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A review by drizzlybear
The Left Hand Of Darkness: 25th Anniversary Edition by Ursula K. Le Guin
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.0
it’s always pretty cool to read stuff like sci-fi from 50 years ago, the accepted concepts and tropes are different from what we have now and it’s a cool shift to see
this books reads kind of like an ethnography which was kind of cool? just a detailed account of an alien culture (although there was plot too ofc the overall tone was very ‘documenting this for history’). maybe some people wouldn’t like this but i thought it was neat. and it even got me in the feels at the end!
i really respect ursula le guin. she has a cool afterword at the end (in my 25th anniversary edition, which was 1994) where she discusses how she used he/him pronouns and masculine forms like ‘man’, ‘king’ and ‘lord’ as generic pronouns to describe a sexless race, and how she grew to realise that was unsuitable and she’d do it different now??? we love to see it. and she went on to provide several appendices that played around with the pronouns in different variations. it was weird bc it definitely felt different to read it with neopronouns or mixed/more gender less pronouns, really makes you realise that despite what you know or tell yourself, subconsciously you just like… can’t get away from the pronoun/gender/whole entire personality assumptions.
this books reads kind of like an ethnography which was kind of cool? just a detailed account of an alien culture (although there was plot too ofc the overall tone was very ‘documenting this for history’). maybe some people wouldn’t like this but i thought it was neat. and it even got me in the feels at the end!
i really respect ursula le guin. she has a cool afterword at the end (in my 25th anniversary edition, which was 1994) where she discusses how she used he/him pronouns and masculine forms like ‘man’, ‘king’ and ‘lord’ as generic pronouns to describe a sexless race, and how she grew to realise that was unsuitable and she’d do it different now??? we love to see it. and she went on to provide several appendices that played around with the pronouns in different variations. it was weird bc it definitely felt different to read it with neopronouns or mixed/more gender less pronouns, really makes you realise that despite what you know or tell yourself, subconsciously you just like… can’t get away from the pronoun/gender/whole entire personality assumptions.