Genly Ai, an envoy of the league of worlds known as the Ekumen is sent to the planet Gethen (otherwise known as Winter due to it's intense glacial-coverage and generally cold, snowy climate) on a peaceful mission to persuade Gethen to become a member of the league. The Gethenians have a strange sexual physiology; for each 26-day lunar cycle they spend 24 days in "Somer", an androgynous state followed by 2 days in "Kemmer", in which they transform into either a male or female, depending on hormones and their interactions with an interested sexual partner. There is no gender differences on Gethen; the resulting society knows nothing of sexual exploitation or war (although there is still murder and small-scale family and political feuds). As an outsider, Genly struggles to relate to Gethenians. Their ambiguous sexuality leads Genly to find them untrustworthy. The strange art of "shifgrethor", an elaborate system of social prestige used within the nation of Karhide (in which Genly Ai has been based for the last two years, seeking an audience with the king), stifles nearly every conversation with the locals. After Ai gains an audience, and is not well received, his main advocate in Karhide, Estraven, a political leader, is charged as a traitor by the king and exiled, under pain of death, into the neighbouring authoritarian police-state of Orgoreyn. Finding apathy for his mission in Karhide, Genly Ai travels to Orgoreyn hoping for better luck, but is embroiled in political feuds and eventually sold out and shipped off to a "Voluntary Farm" on the far side of Orgoreyn, a kind of Siberian concentration camp. Learning of his fate, Estraven sets off to rescue Genly, and posing as a prison guard helps Genly escape into the cold, north-western wilderness of Orgoreyn. In an effort to return Genly to the safety of Karhide, without being detected in Orgoreyn, the two men set off on an desperate 81 day journey across the northern polar glacier. During the journey the two reach an understanding of each other and develop a strong friendship and a kind of love. After reaching Karhide, Estraven is betrayed by an old friend and tragically shot while attempting to flee back into Orgoreyn. Following Estraven's death, the king admits another audience with Genly Ai after which further diplomats of the Ekumen are invited to land on Gethen. At the end of the novel, Genly visits Estraven's family and son in a rural provence of Karhide seeking solace.
In an interview with Le Guin, she stated that the initial concept for the novel was a society with no war and that this eventually lead to the idea of an androgynous society. As in "The Dispossessed", Le Guin builds a complex world for the setting of the book complete with histories, politics, religion and a blend of ancient texts, hearth-stories, legends and myths that are told in-between the story chapters. For me, this type of world-building was great and made the story so engaging and immersive, and supported the development of the more complex themes in the novel such as fidelity/betrayal, the nature of cross-cultural understanding/friendship, hardship and the journey of inner discovery.
I was really blown away by this one; I enjoyed "The Dispossessed" immensely, and really hoped this book would be as good, and I wasn't disappointed. I'm considering adding more of Le Guin's novels to the list (such as "The Word for World is Forest" and "The Lathe of Heaven").
