I'm a LeGuinn fan... started with Earthsea as a kid. I think Left Hand of Darkness is great, but probably needs to be taken in it's historic context.
The Lathe of Heaven though - that's just fantastic. By far my favorite of her works.
Yeah, I need to give both of those others a try. I can certainly appreciate Left Hand of Darkness in a historical context, I think.
I read "The Left Hand of Darkness" around the same time last year and was astounded by it. It's so much more than a science fiction classic; it's a classic piece of literature, period. I thought it was truly timeless.
I was under that impression from what I'd heard about it and suggested it to my wife and friends who we do a very small book club thing with. It was my first pick and I wanted to do some SF, and one of our friends was keen on reading it, too. My wife read a couple of pages the other day though and groaned. (Which, after reading the first couple of chapters, I could've predicted. She doesn't have anything against SF/Fantasy in general, but I think a good bit of the worldbuilding will kill it for her.) I'm curious to hear what our friends think about it, if they finish it in time. (To be fair, I've never finished one of the other books in time.)
I kind of dig the historical bits of it, the smaller aside chapters. And I think the monosexual stuff is interesting especially in comparison to the roles of males/females and women's equality and all that. But other than that, I'm not really feeling the story.
What do you both like so much about it?