The Left Hand of Darkness is another one of those novels that has an interesting concept, but the story was lost on me. Now, this was my first experience with Ursula K. LeGuin (shocking, I know) so naturally I had high expectations. In some ways they were met and in others they were not.
The Left Hand of Darkness takes place on the planet of Gethen, also known as Winter. There a scientist sent by a multi-planetary trade enterprise/empire to try and convince the Gethenians to join this empire (The Ekumen). However, in order to do so the scientist, Genly Ai, has to try and understand this alien race which has no gender.
So, as you can see this novel is jammed pack with interesting concepts. However, the plot and character depth are thrown aside in order to try and pursue this idea. The idea of a genderless race and how it affects the entire society was fascinating, but dry. It seemed like less of a novel and much more like a compilation of facts that just so happened to have a reoccurring theme and characters throughout.
Now, most of the time these slower plot, or in this case virtually plotless, books can have great endings that can move them in the right direction. The Left Hand of Darkness is not a member of that group. The ending was predictable and very lackluster. Even the climax of the novel, the pinnacle of all action was not exciting even though I can see that LeGuin tried hard to make it so.
The next fatal flaw of this story was the characters. Really there were only two of any import, Genly Ai and Estravan. Both of them were so cut and dry that they were uninteresting. Neither of them had any quirks or misunderstandings that I love to see between characters. Both of them were simply charging forwards towards their goal with very little commentary on the side.
Sadly, this review is not very long because, well, there isn’t very much to talk about. I did not enjoy this book at all; it was a classic case of cool concept poor execution. That is pretty much all there is to it. If you are looking for a sci-fi book that is more like a commentary on society and exploration into an interesting biology than you might actually enjoy this book.
Check out Ursula K. LeGuin’s website here.
Content:
-Language: Hardly any, maybe a handful of references that weren’t even harsh.
-Violence: Since there was not any action there was hardly any violence.
-Sexuality: Mentioned only for biological purposes.
- Content wise I would recommend this for 12 or 13 and up, but given the slow pace I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone under the age of 15-16.
My rating:
6/10
-Dylan