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.
Brossura, 366 pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 16 Settembre 2010 da Ace Books.
Paperback, 336 pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 19 Settembre 2018 da Orion Publishing Co.
Paperback, 304 pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 10 Luglio 2000 da Ace Trade.
Brossura, 366 pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 16 Settembre 2010 da Ace Books.
Paperback, 341 pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 17 Settembre 2000 da Ace Trade.
286, pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 13 Novembre 1983 da Ace Books.
School & Library Binding
lingua English
Pubblicato il 30 Ottobre 1999 da Tandem Library.
Paperback, 256 pagine
Pubblicato il 03 Luglio 1997 da Virago Press Ltd.
Kindle Edition, 320 pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 30 Luglio 2000 da Ace.
256, pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 16 Settembre 1992 da Orbit.
312, pagine
lingua French
Pubblicato il 16 Aprile 2021
E-book
lingua German
Pubblicato il 29 Luglio 2014 da Heyne.
317, pagine
lingua French
Pubblicato il 17 Settembre 1971 da Éditions Robert Laffont.
Audio cassette
Pubblicato il 01 Aprile 1987 da Books on Tape, Inc..
256, pagine
lingua English
Pubblicato il 29 Ottobre 2009
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