The Left Hand of Darkness: 50th Anniversary Edition (Remembering Tomorrow)

No one quite writes like Ursula Le Guin. Losing her was a loss for us all. I would recommend this to anyone who is interested in good science fiction that makes you question everything you know.

Before purchasing this book, I had read a lot many reviews, most describing this book as Ursula Le Guin's best or certainly, one of her best creations. My expectations were extremely high when I started reading this book.It certainly is a very good piece of Science Fiction, but I was disappointed. It did not measure up to the very high standards that I had expected. It does deal with complicated social systems based on a completely different gender paradigm on a strange world with quaint customs; which requires extremely sophisticated imagination and world building, but some how, in my mind, does not take that quantum leap that would make it a true Classic! I do not want to denigrate this book in any way, it is a superb creation by any standards, but some how I had higher hopes from a legendary Sci fy writer like Ursula K. Le Guin.

This is my first foray into science fiction after having read Issac Asimov in my childhood. I find this a marvelous book because, along with a story that depicts how an alien is perplexed after he lands in a radically different world, it forces us to question the concept of gender. What if an organism had the ability to be male or female when the hormonal cycle peaks? What if in other days, they did not perceive themselves as man or woman? Does non-genderisation (my coinage) lead to a more peaceful world or does aggression mainly identified with men in our world rear it's ugly head in the alien world? If a "man" could get pregnant, does he/she lack in maternal instinct? Is maternal instinct necessary for rearing children? Read this excellent novel on a world inhabited by androgynous people and the bewilderment of the observer from Earth who goes on to study their life so as to forge an alliance between earth and this world called Gethen, which is beyond gender! Is love possible between an earthling and one of the inhabitants of Gethen? read to get enlightened!

packaging+delivery 🚚 on time....Book in good condition..

I liked the book and the way Ursula describes an alien race is very fascinating. The communication or I should say the miscommunication that happens between alien race is funny at times and thought provoking. The only reason I gave 3 points is because I found it a bit verbose and I often got confused with all the characters and found the language a bit difficult to follow along. But otherwise an excellent book.

Ok so this is me writing review for the first time... It took me a bit of time gather the thoughts on this book... Struggled to read in the beginning but midway the book gets very interesting.. Not the best I have read but certainly a notable one..

it’s a science fiction that’s different from others. it is a rich thought experiment, a question of a planet with no clear gender divide and the culture shocks that come with it.Happy reading!

There are no words which can do justice to such genius. This book was listed as one the 100 or 30 or so books one must read before one dies and I'm so glad I managed to get around to it. It hasn't been given enough credit, to be able to conjure up the world of Winter and make it relevant to every subsequent generation is just astounding. I will have to read this book again!

Uma ficção científica bem elaborada, engenhosa e profunda. Vale muito a pena.

The media could not be loaded.  Como el resto de los libros que he pedido de esta colección, llegó perfecto sin ningun detalle.Encaja muy bien en el librero con el resto de los libros de SciFi y la historia ni se diga, casi me hace chillar.

In 1975 Ursula K. Le Guin won both the Hugo and the Nebula for best novel for The Dispossessed. This was by no means the first time the same book had won both the Hugo and the Nebula. However, Le Guin had accomplished the same feat once before, in 1970 with The Left Hand of Darkness. As far as I knew at the time, she was the only author to have done this twice. (Arthur C. Clarke also did it, but later.) Therefore I read The Left Hand of Darkness and The Dispossessed, and subsequently everything by Le Guin I could get my hands on.Here is how The Left Hand of Darkness begins,"The soundest fact may fail or prevail in the style of its telling: like that singular organic jewel of our seas, which grows brighter as one woman wears it and, worn by another, dulls and goes to dust."Now, if you've read a lot of science fiction, that sentence at first looks familiar: Science Fiction authors are always making up weird implausible things from other planets and exploiting them in unearned metaphors. It's cheap and annoying. So, that was my first reaction. Then I thought, "Wait... Organic jewel, seas, she's talking about pearls!" It was a brilliant stranger-than-fiction moment. These thoughts had just time to chase themselves through my brain before I read the leaden next sentence, "Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are." So, that's Ursula K. Le Guin for you -- she can be brilliant, subtle, demanding, but also in the next breath sledgehammer obvious and sanctimonious.The Left Hand of Darkness is the story of a man from Earth, Genly Ai, sent as an envoy to the planet Winter, to invite/negotiate their joining the multiworld community Genly represents. As you will know from the publisher's blurb, the people of Winter are human, but they are hermaphrodites. This is the gimmick of The Left Hand of Darkness, and I confess, it didn't much interest me in itself. It was a cultural (also biological, but in my opinion the cultural difference is more important) thing that made it difficult for Genly and Estraven to connect -- it really could have been anything. Indeed, there are other cultural differences that are more important, particularly Karhidish conventions about giving advice.Estraven? Who is that? Estraven is a nobleman of Karhide, one of the nations on Winter. Estraven's nobility is not merely a matter of social rank -- he is truly a noble person. (I say "he" because throughout The Left Hand of Darkness the people of Winter are referred to with masculine pronouns. In the Zeitgeist of the time this choice was more obvious than it seems now. Le Guin later expressed some regret about it, and indeed wrote at least one story about Karhide using feminine pronouns.)So, naturally Genly finds himself immersed in a political conflict that he completely fails to understand. Estraven, a powerful Karhidish politician, favors Genly's mission. But Estraven equally fails to understand Genly.Nevertheless they become friends. For me that is the heart of the novel -- Genly and Estraven's friendship. The Left Hand of Darkness is not what we usually call a love story, but nevertheless Genly and Estraven come to love and understand each other, and even to be intimate, though the intimacy is entirely intellectual.

Hay que leer este libro sabiendo que se publicó en el 69. Y con ese dato en mente procede a alucinar. En este mundo de 2023 en el que los estereotipos sexistas convierten a una persona en hombre o mujer por obra y gracia de un género entendido como identidad, se nos propone un mundo ideado hace 54 años donde no hay género, pero sí sexo. Un mundo tan binario como el nuestro, porque solo hay dos sexos, pero en el que un mismo individuo encarna a los dos luego no hay género que los clasifique, ni roles diferenciados que se impongan. No hay sexismo ni estereotipos. Al inicio resultará irritante la constante identificación que hace el protagonista de lo "femenino" con lo negativo. Un hombre pensado en el 69 que estaría tan a gusto despotricando en una tasca con cualquier incel de nuestra época. Sin embargo llega la escena en la tienda de campaña, en mitad de un glaciar, donde Therem le pregunta a Genly ¿cómo es una mujer? Y este último se da cuenta de que ya no tiene ni idea. Con los estereotipos reventados, ya solo queda la biología, y esta no puede justificar por sí sola el prejuicio (Simone, guiño-guiño- codazo). Es una pregunta que flota en todo el libro como flota hoy en día en el mundo: incontestada, causa de debate y complicadas elucubraciones, pues la respuesta, tan sencilla, lleva consigo el despertar a la injusticia de milenios.

This is a first contact novel where the aliens are a long-abandoned subspecies of genetically modified humans who are biologically gender fluid. It's about trying to overcome our own prejudices about gender and sex and coming to understand the other. The envoy, or the representative of the interplanetary Ekumen is trying to open relations with the planet Gethen, but this is not the typical white man's burden story. In fact the protagonist's skin is very dark and the empire is more about the exchange of goods and ideas than colonialism. Although the Ekumen are quite enlightened, the protagonist, Genly Ai, has many sexists and ethnocentric beliefs and views the people of Gethen as strangely as they view him.The first part of the novel has the kind of in-depth world building we have seen from authors such as Tolkien, but built with Le Guine's unique incite into what it means to be human. The second half focuses more on the two main characters and we get to appreciate their depth and growth while embarking on exciting and dangerous adventures.