The End and the Way

This is the first science fiction book I have read since The White Mountain by John Christopher when I was about 12. The only other book I have so wholly imagined as a place was Sherryl Jordan’s Winter of Fire, which I also read when I was around 12. It was so dense that at first I was intimidated, but I persevered and am very glad I did. I think I got a real sense of the author as a person that I would want to get to know. She felt intelligent, mentally tough, fastidious with detail, fierce with love, loose with meaning. Poetic. Curious. Unintimidated. Brave. The Left Hand of Darkness is a noble novel, a collection of instances in which you are led gently and invited to imagine a way of being you might previously not have imagined quite so intimately.

p.s While I bought this in Canberra, October 2009. I read it properly Summer 2009 /2010 while wearing these glasses.