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.
hardcover, 304 pagine
lingua Spanish
Pubblicato il 01 Gennaio 1901 da MINOTAURO, Minotauro.
epub, 305 pagine
lingua français
Pubblicato il 06 Ottobre 2021 da Robert Laffont.
paperback, 336 pagine
Pubblicato il 25 Agosto 2020 da Minotauro, MINOTAURO.
Brossura
lingua Portuguese
Pubblicato il 26 Settembre 2014 da Editora Aleph.
mass market paperback
Pubblicato il 26 Luglio 1974 da Ace.
paperback, 312 pagine
lingua Français
Pubblicato il 18 Luglio 1971 da Robert Laffont.
336, pagine
lingua Spanish
Pubblicato il 28 Dicembre 2021 da Minotauro.
mass market paperback
Pubblicato il 11 Ottobre 1975 da Ace Books.
296, pagine
lingua Portuguese
Pubblicato il 19 Dicembre 2008 da Editora Aleph.
304, pagine
Pubblicato il 11 Marzo 1976 da Ace Books.
304, pagine
Pubblicato il 28 Giugno 1982 da Ace Books.
Copertina rigida
Pubblicato il 28 Dicembre 1996 da Barnes & Noble Books.
Copertina rigida
lingua English
Pubblicato il 28 Dicembre 2004 da Walker and Company.
audio cd, 1 pagine
Pubblicato il 15 Giugno 2017 da Recorded Books, Inc. and Blackstone Publishing.
Paperback
Pubblicato il 10 Giugno 2001 da Minotauro.
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