The man from Earth investigating this situation has a lot to learn, and so do we and we learn it in the course of a thrilling adventure story, including a great "crossing of the ice". In this case, the thought experiment is quickly revealed: "The king was pregnant," the book tells us early on, and after that we learn more and more about this planet named Winter, stuck in an ice age, where the humans are most of the time neither male nor female, but with the potential to become either. One of the things I like about it is how clearly it demonstrates that science fiction can have not only the usual virtues and pleasures of the novel, but also the startling and transformative power of the thought experiment. For more than 40 years I've been recommending this book to people who want to try science fiction for the first time, and it still serves very well for that. One of my favorite novels is The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula K Le Guin. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K Le Guin (1969) Comment by Kim Stanley Robinson, on The Guardian's website:
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