🌟🌟🌟🌟💫

A science fiction classic, and one that that so deserved a re-read.

This story follows the journey of a somewhat naive envoy, Genly Ai, sent to broker an interplanetary alliance between a remote planet, Gethen, and Ekumen, a vital trade and intelligence collective of eighty-three planets. The planet Gethen, also known as Winter, is a cold and strange place, and it’s not long before Genly finds himself embroiled in the fierce and confusing local politics, made all the more maddening and dangerous by the obscurity of the Gethenian’s culture and social customs. On this planet, humans are androgynous and completely sexually dormant for all but a few days each month, during the period known as kemmer. Only when kemmering do the Gethenians develop sexual organs and a gender, – at all other times their behavior and appearance is that of a man-woman, that is, neither sex and perhaps both genders.

As Genly struggles to complete his mission successfully, his life is endangered and complicated by his missteps and blunders, and ultimately by the relationships he develops on his path to understanding this unique world.

Written in 1969, the enormity of the scope and promise of this book could not be underplayed. The concept, which is fascinating and mind shifting, is handled with incredible detail and finesse, as is the surrounding world as defined by the author. The book has aged well, with only a few wrinkles around the male-heavy handling of supposedly androgynous peoples and assumptions, an inescapable product of its time.

A challenging and deeply thoughtful read, this beautiful book is worth multiple re-reads, as is the entire portfolio of this author, who has earned her place as one of the most truly exceptional science-fiction writers of any era.