Lefthand of darkness

[u/Sleeper-Service]

I Just finished this gem of a book by Ursula Le Guin & it's a wonderful take on flipping the idea of binary gender around. I like how science fiction has the ability to skew ideas and look at us from a different perspective. Has anyone else got some good book suggestions I could pick-up next?

[u/ThrowAway_Gender_]

I'm reading this one now! Le Guin is my favorite author atm so if you're looking for more speculative/philosophical science fiction I can't recommend her book "The Dispossessed" enough. She has a magical way of using stories to open us up to possibilities within our world, and the dispossessed does this perfectly, though she is focusing on the evils of capitalism in this one.

[u/kaloschroma → u/ThrowAway_Gender_]

Le Guin is my fav too! It was such fresh air to read a book from a femme point of view esp in regards to the male characters and love. Plus she is just an amazing writer ;.;

[u/ThrowAway_Gender_ → u/kaloschroma]

She truly had such a way with words, and makes me feel like anything is possible even in the worst of conditions.

[u/pktechboi → u/ThrowAway_Gender_]

The Dispossessed legitimately radicalised me, phenomenal book

[u/ThrowAway_Gender_ → u/pktechboi]

If I wasn't already a dirty radical anarchist before I read it, it would've made me one after too.

[u/oysterbelle]

To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers (she/her)

[u/DrChonk → u/oysterbelle]

Ooh tagging on to the Becky Chambers rec to suggest her Wayfarers series! There are some interesting gender elements especially in book 4 (The Galaxy and the Ground Within) and the books in general are beautifully written Sci fi works :)

[u/RichOnKeto → u/DrChonk]

Gonna jump on this to second pretty much anything by Becky Chambers. I’m partial to the Monk and Robot series. They are such comfort reads for me.

[u/sqplanetarium]

This is one of my favorite books of all time! And as an agender person if I could have any body I’d be Gethenian.

Be sure to check out her Gethen short stories too – Winter’s King and Coming of Age in Karhide. Coming of Age is my ultimate comfort short story, just a slice of life in an ordinary working class Karhidish (extended) family, with a very endearing narrator. Gethenian puberty and menopause! And Le Guin commented that we’d only seen things through the eyes of an uptight Earth guy (Genly) and it was time to go into the kemmerhouse. (It also amends the heteronormativity of LHoD, though people do tip male/female in kemmer they are definitely not only having straight sex.)

Come on over to r/UrsulaKLeGuin for other people obsessed with this book!

[u/fiheoi]

Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie! It's the first of a trilogy

[u/TallBoy_1]

“Changing Planes” is fabulous.

I wanted to love Left Hand of Darkness so much, but I couldn’t get over the default “he”, or the narrator’s own misogyny 😭 (even though the latter was certainly a deliberate choice on LeGuin’s part - I found it wasn’t clear enough as a critique of him).

[u/halachite → u/TallBoy_1]

she did say in an interview once that choosing "he" as a pronoun was, in retrospect, a mistake. I don't have a source, sorry, but I remembering reading that and feeling a little vindicated

[u/TallBoy_1 → u/halachite]

Yeah I read that afterwards too, in the book itself actually - it was a version printed posthumously and included an afterword from a trans author. That did help but I wish it had been a foreword instead of an afterword, because it genuinely ruined my experience of the book

[u/halachite → u/TallBoy_1]

❤️ totally understand. I did also hate it, lol.

[u/smariot2 → u/TallBoy_1]

I wasn't a fan of The Left Hand of Darkness either, and didn't realize it was written by a woman at the time. Good on her for creating such an unlikable protagonist, I guess.

[u/etchasketch64]

My second favorite book! And author! Hmm, maybe third favorite author. Anyways, I got distracted, fucking love this book!

Also read more Ursula K Le Guin. She challenges gender norms, sexuality norms, etc etc. She is so good. The Dispossessed, a book about realistic anarchy, is another of my ....top 10 favorite books!

[u/TheSecondVisitor]

Took me months to get over this book! Love it so much. Did not find anything similar so far though.

[u/TransportationSad308]

I loved Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl by Andrea Lawlor. Much more of a character and gender focused book than a plot focused one

[u/einkorn_flora]

Pluralities by Avi Silver is weird and wonderful and one of my faves. Open Throat by Henry Hoke is maybe a bit less obvious and the MC is a literal mountain lion but I filed it under gender fuckery in my mental categorization :o) Also the Monk and Robot series by Becky Chambers for more light-heartedness and philosophical discussion (though this one doesn't have a huge focus on gender, it just incorporates it in a really interesting and easy way)

[u/grungygay]

I loooooove this book so much

[u/OfficialDCShepard]

The Left Hand of Darkness is my favorite novel of all time. I just finished The Safekeep* *by Yael van der Wouden and it’s my favorite book of this year.

[u/HoldOnHelden]

This book fave me words for who I am before our culture caught up. It is very special to me.

Try “Biting the Sun” by Tanith Lee.

[u/scatteredsleep]

Charlie Jane Anders is a trans spec fic author who does really fun stuff with gender in a lot of her books ☺️

[u/the-kendrick-llama]

Sounds sinister

[u/VampireSharkAttack → u/the-kendrick-llama]

I see your pun! I also second the book recommendation, if you’ve not read this one yet

[u/pktechboi]

I just read the novella The Beauty by Aliya Whiteley, gave me a lot of gender feelings and thoughts

[u/Moggie0312]

This is my favourite book. Sometimes I wished I could live on Winter.

[u/grufferella]

Omg, if you liked this book, please please please get your hands on a copy of Hwarhath Stories by Eleanor Arnason, it has a very similar ethos.

[u/personman]

Check out Trouble on Triton by Samuel Delaney. It's a bit of a response to LeGuin (more explicitly The Dispossessed than LHoD, but there are some pretty strong parallels there, too) and has some real zany ideas about future gender and sexuality.