The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin

Category: Adults, Classic, Literature, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Keywords: First Contact Metaphysical & Visionary Space Exploration The Hainish Cycle

Written by Ursula K. Le Guin
Read by Michael Crouch
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

The queen of science fiction’s trailblazing novel about a planet full of genderless beings.

Genly Ai is an ethnologist observing the people of the planet Gethen, a world perpetually in winter. The people there are androgynous, normally neuter, but they can become male ot female at the peak of their sexual cycle. They seem to Genly Ai alien, unsophisticated and confusing. But he is drawn into the complex politics of the planet and, during a long, tortuous journey across the ice with a politician who has fallen from favour and has been outcast, he loses his professional detachment and reaches a painful understanding of the true nature of Gethenians and, in a moving and memorable sequence, even finds love…

A groundbreaking work of science fiction, The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of a lone human emissary’s mission to Winter, an unknown alien world whose inhabitants can choose—and change—their gender. His goal is to facilitate Winter’s inclusion in a growing intergalactic civilization. But to do so, he must bridge the gulf between his own views and those of the completely dissimilar culture that he encounters.

Exploring questions of psychology, society, and human emotion in an alien world, The Left Hand of Darkness stands as a landmark achievement in the annals of science fiction.