/lit/ - Literature

>feminist scifi
>good
how is this

>>15925512
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K. Le Guin, Hainish Cycle #4 (1969)
This book, and Le Guin in general, have so far not been what I've expected given the reputation I've seen. Though, apparently she changed quite a lot in the decades following these novels. Most of what I've seen describes her as a feminist icon. From the five Hainish novel(las) I've read now, I haven't seen that at all. At this point in her writing, it seems to me that she's not even sympathetic to feminism from what I understand how it was at the time. In-depth discussion of such in her novels in a different matter for a different time. Suffice to say that in this novel, almost all references to femininity and women are derogatory, and almost the only character directly referred to with female pronouns is a sole human female. In the foreword by China Mieville it's stated that Le Guin preferred "the generic he" at the time. It also states that she received much criticism from feminists and later wished she had done better. What is present is explicit statements about Taoism in this and the preceding works.
Once again we have a lone man who this time isn't quite stranded on an alien ice world which isn't primitive by our standards. I found the novel to be slow to start. I was rather skeptical, as I am of anything well-regarded, but it won me over in time. The novel is almost entirely discussions and journeying. It's very character focused. If you need combat, war, and similar, then you're going to be disappointed, as this society doesn't know the concept of war. I found myself wondering just different would this really be if this were instead something like an early EU investigator determining whether a country was eligible to become part of the EU. The description of the Ekumen reminded me a lot of the modern day EU. As a non-Euro, I may be misunderstanding.
One of the most mentioned aspects of this novel, from what I've seen anyway, is how the humans of this world are androgynous for all but a few days of the month, and during those few days they become male or female and are more or less forced by biology to have sex. Each person can become male or female and does and there isn't much difference to them. I was disappointed by what I saw as a lack of exploration of this. All relatives are free to have as much sex as they want with each other, excluding with forebears, but they aren't allowed to "marry". There are community orgy places where all can come and have sex with whomever. Even today this would be considered highly transgressive by many people, let alone at the time. I don't consider it as such. The above are secondary concerns in the novel.
The first half of the novel is discussions, consultations, political intrigue and similar. The second half is depicted on the book cover. I enjoyed the first half more.
Rating: 5/5

Coming of Age in Karhide (1995)
An included previously published story. It addresses some of the lack of exploration I noted. Enjoyable.