Weird & Wonderful- The Left Hand of Darkness

Art by Ratvis

January was one of those fortuitous months where some book-clubs synchronized for me: City Lit Books' Weird & Wonderful club discussed The Left Hand of Darkness, shorlty after the Chicago Nerds discussion. Winter is a good time to read "Left Hand", and it's pretty much always a good time to read Le Guin, regardless.

Well: if you're not familiar, The Left Hand of Darkness is a bedrock work of modern science fiction, exploring deep questions of gender and much beside. Set on a world where all humans are "cyclic hermaphrodites"--neuter most of the month, then briefly sexually active--the novel has as its Big Issue the question of what a truly sexually-equal human society might look like. But, as one might expect from Le Guin, it dives into tons of other ideas as well, and it's issues of betrayal and friendship that stick with me, at least, even more than the gender investigation.

Also, it's set in a society adapted for an ice age, which feels appropriate for a Chicago January read. I was so into the conversation that I didn't take the most comprehensive of notes, but you may find them, and possibly spoilers, below:

Chicago Nerds- The Left Hand of Darkness

For the first 2017 meeting of the Chicago Nerds' book club, we met to discuss Ursula Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969).

A modern science fiction classic whose influence is hard to overstate, Le Guin's novel is set in her Hainish future, in which different branches of humanity are reconnecting after millennia spent developing on different planets. The Left Hand of Darkness follows the first official contact between the Ekumen—a loose government of many worlds—and the people of Gethen. Gethenians have developed on a world in the grip of an ice age, and differ from the rest of the Ekumen in their social and biological sexual natures.

Sex and gender exploration is kind of the big-ticket draw of The Left Hand, but it's also brilliantly-written, packed full of profundity, and unusual (for science fiction) in how much it comes down to a deeply-drawn relationship between two people.

Also, it's very appropriate for a January Chicago reading, involving as it does great treks across the ice and snow. Notes and possible spoilers below:

Silence and Bright Flashing Lights: A Brief Look at Irrationality in Earthsea and VALIS

John Lodder

At least one version of my paper starts with a joke that if Aristotle secretly wrote science fiction and fantasy as well as philosophy, and the scholastics recovered it and translated it along with De Anima and the Nicomachean Ethics and everything else, would we still have the same persistent notion today of humans as the distinctly rational animals despite the ancient and fantastical stories of space aliens and talking dragons, of intelligences human and otherwise?

Chicago Nerds: Dark Orbit

Just wrapped up the Chicago Nerds' discussion of Carolyn Ives Gilman's "Dark Orbit" (2015). A good discussion of a book that the group mostly enjoyed, with a few reservations. Most of us found it a pretty quick, engrossing read.

"Dark Orbit" takes place in the same universe as some of Gilman's other work. In discussion, we noted that is a distinctly Leguinean universe--humanity colonized many planets so long ago we've forgot about them, humanity somewhat separated into different tribes as a result  (doesn't seem like a species-level change as in Le Guin), there's instantaneous communication. In "Dark Orbit", a group of researchers is exploring a planet with many dark-matter related anomalies when they discover a settlement of blind humans living underground, whose different perception of reality may have granted them some unusual abilities. Possible spoilers below!

Think Galactic: A Wizard of Earthsea (and some lengthy YA digressions)

Thursday was a truly delightful discussion of Ursula K. Le Guin's "A Wizard of Earthsea" (1968) with Think Galactic. While we spent a lot of time talking about things we were struck by--the language, the Taoist influences, the unusual handling of race but the shockingly (especially for Le Guin) patriarchal handling of gender--we also seemed to feel more comfortable than normal jotting sideways to talk about other works. "Earthsea" is a contemporary of so many other "early" fantasy works, it's had a clear influence on YA fantasy, and we also talked a bit about sources and pre-"Earthsea" fantasy.

*fair warning: I digress a bit on YA below. But only as inspired by our lovely discussion! I should also probably restate the general disclaimer on these posts:inspired by group discussions, and I try to bring in & attribute the group's & individual's thoughts and comments as much as I can without recording everything, but the write-ups are my own response and thoughts on the work. So, please, read any wrong/offensive/whacked-out statements as no one's but my own, and don't give me too much credit for any of the good bits: might be accidentally ripping off someone else at the table!*