The Left Hand of Darkness

2023 review update! From 4 stars to 3, mainly because what read as progressive and expansive to my 2016 self now feels like a baby step that doesn't go far enough into deconstructing the gender binary.

Also I would have sworn that this book was entirely comprised of what turns out to be the final 20%.

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Past me gave this book two stars, what the hell? I think I may have had it confused with The Dispossessed (which I don't remember much about, so don't ask what I disliked about it).

Anyway this book is fantastic.

It does get into a bit of grating gender stereotyping (Men are from Mars type stuff), but you can also chalk that up to the preconceptions of the narrator.

Amusingly, it also works quite well to read this after a bunch of Iain M. Banks. (It's basically a Culture novel.)