Reviews tagging 'Injury/Injury detail'

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

13 reviews

arborapollonis's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative inspiring medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Incest, and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Miscarriage

purechaos's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional informative lighthearted reflective sad slow-paced

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

3.0

It did take a while for me to be able to start this book, and at times I found it incredibly slow, complex or tedious.

I did keep reading it because there was a small interest as to what would happen, even though this book is following what could be considered a 'usual every day life'.

Towards the end, I found the final 3 or 4 chapters actually quite interesting. Not something I'd read again, but glad I finished it!

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death of parent, Deportation, Forced institutionalization, Body shaming, Death, Drug use, Police brutality, Drug abuse, Grief, Hate crime, Gun violence, Murder, Pregnancy, and Violence

Minor: Misogyny, Death, Death of parent, Drug abuse, Violence, Body shaming, Incest, Pedophilia, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Toxic friendship, Child death, War, Chronic illness, Deportation, Drug use, Forced institutionalization, Grief, Medical content, Miscarriage, Rape, Gun violence, Hate crime, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Police brutality, Pregnancy, Sexual assault, Sexual harassment, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Terminal illness, Torture, Vomit, Xenophobia, and Confinement

scifi_rat's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Plot: 4.75★
Prose: 4.7★
Pace: 4.5★
Concept/Execution: 5★/5★
Characters: 5★
Worldbuilding: 5★
Ending: 4.5★

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Mental illness, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Torture, Xenophobia, and Sexism

Minor: Violence, War, Blood, Miscarriage, and Suicide

ka_cam's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful mysterious reflective medium-paced

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

4.0

While I liked this less than others by Le Guin, it was still a thought provoking read with themes on intercultural communication, time, friendship and relationships, gender and sexuality, faith, patriotism, and politics set on a distant in time and space, very cold, planet populated by humans who have different sexual organs and cycles than on Earth/terra. The gender analysis is a bit sideways to the modern reader due to the narrator, Genly Ai, using exclusively he/him pronouns for folks and  being pretty openly misogynist.  Still lots to chew on, I read this in a book group and I think having people to discuss with added a lot to the reading.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Confinement, Death, Forced institutionalization, and Misogyny

Moderate: Pregnancy

jodar's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I admire how Le Guin writes – it’s a distinctive, often poetical and meditative style that I can readily recognise and immerse myself in.

This SF novel is about the first contact by a single envoy (the MC) to an icy planet (Winter) inhabited by a human species unique in their sequential hermaphroditism. The envoy comes from a benign, intergalactic ‘cooperative’ consisting of scores of planets who over thousands of years have made contact across a human diaspora from long ago.

Le Guin here focuses, as is typical, on social, personal and political themes. Notably here, the MC strikes cultural misunderstandings in both directions, often without realising till later on that a misunderstanding has occurred. The envoy gradually learns, with the help of a key ally in Winter and after considerable physical suffering, how to approach the cultures of Winter effectively. We also read events from the perspective of the MC’s ally.

Originally written in 1969, the novel has elements of the cold war, with ideological differences between states, one of which is essentially communist and has secret police and brutal prisons reminiscent of the Soviet Union. Le Guin also, as often, brings in eastern thought, such as yin and yang, deep meditation and theology-free religious life. Though to me there are also shades of the Judeo-Christian story of prophets coming to a people from ‘another place’, there the spiritual realm, here the intergalactic cooperative. These political, religious and interpersonal/sexuality threads are teased out in an interweaving, complex way, which is one of Le Guin’s fortes. Nothing didactic, but a lot to mull over by the reader.

I read this first in November 1985 and I hugely enjoyed this challenging, but wonderful novel again.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Gun violence, Death, and Forced institutionalization

Moderate: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, and Suicidal thoughts

Minor: Miscarriage

maryellen's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark mysterious 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

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Confinement, Death, Grief, Gun violence, Murder, Child death, Physical abuse, and Incest

Minor: Kidnapping, Torture, Misogyny, Gun violence, Incest, Injury/Injury detail, Police brutality, Sexism, Suicide, Confinement, Grief, Murder, Physical abuse, Pregnancy, Child death, and Death

carrionkid's review against another edition

5.0

Absolute banger of a book for real 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief, Violence, Murder, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Incest

smolren's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad 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

I didn't expect this. I started reading it and thought it was going to be a lot of hard work for little reward, but I was wrong. I'm so grateful to have read about the beautiful friendship at the core of this book. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Forced institutionalization, Injury/Injury detail, and Death

Moderate: Blood, Confinement, and Grief

Minor: Drug abuse, Animal death, Vomit, Incest, Suicide, Misogyny, and Sexual content

fireswatch's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Death, and Torture

Moderate: Incest

moonytoast's review against another edition

3.0

I still am unsure of how I feel about this book. 

It’s a very dense, slow sci-fi with long “travelogue” sequences that help to build a richly complex and vivid world while also examining the nature of Gethenian ‘ambisexual’ anatomy. Right off the bat, The Left Hand of Darkness has a dense but lush sense of world-building — similar to Frank Herbert’s Dune,* but with a much preferred writing style. 

The narrative is reserved to a primarily first-person perspective that switches between both our Envoy, Genly Ai, and his advocate and eventual traitor-turned-travel-companion, Estraven, with the occasional break in order to provide the reader with certain folklore and stories from the world of Winter. In doing so, it avoids what I would call the Frustrating Omnipotence™ of Frank Herbert, whose writing style tends to lean a bit heavy on telling the reader exactly what each character is thinking in every moment as though we are inside their head and experiencing those thoughts as the character. 

That being said: if you’re coming into this story for character work or a more extensive interrogation of how mankind can build connections across different sociological perspectives, then you may be slightly disappointed. Genly Ai and Estraven have an interesting relationship dynamic which morphs throughout the course of the story, but on their own they aren’t the most compelling characters. If you’re not prepared for a VERY, VERY slow burn of a sci-fi book, then you will probably hate this. 

Personally, I think I might have to give this a reread in order to have a more definite take on this book, but I am glad that this introduced me to the subgenre of speculative fiction referred to as queernorm, which includes such entries as Sing the Four Quarters by Tanya Huff and Avalon by Mary J. Jones. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Forced institutionalization, Torture, and Confinement

Moderate: Body shaming and Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Incest, Pregnancy, Sexual content, and Suicide