#26 in Classics
The Left Hand of Darkness
- 304
- Pages
- about 6 h
- Reading time
- Hugo Award for Best Novel
- Nebula Award for Best Novel
- NPR Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books
- Otherwise Retrospective Award
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Our view
Le Guin’s novel is known for the way it imagines gender, but its deeper subject is difference itself: how two people from unlike worlds learn to understand and trust each other. The plot is pared to essentials and moves at an unhurried pace, with politics and patriotism in the foreground early on. The heart of the book is the long journey Genly and Estraven make together, and readers who wait for it are well rewarded.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
The Left Hand of Darkness is a science fiction novel by the American writer Ursula K. Le Guin. Published in 1969, its popularity established Le Guin's status as a major author of science fiction. The novel is set in the fictional universe of the Hainish Cycle, a series of novels and short stories by Le Guin, which she introduced in the 1964 short story "The Dowry of Angyar". It was fourth in writing sequence among the Hainish novels, preceded by City of Illusions and followed by The Word for World Is Forest.
Reading order · Hainish Cycle
Full order & progress →- Rocannon's World
7.47.4 / 10 - Planet of Exile
7.67.6 / 10 - City of Illusions
7.87.8 / 10 - The Left Hand of DarknessThis book
8.38.3 / 10 - The Dispossessed
8.58.5 / 10 - The Word for World Is Forest
8.18.1 / 10 - The Telling
–Not ranked yet
Where the score comes from
The sources average 8.2 across 1,399 ratings. With that many, the reader vote carries 90% of the weight and the score stays at 8.3 — the Classics average of 7.7 barely moves it. A further +0.20 comes from the small bonus for major awards.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.5 | 56 | 4% |
| Hardcover | 8.1 | 1.3K | 96% |
Frequently asked
How long is The Left Hand of Darkness?
It has 304 pages — shorter than 79% of the ranked books in Classics.
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Classics — with scores between 8.2 and 8.4, closest to this book.
