Well, having done a few good sci-fi novel reviews over the past few months, it was inevitable I'd come to one that made me want to puke, eat it, and then turn that into some sort of poison to puke up again to feed to someone. Yes, that makes no sense and offers no perspective on what n the hell I'm talking about, but then again neither does this fucking piece of shit book. I actually have several shorter works by Le Guin and some short-story collections she's in, but this is actually the first thing I ever read by her. Considering it's one of the most well-known, if not the quintessential work that is her, perhaps I might want to toss the others in the 'take these to the used book store to trade them in for something good' bag.
The Left Hand of Darkness is billed on the back as being similar in scope and awesomeness to the Dune series. Hell, even Frank Herbert himself is quoted on the back. Usually, that's a pretty clear sign you're in for total hell, especially when one considers that the various Dune novels really aren't that great to begin with (yes I said it, let's all admit it for once). This novel is basically the polar opposite of Dune, pun intended there because the planet it takes place on is basically totally frozen. That, and it completely lacks any semblance of action and barely has enough plot to keep your interest. That, however, is just an inkling of how bad this fucking thing is. So what's it about?
The story revolves primarily around Genly Ai, an envoy from Terra (the classic sci-fi name for Earth in about every novel you'll ever read), who is part of a league of sorts of 80 or so planets. Their goal? Get more planets into the mix for trade, sharing of ideas, all that good stuff. Envoys are typically sent out alone under the belief that a single alien is a friendly gesture, whereas any more is perceived as invasion. So, Genly's goal is to convince the planet Gethen, primarily through one of its countries named Karhide, to join the league of planet shits and everyone engages in mutual masturbation. Really, that's an alright idea to run a plot, but this thing fails on so many levels it's shocking. Let's give it a bit of credit, though, and start with the good things, few though they are.
Good Shit
1. Great background development. Gethen is seriously dense with myth, history, legend, and unique cultures that interplay like real people, or sort of (read further).
2. Cool setting. Sure, Dune was on a desert planet and this is basically the opposite of it, but a planet stuck in an Ice Age presents some pretty cool potential for tension, monsters, and general adventure.
3. Good idea on the integration of 'authentic texts'. There are chapters that reference old legends of Gethen, old works of history, etc. that further develop the background to the world and help make more sense of the plot. Herbert did pretty much the same thing in Dune, so it's not original or anything, but it does make the novel feel more artistic.
4. Awesome alien idea. The people of Gethen are human. The difference is that they are androgynous. Other than certain times called 'kemmer', where they get really horny and change into either male or female for a short time to engage in mating, they have no sex. So they can be both father and mother to different children. Pretty cool idea, and it helps to provide some tension between a major character and Genly, who is a regular male human all the time and everyone calls him a pervert.
But that's it for the good shit, the bad shit makes the good shit pretty much just plain shit. Let's look further...
Bad Shit
1. Horrible character development. In fact, there really isn't much at all. Le Guin tries to provide a humanness to her characters, but it's rarely achieved. I'm not sure if it was achieved at all other than the one major character Estraven. Even then, you never really fully connect with him/her, because the development is so stale. The worst aspect is that Genly is pretty much worse than a Chinese peasant throughout the whole thing. He has no character at all other than the fact that he is a character. He pretty much sucks the big dick of the novel and lets it come all over him without blinking or caring.
2. Boring as shit. Holy hot damn is this thing boring. The majority of the story involves Genly trying to convince a crazy king and another country to join the league of planet bitches. That's actually ripe with potential, but it's totally blown. The entire story primarily revolves around horribly boring political intrigue. There is barely two pages worth of action or adventure in the entire thing, unless you're excited by about a hundred pages of two morons walking over a bunch of snow and running out of food. Pretty much nothing happens the entire novel, and by the end you're wondering why you even finished it.
3. Confusing integration, at times, of the aforementioned 'authentic texts'. Okay, cool idea, but frequently you'll be referring back to earlier sections to make sense out of some of them. At times, Le Guin has made her world a little too dense without working the characters more. With most of the time spent on the background of the story, only a bit of which you actually get to learn about, there really isn't much room for anything interesting to actually happen. Some of the authentic text parts, legends and so forth, are really pretty stupid in comparison to the rest. A paragraph or so would have sufficed instead of the long, rambling legends of ye ole' Gethen which lead you into a restless slumber more often than not.
4. It's not really sci-fi. It's a stretch to call this hunk of shit sci-fi by any regard. The only real bit of science in this entire thing is the fact that Genly comes from a league of planets and his spaceship is circling Gethen until he accomplishes his goal. Gethen is largely low tech, so they live in almost a feudal society with snow shoes and carts and such. Think Siberia about a hundred years ago. Genly has a little talking tablet thing, but that's about the extent of the science fiction in this. It's actually more fantasy than anything. If you didn't have mention of the fact that Gethen is a planet, it's pretty much a really, really boring fantasy novel. No cool weapons, ships, or anything, just a bunch of snow.
5. Total lack of action. Good sci-fi usually involves an engaging plot with a lot of depth, but more often than not has moments of crazy action, bizarre beast attacks, and weird alien plots that culminate in exciting wars of words where you wonder what's coming next. The Left Hand of Darkness lacks all of this, or at least when it does appear it's totally tame. There is almost no action in this entire thing other than some slips on the ice, no cool creatures (come on the ice part was plenty ready for that), and a plot that is way too speech-focused.
6. Speaking of that, that's the major problem with this fucking thing. The entire plot basically pans out via speech with various political leaders playing legal chess through Genly, who just takes it like a champ. There is not a single moment you're really going to be interested in the story, and I really, really mean that. It has some cool philosophy behind it, but it desperately needed at least some action, for the love of god. With no real tension in the entire story and a political hoo-ha that barely keeps your attention long enough to finish a single chapter, this one fails on many plot levels.
7. Pretty much no closure. The lack of action thing, fine, whatever, I guess. No, actually that really pisses me off. But what makes it worse is that by the end, the ending is really all you expected from the start when you know what Genly is doing. Is he going to convince the planet to join the league of extraordinary boredom? Yes. That's about it. One page would have sufficed, instead of a hundred million about snow, ice, and running out of food. By the time you get to the end, you really haven't been given anything you didn't expect and you really didn't learn anything either. It's like you took a two-hundred-something page shit and flushed it without wiping.
So that's about it. When it comes down to it, this book DOES NOT deserve all the hype it seems to get and all the good (and consequentially suspect) reviews on Amazon.cashhog Some of the ideas behind it and the background is actually pretty cool, but it's just barely a sci-fi novel with no action and really tedious plot development. Unless you're a completist and feel like you need to read all that is sci-fi, just stay away from The Left Hand of Darkness, it's totally worthless.
