and pretentious near futures before it gets to you a little.And then you decide to give an author a go because of some weird research string you were on... and it rekindles your love of why you started reading it in the first place. LeGuin approaches sci-fi as it should be; a thought experiment. Instead of spending pages upon pages describing the minutiae of every
“If civilization has an opposite, it is war.”In the nascent days of summer, I read a book that I can’t stop thinking about and can’t stop recommending. I’m stirring from my Goodreads silence to tell you about this book, Left Hand of Darkness, by the late Ursula K. Le Guin. Written in 1969 and the winner of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, this book is just as relevant and important today as it was when it first hit the shelves. Left Hand of Darkness is a gorgeous sci-fi novel of political intrig...
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin has a voyeuristic quality, as if a description to a studious observation. I could not help thinking that I was reading a National Geographic article about a reporter visiting Winter, or Gethen as its inhabitants know it. Many readers cannot help but comment upon the Gethenians physiological androgyny, and this is certainly a central theme of the story, but there is so much more to fascinate the reader. Le Guin has demonstrated again how she can crea...
It took me a few minutes to get a grip on myself after finishing this novel. The Left Hand of Darkness is a fantastic book. It has the quaint flavour of the old sci-fi novels, especially reminiscent of Asimov’s Foundation series (it’s just way better!), Frank Herbert’s Dune, and the Star Trek TV series (released at around the same time as Le Guin’s novel).This book was published shortly after A Wizard of Earthsea, and both novels are similar in many ways. Both contain the same world-building tro...
The Challenge of SexSex is awkward no matter how you look at it - arguably yet another design flaw in our species. Solo sex is likely to be unsatisfying. Straight sex is fraught with gendered miscommunication. Gay sex presents serious reproductive issues. Transgender sex is... well, complicated. And all those don't even consider the morass of multiple simultaneous partners. But Ursula la/le Guin introduces a whole new level of awkwardness in her ambisexual humanoid aliens who shift gender monthl...
They should do away with these tags - science fiction, speculative fiction and all them other clever maneuvers designed to erect barriers between the strictly literary and the mainstream - when it's Atwood who is writing or a Le Guin. Woe betide anyone who begs to differ. This deeply entrenched contempt of the other and this instinctive loathing of anything we fail to understand after a perfunctory once-over are not only the center of the man-made hullabaloo of gender but the root cause of all f...
(Throwback Review) Ursula K. Le Guin tells us the story of Genly Ai, a human native of Terra, who is sent to the planet of Gethen as an envoy of the Ekumen. Ekumen is a confederation of several planets. Genly is sent to convince all the nations of Goethe's to join the Ekumen. The ambisexual nature of the people of Gethen confuses Genly and becomes a hindrance in carrying out his duty. The world-building and how the characters of Genly and Estraven are portrayed are all done in a spectacular
Sublime in tone and voice. There’s not a superfluous line in it. Beautiful.Mr. Ai is 17 light years from the nearest planet affiliated with his interstellar league, Ekumen. Karhide is a monarchy on the frozen planet of Gethen. Ai has come to Karhide on a diplomatic mission and has found a receptive ear in Estraven, the prime minister. The novel has a Gothic feel but soon hints of palace intrigue. Sure enough, before you can whistle Dixie, Estraven falls from royal favor. The king it turns out is...
The term 'Speculative Fiction' was developed out of a desire by some authors to separate themselves from the more pejorative aspects of the Sci Fi genre. Harlan Ellison famously hated the term 'sci fi', scorning the implication that his stories had anything in common with Flash Gordon or Lost in Space.In Speculative Fiction, technology is not there to facilitate the plot, or to dazzle readers with fantasy, but to provide the author with an opportunity to explore the human mind in unexpected, inn...
They say that The Left Hand of Darkness is a landmark in the field of science fiction literature. Albeit such typecasting seems to be unfair simplification and trivialization since that novel goes much further and deeper than any other of that genre. In view of her interests including cultures, ecology, anthropology, Zen philosophy LeGuin writes humanistic science fiction, focused on creating unusual social models and analyzing living in them people. That way The Left Hand of Darkness can
“Light is the left hand of darknessand darkness the right hand of light.Two are one, life and death, lyingtogether like lovers in kemmer,like hands joined together, like the end and the way.”This book will really make you think. It will make you consider what it means to be male versus female, and what it means to be human. How do we bridge the gap in differences among cultures and race? How do we learn to trust and earn friendship and love? What does love of one’s country mean?Charged with the
“It was daunting, also, to me as a novelist. To invent a radically different sexual physiology and behaviour, not just as a speculation, but embodied in a novel, a story about people – people who most of the time were quite sexless but went into heat once a month, one time as a woman another time as a man? To get into the hearts and minds of such strange beings, bring them to being as characters – that would take some skill, not to mention chutzpah.”So says SF legend, Ms. Ursula K. Le Guin, in h...
It has been a bit of a personal project of for the past year or so to sample from the classics of the sci-fi genre. It’s not that I think modern sci-fi is undesirable—indeed, I’m a huge fan—rather, there is a lot of reward in visiting trends in sci-fi from other times, seeing the foundations of modern sci-fi, and having a base understanding of the language of science fiction. Sci-fi is endlessly self-referential and to be well versed in the genre it is almost a requirement that certain books be