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smolren's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, and Death
Moderate: Blood, Confinement, and Grief
Minor: Drug abuse, Animal death, Vomit, Incest, Suicide, Misogyny, and Sexual content
erebus53's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
As is often the case with hard science fiction, we break into this story feeling like and Alice (in Wonderland). We don't know what half the words mean and we are a little out of our depth, but through the ignorance of the protagonist, we learn our way around by their experiences. Despite having a world with some different names for things, and a slightly different calendar and clock, the new world is fairly easy to understand once you get over the initial shock, and I think that's pretty much the point of it. Our protagonist comes at this new place with curiosity, but with his own preconceptions, some of which slowly grow and change over the course of the book.
The core of this book explores a premise whereby there can be no "battle of the sexes" if there are no distinctly different sexes. This story tells of a people who go through a monthly fertile time, during which they become either male or female depending on the conditions. They have no sexual need outside of that fertile time, and their society is arranged to accommodate it. In coupling either of the partners could be the child-bearer so there is no division of labour as we have in out "bi-sexual" society. I can see how this would be a popular read today, as our society's friction over accepting non-binary gender identities becomes even more prominent.
As an aside, I find it amusing that the people in the new world can't pronounce the protagonist's name properly, and the Audiobook narrator has a tiny lisp. It's barely noticable but, when he has to say a soft "th" sound he uses an "ff" sound.. so death becomes deff, breath becomes breff. Typically this sort of thing annoys me, but I just think it's quite charming in such an alien story. ... aaaanyway.
There is an incisive foreword from the author at the start of the audiobook, where Ursula Le Guin says some valuable things about the roles and lying ways of speculative fiction writers, and how they are not to be trusted, or treated as though they are experts, profits or sages.
Without the relationship building in this story, it might have been quite a dry affair. After helping to introduce the protagonist to those in charge of the land, his main contact is exiled as a traitor, and the two of them are caught in the wheels and machinations of the politics of the place. They undertake a journey to find friends, and need to work together to survive the hostile climate. I was reminded of the film Enemy Mine (1985 w. Louis Gosset Jnr, Dennis Quaid) and I find it hard to imagine that a film like that (based on a 1979 novella by Barry B. Longyear) was made without the influence of this 1969 book.
The story is quite an adventurous tale, one of exploration and survival and understanding. I think the style in which it is written may be an acquired taste, but it's a must-read Classic for any fans of science fiction.
Graphic: Gun violence, Death, Confinement, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Ableism, Sexism, and Transphobia
Minor: Vomit, Pregnancy, Racism, Incest, Suicide, and Physical abuse
dawntin's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
Graphic: Confinement, Death, and Torture
Moderate: Incest and Sexism
Minor: Suicide
booitsnathalie's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
I think I'm missing some important context for when this was written, as it has both a lot of vaguely anti-communist sentiment and also seems to be pulling from Catholic mission trips to East Asian countries, but I can't quite pinpoint a through line. A bubbling pot of challenging political ideas that are not so much unexplored as they are too large for a 300-page scifi novel. Very curious to check out some of Le Guin's later work, but this seems as good a place as any of, like me, you've been meaning to check her out.
Graphic: Confinement
Moderate: Torture
Minor: Incest
madamenovelist's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Violence, Slavery, Religious bigotry, Blood, Trafficking, Suicidal thoughts, Misogyny, Vomit, Excrement, Sexual harassment, Pregnancy, Incest, Grief, and Gore
Moderate: Confinement, Addiction, and Child death
blueteacup's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Death, Confinement, and Torture
Moderate: Incest
Minor: Miscarriage and Suicide
elizlizabeth's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
The various POVs only clarify the world building tangentially which makes you feel like you too are seeing a culture from afar, and in turn this gives the similarities and critiques of our own culture a bigger "punch". The language and slang however can be confusing especially if you're (like me) not used to sci-fi, but honestly once I realized there's no way I'm going to get every single reference on my first reading and just plowed on, my experience improved by 100x. Some books are meant to be read more than once to truly get them and this is one of them.
Graphic: Police brutality, Confinement, and Torture
Moderate: Ableism
Minor: Animal death
One of the characters hunts small game for food; this is not described in detail. A group of characters has a biological variation that makes them able to predict the future, this is framed as painful for them, yet a different character points out that it's a "gift" not to be "cured" even if they're hurting. The characters of the planet present cyclical sexual dymorphism, the narrative goes into detail about the biology of this which could trigger dysphoria in some readers.moonytoast's review against another edition
3.0
It’s a very dense, slow sci-fi with long “travelogue” sequences that help to build a richly complex and vivid world while also examining the nature of Gethenian ‘ambisexual’ anatomy. Right off the bat, The Left Hand of Darkness has a dense but lush sense of world-building — similar to Frank Herbert’s Dune,* but with a much preferred writing style.
The narrative is reserved to a primarily first-person perspective that switches between both our Envoy, Genly Ai, and his advocate and eventual traitor-turned-travel-companion, Estraven, with the occasional break in order to provide the reader with certain folklore and stories from the world of Winter. In doing so, it avoids what I would call the Frustrating Omnipotence™ of Frank Herbert, whose writing style tends to lean a bit heavy on telling the reader exactly what each character is thinking in every moment as though we are inside their head and experiencing those thoughts as the character.
That being said: if you’re coming into this story for character work or a more extensive interrogation of how mankind can build connections across different sociological perspectives, then you may be slightly disappointed. Genly Ai and Estraven have an interesting relationship dynamic which morphs throughout the course of the story, but on their own they aren’t the most compelling characters. If you’re not prepared for a VERY, VERY slow burn of a sci-fi book, then you will probably hate this.
Graphic: Death, Forced institutionalization, Torture, and Confinement
Moderate: Body shaming and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Incest, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Suicide
keeganrb's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Graphic: Death and Confinement
Moderate: Incest, Misogyny, and Sexism
Minor: Suicide
ghostcities's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Graphic: Confinement and Death
Moderate: Incest
Minor: Child death