Rating: 
Summary: It stays with you!
Review: This book is about substance and it is beautifully writen. The story comes to light after you have read the book and thought about it.
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Summary: genderless he's versus a not to masculine man
Review: The premisse of this book is thought provoking. What if gender did not exist? If everybody was genderless in most of the time, but male or female once a month, never sure which sex it's gonna be, since it depends on the sex of the partner. How would it change character, politics, friendship?Le Guin has an excellent writing style that begs to be read out loud. She has also created a couple of interesting natives for the protagonist to deal with, and a well developed plot (yes, folks, there is a plot, don't believe those who couldn't find any) in which the premisse gets a chance to be exposed. But the whole would have been more effective and provocative if she would have stopped calling every hermaphrodite "he", "son", "man", etc. Now, as it is, in the tension of the plot with all the he-ing you sometimes forget about the ambivalence of the natives. And what whould have added to the tension between the genderless natives and the male visitor, would have been when the man would have behaved a bit (more) manly. Then why 5 stars? ---- It's a good read. That's the first a book has to be. It sets your mind and soul in motion too, and there is a wonderful underlying serene, thoughtfull atmosphere throughout the book. But most of all - I was moved. That doesn't happen often. The book hasn't suffered from the time that's past since it received the Nebula ('69) and the Hugo Award ('70), and it will survive the next decades without any doubt.
Rating:
Summary: A dark pearl of a novel
Review: What I mean by "pearl" in the title is that it's seamless, beautiful, and a little mysterious. It's hard to necessarily put all the pieces together with this intense exploration of gender roles, but it's a puzzle, nonetheless, that will stick with the reader for a long time to come. Ultimately, this book (as explained in the seminal introduction to this novel Le Guin provides) isn't about some far off planet in time and space. It's about US, and how we perceive and act on gender roles we've inherited. Of course, those theories wouldn't mean much if the prose wasn't sparse and vivid, the characters weren't engaging (even when extremely strange), and the planet this takes place on wasn't realistic. Thankfully, LeGuin supercedes these criterea for an excellent novel--groundbreaking when it was published, as essential as ever today.
Rating:
Summary: Not to be read casually
Review: This is one of the few Science Fiction books that might actually qualify as art. And like all true art, this book requires contemplation - it is an event. There are many characters and ideas in this book that will quickly turn off the closed-minded, that some will find disturbing, but if you have the courage to see, it contains grandeur, wisdom, and some of the most beautiful imagery to be found in the genre. In an age when technical yawners and brain-dead shoot-em-ups are the norm, some of the reviews I've seen for this book should not be a surprise - many of those weaned on today's science fiction will not have the intellectual jaws necessary to masticate this one.
Rating:
Summary: Lovely...but hard to judge.
Review: The Left Hand of Darkness is a very difficult work to rate, I think. I liked its dark, deep atmosphere, the sharp contrast between its dark depths and bright, dazzling heights, cold and warmth...stuff like that. What made it even harder to judge was that my school library carried only Korean translations of the book... But even those who read it in English seem to be in total conflict over its quality. Nevertheless, considering the new way of thinking it opened up to me and the intellectual stimulation I got, I think it's one of the best books I've read(so much for hard to judge). LeGuin at her best. Now, if only I can persuade my school library to get a copy of the Dispossessed...
Rating: 
Summary: Did I read the same book as the high-star reviewers?
Review: Some years have passed since I read this book. I won't repeat the experience, and I certainly won't buy 'The Left Hand Of Darkness.' Why not? Let me count the ways... Unengaging characters sink a book, and this one has a Titanic deckload of same. He certainly isn't particularly manful, especially when he must deal with the sex-change of another character (how many readers would, in the same situation, have closed their eyes?). Russian winters are best written by Russians with lots of time and vodka on hand; we Americans just don't have the touch. Anyone with enough bucks to put down can visit Antarctica in mundane reality, and for most of us National Geographic specials are sufficient. Give me a setting that isn't a prescription for Prozac waiting to happen! Some cultures belong in a petri dish and should be treated with biocide rather than respect. The ice-planet culture is one of the most poisonous set of autocracies ever to belabor a manuscript. Unfortunate, when you consider how the hermaphrodite concept could have been liberating and a source of dry humor (see Lois Bujold's Betan hermaphrodite character or even smiled, as I read it. True, laughter isn't the sine qui non of sci-fi. I didn't laugh at Dune or at anything Andre Norton wrote. But I had a smile for the triumphs of the protagonists of those books. The Left read in a long time. It isn't even good tragedy as is Conrad's Lord Jim. In fact, it fails to convey any emotions save boredom, hopelessness, and helplessness. If the protagonist's chore is to 'understand' the culture, his task is pretty simple-it's a totalitarian pesthole notable only for the biological oddity of its people. If he were charged with liberating the hermaphrodites... but no good collectivist wants to destroy a native culture that leaves its unfortunate adherents ripe for subjugation by the greater collective. Culture be damned! These people were killing and oppressing each other, and the fool protagonist doesn't seem to give a rat's ass one way or the other, so how am I supposed to care? So I'm puzzled. Did those reviewers who slobbered all over this piece of tripe read the same book I did? Or are they all collectivists of one or another stripe who ignored the protagonist's Woody Allen haplessness? END
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Summary: A new take on gender identity
Review: What would life be like if the most important facet of your identity just didn't exist? This is one of those books that totally blows your mind! I once heard someone say that the most interesting phrase in this book is: "The King was pregnant." What sounds like a bizarre, impossible statement to us is standard in this strange society that Le Guin has created. Previous reviewers have complained about the lack of story - it's not the plot that's important in this book. It explores issues of gender, of love (can there be romance without gender?), of estrangement, of sociology. Fantastic.
Rating: 
Summary: Great idea, so-so book
Review: LeGuinn had a fascinating idea for this book - a world where people spend most of the time as neither male nor female, but just become one or the other (not the same each time) for mating purposes. Unfortunately, while the book gives you something to think about, there is not much of a story there, and the book is boring.
Rating:
Summary: People are missing the point.
Review: Many reviewers here seem to be looking for action instead of content. Like americans who criticize foreign films for moving too slowly, they are missing the point. Le Guin's incorporation of Jungian psychology into her tale was the most profound aspect for me. I would recommend her book of essays: The Language of the Night. I think it could shed some light on the issue for those who call this wonderful little piece of art a bore.
Rating:
Summary: Boring. Period. Forget this, read "Dune".
Review: Ask youself why people keep on bringing up the fact that her father was an anthropologist? What does that have to do with HER storytelling? Is Shakespeare's daughter a good storyteller just because her father was the greatest writer ever? No. "The Left Hand of Darkness" is just a description of a planet. As for the "love story" I find it as cold as the planet. Read "Dune" and have much more fun, with a story that actually has a PLOT! Imagine that? And I don't even know what Herbert's father did. Nor do I care.
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