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A beguiling read... Le Guin's sometimes mischievous narrative tone is crisp and fresh (www.sf.com )
A jewel of a story. (Frank Herbert )
As profuse and original in invention as The Lord of the Rings. (Michael Moorcock )
Delicate yet daring, narrated with immense gravitas...Ursula Le Guin's masterpiece (- Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels )
A jewel of a story. (Frank Herbert )
As profuse and original in invention as The Lord of the Rings. (Michael Moorcock )
Delicate yet daring, narrated with immense gravitas...Ursula Le Guin's masterpiece (- Science Fiction: The 100 Best Novels )
Book Description
A stunning re-issue of one of the most outstanding and enduring classics of science fiction.
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First Sentence
I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
I'll make my report as if I told a story, for I was taught as a child on my homeworld that Truth is a matter of the imagination. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
36 of 36 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A wonderful book that makes you think,
By faerine@mail.bg (Earth) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Left Hand Of Darkness (Paperback)
"The Left Hand of Darkness" tells about the mission of Genly Ai, an ambassador of the Ekumen to Winter. The Ekumen is a union of most of the known planets, and Winter is a faraway planet still in its glacier period where all people are of the same gender. Genly Ai goes to Karhide and Orgoreyn, the main countrylike territories on Winter to try to convince them to join the Ekumen. Le Guin describes an inspiring world, very different from what we know, where there are no "men" or "women", but only PEOPLE, and where pride is a completely different concept. Being both an alien and a man, Genly Ai has to go through various experiences to learn different meanings of country, friendship, pride and love, and together with him we are indulged in reflecting more about these things and the world that we (don't) know. I would recomment this book not only to science fiction friends, but also to everyone who likes to think while they read.
31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Love story, polar adventure yarn and meditation on gender...,
By
This review is from: The Left Hand of Darkness (Virago modern classics) (Paperback)
Ever since my dad gave me this book as a teenager, it has had a permanent place on my all-time Top Ten Book List, even though my reading tastes have drifted away from Sci-Fi over time. As other reviewers have commented, it's not only arguably the greatest science fiction novel of the century, but one of the best novels in general. It just has so many different aspects - and it's one of these books that leaves the reader with a real sense of loss on finishing it not because it's a particularly sad tale, but just because it's come to an end.The setting on the world of Gethen, where the inhabitants are the hermaphrodite products of an ancient genetic engineering project and can both father and bear children, allows Le Guin to make some fascinating comments on gender; but this alone would not have allowed the book to stand the test of time (after books like Jeffrey Eugenides' "Middlesex" and Jackie Kay's "Trumpet", readers are probably much more used to seeing gender as a fluid thing than in the late 1960s when Le Guin's book was published). The two things which make the book so special for me are firstly Estraven and Genly Ai's epic journey across the ice cap - which is a unique blend of thrilling adventure, unconsummated love story and philosophical musing on duality (light and darkness; male and female; good and evil); and secondly the way in which Le Guin makes the planet of Gethen and its culture so thrillingly real - she constructs folk tales, poetry and suchlike which add extraordinary resonance to the narrative. While immersed in the book, Karhide and Orgoreyn are utterly real places for the reader - since my teenage years, I still feel disappointed that I can't actually go there... A twentieth-century classic in all senses; and this Virago Modern Classics edition is beautifully packaged as always, with subtle but effective cover art.
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
the religious slant,
By
This review is from: The Left Hand Of Darkness (Paperback)
Rereading this brilliant book 20 years later I was this time struck by a little noticed aspect, its treatment of religion. It contains two perfectly coherant alien religions, both wonderfully thought-through and convincing. I cannot think of any other SF work that contains one, let alone two, convincing stabs at what the religious ideas of an alien civilisation might be like.Ursula le Guin`s family background was in social anthropology -the real science that forms the basis of her books is social enthropology not Physics or Biology. An inexhaustable book.
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