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 …
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.
Paperback, 336 pages
English language
Published Sept. 19, 2018 by Orion Publishing Co.
epub, 305 pages
français language
Published Oct. 6, 2021 by Robert Laffont.
Hardcover
English language
Published Dec. 28, 2004 by Walker and Company.
Paperback
Published March 10, 2000 by Minotauro.
hardcover, 304 pages
Spanish language
Published Jan. 1, 1901 by MINOTAURO, Minotauro.
paperback, 336 pages
Published Aug. 25, 2020 by Minotauro, MINOTAURO.
Hardcover
Published Dec. 28, 1996 by Barnes & Noble Books.
paperback, 312 pages
Français language
Published July 18, 1971 by Robert Laffont.
Paperback
Portuguese language
Published Sept. 26, 2014 by Editora Aleph.
mass market paperback
Published Oct. 11, 1975 by Ace Books.
296 pages
Portuguese language
Published Dec. 19, 2008 by Editora Aleph.
mass market paperback
Published July 26, 1974 by Ace.
256 pages
English language
Published Dec. 28, 2016 by Little, Brown Book Group Limited.
336 pages
Spanish language
Published Dec. 28, 2021 by Minotauro.
304 pages
Published March 11, 1976 by Ace Books.
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