Reviews

I really enjoyed this piece- After reading a short story by Le Guin, I found many of my friends who are sci fy readers were actively reading her books or had them ranked in their favorites. Especially this one.

I did struggle with keeping proper nouns straight as I did audio, but it was an excellent read. I love the concept and inventiveness of a human race so similar yet so different evolutionarily with sex and biology. Explorative, inventive, intuitive, and beautifully developed of a world.

thatgothbookbrat's review against another edition

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Wasn't in the mood right now, this is interesting though. Will likely pick up again later

tallblondehandsome's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

f_h's review

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adventurous emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.5

One I absolutely love, but might not be for everyone, as it's pretty slow and there's a lot of sci fi terms that might be offputting. However, it's absolutely one that gives more and more every read, exploring themes including gender, sex, and discovery, but never really answering the questions it sets up (which I think really works in this book, but others may not like).

eoinmonty's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

nhborg's review against another edition

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DNF at 44%

Oh boy.. I’m so sad I didn’t like this. I don’t know what to say other than that this writing style really wasn’t for me. Personally I found it wayy to dry and descriptive, and my brain just shuts down when the paragraphs are peppered full of strange names of people, places, alien concepts. I felt like I was reading page after page and getting nothing out of it. It didn’t help that the audiobook narrator had the most lifeless, staggering, tedious reading voice I’ve ever heard (my apologies to the man behind it). Once in a while I arrived at a quirky formulation or a short presentation of an interesting concept, but it didn’t feel worth it to continue reading based on the low enjoyment:disinterest ratio. Is it wrong to say that I got a lot more out of the author’s introduction than the actual novel?

14hammondh's review

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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