Recommendations
Books Like The Left Hand of Darkness
Best books to read after The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness is the feminist SF landmark — Genly Ai on the genderless planet Gethen. These recommendations continue the Le Guin Hainish Cycle, explore the literary feminist SF tradition, or offer companion reading in the tradition of the thought-experiment social science fiction novel.
- 1
Buy on AmazonThe Dispossessed
by Ursula K. Le Guin
The essential Le Guin companion — the anarchist physicist Shevek on the twin planets Anarres and Urras, Le Guin's most politically serious novel, Hugo and Nebula winner in the same Hainish Cycle.
- 2
Buy on AmazonThe Word for World is Forest
by Ursula K. Le Guin
The companion Hainish Cycle novella — colonists on the forest planet Athshe, Le Guin's explicit response to the Vietnam War, required Le Guin in the Hainish Cycle.
- 3
Buy on AmazonA Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin
The fantasy companion — Ged at wizard school on the Earthsea archipelago, the other side of Le Guin's imagination from the Hainish SF, philosophical and Taoist.
- 4
Buy on AmazonThe Handmaid's Tale
by Margaret Atwood
The feminist dystopia companion — Offred in the Republic of Gilead, Atwood's most celebrated novel sharing Le Guin's concern with what gender means in a society that has organized itself around a specific idea of it.
- 5Buy on Amazon
Parable of the Sower
by Octavia Butler
The other great feminist SF novelist — Lauren Olamina in a climate-collapsed California, Butler's speculative fiction sharing Le Guin's commitment to social structures and her interest in community, survival, and the nature of power.
- 6
Buy on AmazonThe Female Man
by Joanna Russ
The militant feminist SF companion — four versions of the same woman in four different realities, Russ's experimental novel is the angriest and most formally radical of the feminist SF classics that Le Guin was part of.
- 7Buy on Amazon
Kindred
by Octavia Butler
The time travel slavery novel — Dana traveling back to antebellum Maryland, Butler's most accessible novel sharing Le Guin's interest in how social structures define human possibility.
- 8
Buy on AmazonStation Eleven
by Emily St. John Mandel
The contemporary literary SF companion — the Traveling Symphony in a post-pandemic North America, Mandel's novel sharing Le Guin's commitment to the literary values of character, prose, and the examination of social structures through speculative fiction.
More The Left Hand of Darkness Resources
More Reading Recommendations
View all →Monthly Newsletter
Never miss a big release
Get the most anticipated upcoming books delivered to your inbox once a month — no spam, no filler.
Monthly only. Unsubscribe anytime.
Book links are Amazon affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, BookReleaseRadar earns from qualifying purchases at no extra cost to you.